The first birding outing of the month was to Burton Mere Wetlands. There had been reports of a female Garganey and several Spotted Redshanks. It was a warm and humid day but it was good to get out and we managed to get two good year ticks.
UK Species Year List to June 2021: 102Total UK Species in June 2021: 86New “Year Ticks” in June 2021: 23New “Life Ticks” in June 2021: 0
With three days of good weather predicted, we took the opportunity to visit North Wales in order to catch up with all the cliff nesting birds and other special species that we normally manage to get on our trips to North Wales. As it happened, there were two really sunny days that sandwiched one awful…
We planned to meet some friends at the Huntsman’s Inn near Holmfirth. They were travelling north and wanted a stopover site and it is only an hour from where we are so we arranged to stay the night there. We had most of the day to ourselves so we stopped off at RSPB Dove Stone…
The second birding group outing since resuming our trips after 2nd wave Covid was to Burton Mere Wetlands. The hides were open again but you still have to wear a mask and ones bins and scopes steam up straight away so not much fun and hard to bear for long. Anyway, we decided to head…
UK Species Year List to May 2021: 78Total UK Species in May 2021: 72New “Year Ticks” in May 2021: 23New “Life Ticks” in May 2021: 0
The birding group reformed for its first outing since the Covid outbreak with a visit to the Upper Goyt Valley and Danebank Quarry. We had actually done this visit on our own on the 6th of May and had had some success with sightings of Redstart and lots of Pied Flycatchers. We saw neither of…
With both vaccinations completed and reserves starting to open their hides up again, we headed off to Burton Mere Wetlands. When we got there we discovered that the larger than usual numbers of cars was due to the presence of a Glossy Ibis on the reserve. Naturally we were interested so we hot-footed it down…
A glance out the back window of our house revealed a Sparrowhawk that had picked off one of our House Sparrows. There have also been some other unusual sightings including a Grey Wagtail that has been with us since February, Pheasant, Fox and Hedgehogs
With a break in the recent (but much needed) rain, we headed out to the Goyt valley. We are planning to go here later in the month but with a lot of the hides still closed at reserves this seemed like a good option for a bit of exercise. When we go with the birding…
