Southwards for a change

The Safari picked up CR and headed south across the river to meet IH at our boyhood birding haunts.on arrival we immediately saw why IH had told us not to look for the previously regular(ish) Little Owl, its favourite tumbledown house had been demolished prior to redevelopment. It was a bright, crisp winter's day and on Lunt Meadows itself the first pool was totally frozen over and also totally lacking in life. Needless to say we didn't stay more than a couple of minutes before heading round the rest of the reserve in a clockwise direction. A birder we met at the gate told us he'd seen both a Hen Harrier and a Marsh Harrier earlier in the morning so to keep our eyes peeled. While waiting for us to arrive IH had already seen a Buzzard too, we can remember when Buzzards were almost unheard of in these parts and should one turn up it would have been top of the local gamehkeepers' hit lists. Thankfully things have changed for the better; for Buzzards at least, not so much the Hen Harriers which still suffer horrendous illegal persecution.

The first field held its usual large gaggle of feral Grey Lag and Canada Geese. There were probably more of the latter than we saw in Canada last year, although to be fair we didn't see that many. Beyond the geese the edge of the frozen pool saw a few Lapwings and Coots roosting up conserving energy in the cold conditions. A Reed Bunting flew over and a  Blackbird skulked about the boundary hedge but much more bizarre was the Ring Necked Parakeet that flew over us. We had no idea they were anywhere near hereand as non-native species go we'd much sooner have the Little Owl than these pesky parrots.

We anbled slowly on towards the next pool where a small group of birders were stood, hopefully with the 'main event' in view. The main event being an American Green Winged Teal which has been on site for at least as long as its moulted into its plumage with the vertical white shoulder stripe enough to separate it from the hundreds of our own green winged Teals. Fortunately the birders already had a scope set up on it although it wasn't showing particularly well. Can you see it?

We had the brainwave of noticing there was a bit of a gap between the Wigeon that were obsuring it and the Teal to the right so moved down the track ten yards or so to see if that made a better  viewing angle, it did, quite a bit better. The cold breeze was making us shake around rather a lot when taking pics but here there was a stout fence post without vegetation around it to lean on.

Other ducks on the pool included Mallards, some Shelducks, a few Shoveler and a handful of Gadwall with a few Coots and a couple of Moorhens thrown in for good measure. A Redshank flew in calling, possibly hoping for some soft ground to probe for worms in but it would be out of luck the ground along the track was rock hard beneath our boots. Wandering on we wondered where all the Cetti's Warblers were, usually they are the noisiest bird on the site but today there were silent. At the next pool there was some open water but most of the ducks were hauled out on the ice asleep.

Scans of the horizon, much more distant from here as the viewing point is elevated a few feet above the track, gave us no sign of any raptors even tyhough the sun was now beginning to get some warmth to it and the morning chill was going out of the air. We moved swiftly on heading to the river. The hedge beside the path was lively with small birds, indeed it was easily the liviest part of the reserve. There were Chaffinches, Greenfinches, Robins, a Wren, Reed Buntings a female of which stayed still long enough for us to point the lens at.

And right at the end of the hedge two Dunnocks sat up in the top of a Hawthorn bush, not often you see two of these skulky little devils sat out in an exposed position at the same time!

The river gave us paddling Mallards and some Lapwings in the fields beyond. Two distant Buzzards were found and a distant Heron along with a flock of small birds, Linnets or Skylarks or something else??? They were a very  long way off. We kept an eye on the reedbeds stretching below us on our side of the river just in case a Bittern should pop up - no such luck! It's amazing to think that this area is only a mile or so from our boyhood home ands we used to traipse the fields of spuds, carrots and cabbages that used to be here on our bike with a pair of almost un-see-through bins seeing nothing but Lapwings, Skylarks, Grey Partridges and occassionally in winter a skein of Pink Footed Geese - how times have changed...Bitterns a mile from our front door - who'd have believed it. The Grey Partridges are still here but sadly not much more numerous than the Bitterns now and we didn't see any today.

Having completed the circuit of the reserve it was getting near butty time and IH suggested quick nip to the coast rather than eat our scran at the car with little or nothing to look at. But rather than going to hall Road coastguards he suggested driving up to Hightown to start the coastal walk from the north end - good plan! It must be 50 years since we last crossed the railway into Hightown village and we'd never have found the parking spot access to the dunes without following IH. There we grabbed our butties and headed out to the river mouth passing through a little fence IH told us he'd helped build as a coastal volunteer about 40 years ago...all creditr to him, it still looks pretty sturdy!

A short walk brought us to the river mouth where we sat on the frozen dunes and admired the view out across the wider Mersey bay over a mirror calm sea while tucking into all manner of pies and sandwiches. Over on the sandbanks there was a huge number of waders roosting up over the high tide, Knot, Dunlin, Oystercatchers, Curlews, Redshanks and a couple of Little Egrets, a throng of Great Black Backed Gulls lined the far bank of the Alt and further out a line of Cormorants stood on the outer edge of the sanbank. More of their number roosted on the channel marker nearby while below them a large number of  Shelducks pottered about in the shallows and river channel. Scanning further out we couldn't find any Harbour Porpoises even though conditions were perfect for spotting any that might have been there.

Butties mucnhed we set off southwards along the shore line, the low afternoon sun made looking that way uncomfortable at times but at least it was warm now and we soon felt overdressed in our full winter togs.

The ebbing tide was revealing fresh mud and soon more flocks of Knot along wit ha large flock of Black Tailed Godwits flew in to take advantage of the freshly uncovered feeding areas. Walking south towards Crosby and past the WW2 bomb rubble on the beach we hoped to find some more waders although the tide seemed to be taking a long time to drop and leave a particularly favoured spot uncovered, one we've been watching since the early 70s. It's quite weird thinking back and realising there was a lot less time between the end of WW2 with that rubble being dumped there and us starting birding the area than there is between those early birding adventures and now. How time flies.

We did come across a couple of Turnstones feeding quite high up the beach.

And then saw a Grey Plover fly in showing its black axcillaries very nicely as it fluttered to a halt on the rocks (=bricks etc) on the water's edge. Trouble is we had to cautiosly get a dozen or more yards past it to look back on it with the sun behind us. Luckily our snaeking around skills didn't let us down and it stayed put allowing a few snaps.

The area has always been good for Stonechats and today was no exception. Not sure how many we saw today as they can be quite mobile but we'd hazard a guess at at aleast half a dozen. They seem to be particularly good at two things today - keeping just out of range and/or staying on the wrong side of the light. Eventually we caught up with a trio that nearly behaved for us. We only managed a pic of a young one, the snazzy male leaving his perch on a tangle of heavy duty wire a millisecond before we pressed the shutter button.

By now it was time to head back to the car before it got too dark for pics. It was a bit of hasty retreat but there wasn't too much to see along the way. We took a shorter,easier walking route back which passed by the Natterjack Toad breeding ponds - no chance of these warm weather creatures being out today, their ponds were frozen solid...a spring evening visit is on the cards to here these 'Lancashire Nightingales' singing. The low sun illuminated the seed heads of the Reeds beautifully though.

The shortly before reaching IH's ancient fence we spied a flash of white moving in a Sea Buckthorn thicket, a couple of Fieldfares were using their wings to balance their eway through the prickly mass to get to the choicest berries. A Blackbird was in there too and managed to flush on of the Fieldfares low and to the back tof the bush. Fortunately the other one stayed on the front of the bush but unfortunately in the heavily shaded part rather than the brightly lit patch a yard to the left - how annoying!

A few minutes later we were back at the cars saying farewell until next time to IH and heading back to Base Camp after a lovely day out on safari in our old haunts.

 

Where to next? Could be anywhere.

 

In the meantime let us know who's eating berries in the dark in your outback - and don't say Waxwings - - sore point!

Yet more dipping - will we get lucky this spring?

The Safari didn't get out yesterday until about lunchtime, we parked up and straight away bumped into AL who was just leaving the reserve, "Owt about?" we asked "Nah, just a load of Chiffchaffs and not a lot else". "No Willow Warblers?" "Didn't hear a single one!" And with that he was off to the pub. Seconds later we got a txt from SD saying he was on Patch 2 and an Osprey had just flown over him. We ran to the middle of the field and put the bins on the tower but then noticed a shed load of gulls going up a little way to the north, probably about the start of Chat Alley, the lower sky here was obscured a by tall trees and the narby hotel so we missed yet another Osprey this spring, how many's that now 4, 5?

Starting our walk proper we went around the outside of the reserve listening to several Chiffchaffs on the way but only really getting glimpses of them when we stopped to look for one. We anted to see if the Long Eared Owls were still on site, arriving at the spot we were a little disappointed to find the 'easy' one wasn't there but a quick scan with the bins gave us the one that normally sits behind it and then the tricky one which was extremely tricky this time. But there was a big bonus, the first one was facing us AND had its eyes wide open, the first time we've seen it like this all winter! Could the camera (which is playing up after a recent soaking) find it and focus??? Yes it could!!!

We were able to show a young lad and his mum the pic on the camera and wished we'd taken our scope so he could see it for himself, we hope he googled it when  he got home like he said he would.

On we strolled into the reserve and along the embankment, all quiet along there apart from a couple of Cetti's Warblers.

The gulls on the mere went up and we scanned hopefully but found the cause of the consternation was the regular Buzzard not an Osprey.

 The flood in the nearest field has dried to a soggy mud but still looks good for stuff to come in and hunt flies and other invertebrates but it was devoid of bird-life as was the stubble beyond it and the still very wet floods in the field the other side of the dyke. All we could find of note in the stubble field was a solitary Stock Dove.

From the trees by the bridge (there's a songbird who sings...) we heard our first Willow Warbler (130, MMLNR #84) of the year and then heard another somewhere in the scrub near the hide. At the hide we met MJ and EP who hadn't seen too much of seasonal interest other than the nearby Willow Warbler and several Chiffchaffs, it was still more wintry fare out there although numbers of waterfowl are now well down with four Goldeneyes, 16 Tufted Ducks, and just eight each of Teal and Mallard. A Coot sitting tight on its nest and the occasional passing butterfly told us it was really spring after all. All of a  sudden a Heron came and landed on the 'goalposts' it's only very rarely that we see them on there. It looked like it had seen something in the reedbed to the right and eventually flopped down into rather deep water for a closer look.

MJ and EP went off to look for Water Pipits while we continued our circuit in the warm spring sunshine, well it was warm if you were out of the increasingly strong easterly breeze, that had a bit of an edge too it.

On the lawn there were several Rabbits that were nibbling away totally un-phased by the numerous passing humans and their dogs.

Small Tortoiseshell and Peacock butterflies fluttered along the sunny edge of the lakeside scrub but we're still to come across a Comma this season and a Brimstone here would be a very nice bonus, they're still barely annual on site.

We weren't too chuffed with the Rabbits a little further on, a look at the wet meadow showed that they'd nibbled off several of the Snakeshead Fritillary flowers. We snuck carfefully into the meadow and was disappointed to see bicycle tracks all over the place in there, people don't seem to understand that a fence means you shouldn't enter any more, there were foot prints all over the place too and several of the Snakeshead Fritillaries and Cowslips had been trodden on as well as ravaged by the Rabbits.

At the hide we sa tand watched the gulls coming and going without finding anything out of the ordinary until an all black billed winter plumaged Black Headed Gull had us getting a bit twitchy for a while. outside a Wren sang loudly and then we spotted it on the window sill when it flew into the hide. up it went to a nest and out again in a tiny brown blur.

We waited ages camera poised ready for action and when it returned we fired off  a few dreadful shots at only 1/8th of a second, maybe we should have used the flash eh?

The Wren doesn't appear to be carrying any food and this is deffo a male bird  as we've seen it singing so this might only be one of several 'cock' nests that its made of which his mate will chose the one she likes best to raise their brood in - good luck to them we hope they have a good season. 

From there we went round the other side only stopping very briefly at the Feeding Station, we wanted to watch somewhere were there was plenty of sky and were rewarded by the gulls find another Buzzard and a Sparrowhawk but no Ospreys.

Down the path a bit the Gorse we planted many years ago was looking good if being blown about a bit in the wind. Standing in the lea of it the whiff of Coconut coming from the flowers on the breeze was gorgeous. Sadly we doubt if any of the several passers-by noticed the somewhat exotic fragrance.

And looking into the sun across the mere the light catching the  tops of the old reeds and giving them a  silvery wash was gorgeous too.

All too soon our time was up, we had an errand to run before the shops shut, it always seems too soon to leave!

Just outside the reserve gate we were rewarded with the only butterfly we saw stationary all afternoon and overhead a flock of about 25 Sand Martins appeared, but no Swallows or House Martins for us yet.

Back at Base Camp a little later we discovered there were two Ospreys fishing in the river near the bridge we'd taken Wifey across on the way to see her Hares.

Our Extreme Photographer has sent some more snaps from his garden in south west Wales.

Dunnock

Marsh Tit

Female Siskin

Male Siskin

Male Sparrowhawk, taken through his non-opening kitchen window

He tells us he's had to order another 100kgs of bird food, he must go through more in a week than we do here at Base Camp in a whole winter!
He's got some pics of non-garden birds for you coming shortly.

Where to next? We hope there's more on Patch 2 tomorrow than the single Herring Gull, single Lesser Black Backed Gull, two Eiders and two Pied Wagtails today. But a walk up to the shops did give us a Great Tit for our Patchwork Challenge tally but not our Patch 2 tally.

In the meantime let us know who's giving you the runaround in your outback.

Moths, bats and an old lady

The Safari was up and out at the nature reserve a few minutes after first light. We had hoped for a fall of some migrants but the overnight weather was back-to-front for that; it rained in the early part of the night and cleared up to leave a fine morning which meant a clear-out of birds was more likely than a drop-in. Not to worry it was still good to be on site before the dog-walkers (aka bird flushers). There wasn''t all that much for them to flush. A Whitethroat or two crept about low down,  Blackcaps 'teck'ed in the not yet ripe Elderberry bushes and unseen Willow Warblers/Chiffchaffs 'hweet'ed from the cover of the dense Hawthorns. 

A flit in a bush caught our eye and we stood and watched a party of Long Tailed Tits go about their business gleaning tiny invertebrates from the leaves and twigs as they moved single file through the scrub. There were a couple of Blue Tits with them but when they crossed the path we were able to get a count of nine, four Blue Tits and no less than FIVE Chiffchaffs in the flock!

Coming out of the scrub we rounded the bend overlooking the new scrape with caution, it was here we hoped we might find a decent 'drop-in' in the form of a wader, perhaps a Green Sandpiper, Spotted Redshank or something rarer like a Wood Sandpiper or even a Spotted Crake (if only!!!). From our view point we could only see about half of the scrape but there were two ducks in the middle visible just above the tops of the Reeds. Good job it had been raining heavily most of the night and these were weighed down with raindrops otherwise we'd not have see the ducks. They had seen us too so we ever so carefully raised our bins to see they were two Garganeys. Slowly we lifted the camera to our eye and fired of a couple of shots at the one showing most in the open. The second bird started to swim towards it and we were just about to get some pics of them together when the first dog walker came striding up from the opposite direction where a gap in the reeds meant the ducks could see him and off they went like a flash. Why don't these fools (polite version - it's Sunday morning) stop and wait when they see someone with a camera to their face, it's not like it's not obvious what's happening!

Still a bit dark and distant

Rain weighted Common Reed

We walked round to the FBC hide and had  a few minutes in there seeing the Garganeys again on the mere before they flew back to the channel scrape. Not long after that we saw two ducks fly off east into the glare of the rising sun which could have been them. A Reed Warbler flitted through the reed tops and a Water Rail called from the depths but other than those and the incessant mithering squeals of the juvemile Great Crested Grebe it was quiet. We gave it a few more minutes and were rewarded with a Common Sandpiper dropping in and flying up and down the mere calling before landing on the scrape. Almost what we'd been hoping for but the 'wrong type' of sandpiper.

Now it was decisions decisions time - do we continue on the full circuit or go back the way we came? Back the way we came won so off along the embankment we went seeing a Sedge Warbler on the landward side then hearing a Cetti's Warbler halfheartedly singing from the reeds on the lakeward side. The scrape was empty apart from a couple of Coots and a young Moorhen. Stopping in the scrub to see if any of the hidden 'tecks' were going to be a Lesser Whitethroat or a Garden Warbler the only two birds we could get the bins on to were Blackcaps. Behind us a Blackbird rattled its alarm call and we saw the tail end of a Sparrowhawk disappear at speed between the bushes.

In the more open scrub we watched a couple of Whitethroats but it was still pretty quiet and we were running out of time. Along the path bordering the reserve extention (actually both sides of the path here are in the reserve but one side is fenced) there is a large thicket of  Wild Raspberry, one of the luscious fruits was within reach - a real taste sensation! In the main (original) part of the reserve there is a small patch of Soapwort which we didn't notice but at the end of the 'extension' fence and just outside the reserve by an inch or two you couldn't fail to spot a much larger patch of those delicate pink flowers.

While doing some weeding in the garden back at Base Camp a Common Darter was over flying pond for several minutes trying to find a way to the water being thwarted by the anti-heron net. It gave up in the end a and flew off. Increasing cloud later in the afternoon brought about a dozen Swallows swooping low overhead, but as ever there wasn't a House Martin with them, still not had one at Base camp this year; no doubt there's be more if the tidy brigade didn't (illegally) knock the nests off their eaves.

Around tea-time we saw that our Extreme Photographer had sent us an email with some pics of a vole fin his garden, he wanted confirmation that it was a Bank Vole.

With such a lovely reddish fur it is indeed a Bank Vole and although we hate the word we have to say it is exceedingly cute.

In the evening we'd been booked to do our annual moth and bat watching session at a nearby park. The weather forecast didn't look hopeful but it was still quite sunny when we left Base Camp on the three mile drive. However we got to about half way there and it was like driving into the gates of doom - the sky went as black as the Obs of Hell (whatever they are but they're well known round theses parts) and a few raindrops on the windscreen soon developed into a full blown Noah-esque deluge.

We arrived to a distant rumble of thunder but the ran soon eased as we waited for the public to show up. Sure enough a small crowd of waterproofs-clad families began to arrive but the sky darkened again and more lightning showed from the south, where the weather was coming from. With everything sopping wet putting out the moth trap and its electrics wasn't going to happen but a bit of bat detecting was on the cards if the rain held off as the darkness grew. 8.30 was the start time and we had the bat detector switched on and ready to go, we'd even had a distant contact while we waited. As our leader began his welcome introduction lightning flashed all around us 1-and 2-and 3-an...wow that's just about overhead! And then Noah joined us with a bucket of tar, a couple of planks of wood and a big bag of nails and that was the end of mothing and batting.

Or was it???
Back at Base camp we got a call from our Extreme Photographer and took it in the kitchen so as not to disturb Wifey watching the telly. We moved a tea-towel and an Old Lady appeared and made bee (or moth)-line for the pot of tea-bags!

Outside the deluge continued so it was probably just as well the event was abandoned - hope we have better luck next year.

Where to next? There's a bit of a south easterly blowing today and heavy rain is forecast later, we might try to get out when (or just after) it lands to see if anything is dropped by the storm.

In the meantime let us know who's trying to nick off with the beverages in your outback.