The birding group visit this week was to Wigan Flashes, somewhere where I haven’t been since April 2016 Again, it was a rare dry February day so we were glad to get out. It would be fair to say that we saw nothing particularly special but in the lovely sunlight there were really nice groups…
Poor weather had kept us from birding in February but a drier day and a highish tide on the Wirral (9.13m at 11:33am) got us out again and it turned out to be a pretty good day with visits to Hoylake, West Kirby, Burton Mere Wetlands and Connah’s Quay.
The first high tide of the year that we were able to get to was a 10 metre tide at 12.21pm. We drove up to Burton Mere Wetlands to stop off for a coffee and comfort break and had a quick look around first. As soon as we entered the reception hide we could see…
January 2018 Summary UK Species Year List to January: 68 Total UK Species in January: 68 New “Year Ticks” in January: 68 New “Life Ticks” in January: 0
The last birding group day of the month was to the ever-relaible Pennington Flash. We got all dressed up for a freezing cold day but, in the end, it wasn’t too bad, thoguh lingering in the hides for too long led to very cold fingers. In any case, the best sightings of the day weren’t…
The second birding group outing of the year was to Marbury. I went despite having been there twice recently in failed attempts to find Hawfinches. This time, with a bit of waiting around, they eventually did show and, in fact, I got pretty good scoped views of three Hawfinches at the very top of a…
The first birding group outing of the year was to Burton Mere Wetlands where we got good views of a Peregrine attacking a large flock of Lapwing. We got a few Whooper Swans and some Snipe. The highlight, probably, was on the field on our way down to the barn. This field is usually empty…
We made our first birding outing of the year to Marbury where there had been reports of Hawfinches again but, although we met people who had seen them (or thought they had), we didn’t manage to see the. Our last outing of 2017 was for the same purpose but was similarly disappointing.
2017 Summary Our birding year got off to a good start with productive trips to North Wales where we got Snow Buntings and Hawfinch. A week later we went to Newchurch Common where we got Red-crested Pochard and Smew. Less happily we had to go to Portugal for the funeral of a good friend of…
Our last outing for the year was to Marbury Park on the 28th. We had hoped to see both the Hawfinches and the Bittern that had been seen there in recent days. Unfortunately we didn’t see either and nobody else we met had either. Some birders who had seen both knew exactly where to find…
