Summary March 2022
Total UK Species in March 2022: 99
New “Year Ticks” in March 2022: 9
New “Life Ticks” in March 2022: 0
March of last year saw us entirely confined to our garden as a result of the pandemic We only saw one new species for the year and total of seventeen species for the year to the end of March. This March we saw nine new species for the year and sixty-nine species for the month taking our year list at the end of March to 99 species (last year it was a paltry seventeen! How things have inmproved since then. With the hides all open again we managed to return to some of our old annual haunts and this month included two of these we had not been to since before the pandemic.
The first of these was an outing to Connah’s Quay reserve on the 15th March where we got year tick Twite. We had been to Burton Mere Wetlands earlier in the day with the birding group but we peeled off early to fit in our first visit to Connah’s Quay for a long time. The other site we have not been to in a long time was Woolston Eyes where we went on the 24th March. Here we got the Black-necked Grebes we were expecting, though only a couple when there were supposed to be twenty on site. We also got year tick Bramblings which this site is very reliable for. The last birding group trip we managed was at Marbury Country Park on the 29th March which turned out to be a lovely warm day and we followed up our trip with a planning meeting in the beer garden of the Spinner and Bergamot nearby. We got good year tick Treecreeper and Stock Dove.
With a lot of work on our house nearing completion we are starting to have more time for birding and we very much appreciate being able to get out and about again. One bad piece of news was that of three children who set fire to the marsh at Parkgate causing extensive damage. Hopefully it was too early in the year to cause maximum damage. The Short-eared Owls have no doubt decided to move on for the summer but the longer-term effects for smaller birds, mammals and other creates is not clear yet. If memory serves me correctly, there was a fire there a few years ago but the marsh recovered quite quickly. Hopefully this will be the case this time. We haven’t been there since the fire but will no doubt go there early in April.
New Year Ticks March 2022
- Long-tailed Duck at Burton Mere Wetlands 15th March 2022
- Ciffchaff at Burton Mere Wetlands 15th March 2022
- Avocet at Burton Mere Wetlands 15th March 2022
- Twite at Connah’s Quay 15th March 2022
- Black-necked Grebe at Woolston Eyes on 24th March 2022
- Brambling at Woolston Eyes on 24th March 2022
- Ring-necket Parakeet over our garden 26th March 2022
- Stock Dove at Marbury Country Park 29th March 2022
- Treecreeper at Marbury Country Park 29th March 2022