On our return from Montacute to Manchester we did our usual stopover at the Tudor Lodge pub in Slimbridge which was as reliable as it usually is with a nice, ground floor, room at the back of the resident’s block. We were quite early getting to Slimbridge so we headed straight for the WWT nature…
We drove down to Bristol on the 3rd April and stayed there for a night before moving on to Montacute in Somerset. On our way down we saw lots of Buzzards, a Kestrel and we also got two Red Kites, seen whilst having a cup of tea at Gloucester Services South. On the trip we…
It surely could not be a coincidence that we went to the Wirral for a tide of 9.9 metres at 2:15pm on the first of April. It turned out to be something of an April’s Fool.
The birding group visit to Brockholes started to look very unpromising as we approached the site and saw that, where the islands had been, was bare, bulldozed mud with few birds in sight. However, the automatic car park car recognition meant that we would have had to pay for a days parking anyway, so we decided to have a look rather than drive on elsewhere. In the end we were glad we did because we ended up having a good day getting some nice year ticks on a day where it seemed that Spring might not be that far away.
After our morning at RSPB Marshide, we stopped off at WWT Martin Mere for a cup of tea and then had a look around. With limited time and the United Utilities hide still closed (though repair work has begun) we retricted ourselves to the area between the Ron Barker Hide and the Discovery hide. Even then, we still managed to get a couple of year ticks and a good species list.
The birding group visit to RSPB Marshside was blessed with some quite pleasant weather with sunshine and only a slight wind off the sea. Apart from the usual suspects we managed to get a few year ticks and some nice waders
The birding group could not take full advantage of the high tides on the Wirral that ran from the 1st to the 3rd of March. The nearest they could find was Tuesday the 4th so the tide was only 9.8m at 14:16.
With a high tide at 12:52 on the Wirral, it made sense that we stop off at Burton Mere Wetlands for an hour or so to see if we could catch the first Avocets f the year and see what else was around before heading off to Parkgate for the high tide.
