Burton Mere Wetlands : 2nd August 2015 After we had been to Hoylake for the high tide we had a little bit of time left and we fancied a cup of tea. Rather than just go to a cafe we decided to pay a flying visit to Burton Mere Wetlands. It was very crowded in…
High Tide at Hoylake : 2nd August 2015 There have not been many high tides this year and at 9.6m (at 1.15pm) this wasn’t a particularly high one either. Nevertheless this can sometimes be enough for a good experience at Hoylake and so it turned out. With no wind the weather was nice (until it…
Red-footed Falcon 24th July 2015 Having watched the postings about a Red-footed Falcon being seen regularly just outside the gates of Chatterley Whitfield Colliery near Stoke the temptation was eventually too much and armed with a post code we set off one morning wondering if we stood any chance of finding it. As it happened,…
RSPB Burton Mere Wetlands : 21st July 2015 We filled in a spare Tuesday morning with a visit to Burton Mere Wetlands. It was a fairly overcast day but this can sometimes be useful at this site as bright sunlight causes a lot of glare. A quick look at the main scrape revealed the usual…
RSPB Old Moore : 10th July 2015 With the end of the birding group term, we have been looking for interesting places to go for short days out. Recent reports of sightings at RSPB Old Moore encouraged us; a possibly breeding Little Bittern seen many times over several days, an American Wigeon and a Gull-billed…
Woolston Eyes : 3rd July 2015 The year seemed to be rushing past so we took the opportunity of another fine day to visit the Woolston Eyes reserve to get our annual dose of Black-necked Grebes and, of course, a “year tick”. In this we were not disappointed and we also got a single Ruddy…
RSPB Otmoor : 29th June 2015 As we left the Fat Fox in Watlington to return to Manchester we stopped off at RSPB Otmoor with the hope that we might be able to see the Turtle Doves that breed there – one of the few places where you are in with a good chance of…
Rye Harbour Nature Reserve : 26th June 2015 Having spent the morning ot RSPB Dungeness we spent some time walking around Rye Town and we found ourselves with a little time at the end of the day so we made a return visit to Rye Harbour Nature Reserve. This time we took another path to…
RSPB Dungeness : 26th June 2015 On the morning of the 26th we stopped at Dereck Jarman’s garden first before heading off for RSPB Dungeness which I had never been to before but was curious to see. We started by dropping into the visitor centre where we immediately got a good year tick when one…
The New Inn at Wincheslea 25th June 2015 After we left Rye Harbour we went to our hotel for the next couple of days, the New Inn at Winchelsea where we had a nice room overlooking the graveyard in which Spike Milligan is buried and the church of which has magnificent Arts and Crafts stained…
