Tuesday 21 November 2017

We're busy watching birdlife, all of the weekend through.


Starling Murmuration

A busy weekend started with a day out at WWT Martin Mere’s birdwatching festival. A diminutive fair compared to Rutland, more  intimate and confining, and  giving  some of our local organisations  a chance to sell their services like  http://www.rspb.org.uk/groups/southport      https://www.prestonsociety.co.uk/ http://www.ribblebirdtours.co.uk/Tours.htm https://www.facebook.com/BoltonAndBurySwifts/  http://nwecotrust.org.uk/?page_id=25 https://www.lancashirebadgergroup.org.uk/
More holiday providers were there http://www.heatherlea.co.uk/
The event was well attended on both days, and I bumped into several friends out of our group during the course of the day.
If you had the time, there were some interesting talks on through the weekend and I know others have attended them, perhaps they’ll share their experiences. I opted for the Nick Baker guided walk, swan feed and starling murmuration viewing, oh and a spot of duck feeding, well you have to….
The Nick Baker (who had to leave Dartmoor at 3am to get to Martin Mere in time that morning!) walk was laid back and informative. Martin mere’s reserve manager Tom Clare adding additional narrative about the reserve along the way. It was surprising to hear that Nick hadn’t visited before, and you got the impression he was quite impressed by what it had to offer.
Nick Baker walk
If you were thinking this would just be a guided bird walk you’d be wrong; Nick chatted about all kinds of stuff including ivy leaf mining insects, the importance of holly to winter invertebrates and leaving damaged fallen trees were they fall, giving it the chance of regeneration such as the properties of willows. Reminiscing of laying on the floor whilst watching a crane fly being dissected by ants, climbing a favourite tree to watch badgers as a youngster and how this interest saved him during a particularly low period in his young life. We enjoyed laughing at the rats in the Janet Keir hide!! And seeing a kingfisher fishing from the Gladstone hide.
We wondered at the sight and sounds of pink foot skeins overhead and awkward whooper swan landing on the mere, more comical when there ice. More topical chat about birds seen on the reserves; like the incoming Scandinavian thrushes, redwings and fieldfares and putting apples out for them in your garden. Admiring the ruff on the mere and telling the different between godwits.
Video clip from his talk:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkW4USR2WsQ&feature=youtu.be
The swan feed was mainly a shelduck fest in front of the discovery hide, despite there being 15,000 pink footed geese and 1660 Whooper swans on site, always good to see the scrum with its accompanying cacophony. Pintail, teal, mallard, redshank, wigeon, ruff, godwits joined the throng.
Ruff & black tailed godwit

The starling murmuration is bringing in bigger crowds by the day, 50,000 starlings swirling about, great to see them closer to home than Sunbiggin, It’s certainly a good year to see the spectacle, as there’s one in Frodsham as well.


It was a beautiful sunny still day on Sunday, the perfect day for our group’s field trip to RSPB Hesketh out marsh; this is an exposed sight and can be quite unpleasant in winter, so we were fortunate for once with the weather. Unfortunately the peace and quiet was disturbed by the repetitive recall of gunfire from the local clay pigeon shoot behind the reserve; at least no wildfowl were being shot.
Embankment

Twittering and moving through the hawthorn hedges we could see tree sparrows, linnets, goldfinches, long tailed tits, robin, blackbirds, fieldfare, redwing, song thrush and chaffinch. Pheasant, wood pigeon and a lapwing favoured the harvested sprout fields.  
Wigeon
On the marsh whistling wigeon outnumbered everything, others present included shelduck, teal, mallard, shoveler, a grey heron and a couple of paddling little egrets.  A couple of Whooper swan families numbering 10 individuals where on the back pools. 

A peregrine sat in a distant tree, later to be seen diving and   having an aerial scrap with a crow, whilst up to five marsh harriers were skimming the embankments below. A green wing tag which told us one of the female harriers had come from Norfolk, tagged by the North West Norfolk ringing group with hawk and owl trust.
Injured sparrowhawk
Other raptors included a kestrel hovering over the back fields and an injured female sparrowhawk; looking very sorry for herself, huddled close to the fence line, not so far away a shelduck carcass lay partially plucked on the mud bank. We can only surmise what might have happened to both birds

Scanning another pool two greenshank, their white plumage shining out alongside commoner redshank. A sprinkling of dunlin was present with black tailed godwits and a distant grey plover on a rear mudflat.
Sheep unperplexed as a flock fed alongside and over the footpath
A grey wagtail and several meadow pipits, foraged by the puddles on the path alongside the marsh edge.
Further along the path we found a ‘dopping’? of 11 female - goosanders, with two goldeneye and two great crested grebes.  We eventually found a single Spotted Redshank on the walk back, its long thin confirming its identity.Sporadic flocks of pink footed geese flew over heading in the direction of marshside, which is where we headed next.
The Marshside visitor centre was bustling with birders, so we decamped to Nel's hide to finish our trip. Sadly no dowicher had lingered but we were treated to additional sightings of snipe, gadwall and common gull.

Not a bad weekend at all.

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