Summary : May 2015
Summary : May 2015
New Species added to 2015 Year List in May= 16
Running Total for the 2015 UK So Far = 128
New UK Life List Birds In March = 1 (Wood Warbler)
Our Garden
The Starlings have been coming to the bird feeders with their new young many times a day and food lasts mere seconds. A pair of Stock Doves comes often as do the usual Woodpigeons. A Dunnock or two are ever present and there are a few Goldfinches but no Greenfinches. Blue Tits are frequent, though Great Tits less so. House Sparrows come for a bath and there are a lot of Blackbirds around. Soon they will all fall quiet but for now there is a wonderful evening chorus of Blackbirds.
Birding Days Out
We missed the first birding group outing of this term as a result of heavy colds. We also had building work being done so in general we didn’t do much birding for the first three weeks of April which was shame because spring was clearly springing. The usual introduction to spring migration, Sand Martin, House Martin, Wheatear, Chiffchaff etc. passed us by. By the time we were done with the building work and the colds we, at last, got out into the countryside with the second birding group outing to RSPB Burton Mere Wetlands, where we managed to get a good count of birds including many migratory birds, out and loud on a beautiful sunny day. This meant that in one day we were able to add ten new species to our year list in a single day. These included Ringed and Little Ringed Plovers, Wheatear, Grasshopper and Sedge Warblers, Willow Warblers and Chiffchaffs, Blackcaps and Whitethroats. We even saw the first Swallows of the year – even though I have not yet seen a Sand Martin or a House Martin. We missed the birding group visits to Pennington Flash and RSPB Leighton Moss because we were on holiday in Mallorca.
After we got back from holidays, the first birding group outing was to Macclesfield Forest, where we got our first UK Pied Flycatcher and first two Willow Warblers and Linnets of the year.
On the 19th of May we were scheduled to go to Goyt Valley but because of a poor weather forecast we diverted to to Pennington Flash which was fairly good with 37 species but nothing particularly unusual.
Reluctant to miss the original venue if the weather was poor the following Tuesday we decided to go to Goyt Valley, on our own where we were rewarded with more Pied Flycatchers, Spotted Flycatcher, Ring Ouzel and a “life tick” Wood Warbler. We had missed some birds we usually see there, Tree Pipit and Redstart, so when we returned a few days later with the birding group visit to Goyt Valley, we were hoping to pick these birds up. After a meager start, things picked up spectacularly and we added both these birds to our year list as well as Siskin, Hobby and then my first Cuckoo of the year !
Holiday Birding
We flew out to Mallorca on the 23rd April for a fortnight. I was hoping to take advantage of the spring migration and whilst this did not quite work out, the holiday was in no way disappointing. Details of where we went and what we saw are recorded in the daily entries for the fortnight and also the summary page for the whole holiday. We returned to Manchester on the 7th May – just in time to vote and what an election it was !
New Species for the Year
- Common Sandpiper
- Common Tern
- Green Woodpecker
- Gray Wagtail
- Hobby
- House Martin
- Red Grouse
- Redtstart
- Reed Warbler
- Ring Ouzel
- Sand Martin
- Siskin
- Spotted Flycatcher
- Swift (“Apus apus”)
- Tree Pipit
- Wood Warbler