So last night with Elaine making plans for today that didn't seem to include
me, I looked at the weather forecast and decided that I'd spend a few hours
at Martin Mere today, since there'd been a few birds reported yesterday
which I really wanted to see including a small party of bearded tits. I'd completely forgotten that it was the North
West Birdwatching Festival this weekend which meant that the reserve opened
at 8am rather than the usual 9.30am which is the time that I arrived 🤦♂️. I
was disappointed, because to be honest I could easily have been there at 8am
and had earlier been bemoaning to Elaine the fact that I had to wait until
9.30. However, it was probably a good job that I was unaware, because I may
well not have gone if I had remembered the festival, I don't do
crowds.
There was no doubt about where I was heading first, straight to Teal Garden
in the collection. I gave it 10 minutes, saw a few mandarins and then headed
to the reedbed. Fortunately I got lucky, one of the wardens was on the bank between the reedbed and the Rees hide, and had four bearded tits right in front of him, including at least one
spectacular male. A really stunning sight, but too soon they flew up and
headed towards the reedy pool beyond the Rees hide and I was left with one
horrible photo 🤦♂️. My first bearded tits at Martin Mere since October
2018. We were joined by Charlie Liggett and walked over to the Rees hide
where we saw them again briefly before they flew high back to the main
reedbed. What an amazing sight to see them flying in the bright blue sky! Despite a pleasant
hour reminiscing with Charlie on the bank overlooking the reedbed, I only
had one more brief view of a single male, but did have the bonus of a
distant view of a wood sandpiper on Woodend marsh.
I headed back to Teal Garden and saw a few mandarins, then went to look for
the ring-necked duck in front of Discovery hide and the green sandpipers at
the Hale hide which were reported yesterday. I failed on both accounts, but
rather than continue to Ron Barker hide, I decided to return to the reedbed via
Teal Garden to see if I could get some decent photos of the bearded tits.
Unfortunately I didn't see them again, but called in at Rees hide where the
wood sand was much closer. It turns out that this is my latest ever wood
sandpiper in the UK, in fact I've only seen one other in October and that
was also at Martin Mere on 16/10/1999, so a good late record. I needed some
lunch so headed back through the crowds to my car via Teal Garden again
where I saw some mandarins, had lunch and then back to the reedbed via Teal
Garden and its mandarins 😆.
This time I did a full circuit of the reedbed but failed to see or hear any
bearded tits. Finally at 3pm I decided it was time to go home so headed
towards the exit via Teal Garden and its mandarins.
At last, there it was, out in the open!!! A mandarin that is NOT part of the
collection, with full wings and no rings. I've been a regular visitor to
Martin Mere since 1974, 52 years ago, but this was the first wild(ish)
mandarin that I have seen on the reserve, bringing my Martin Mere life list
to 198 species. New birds at Martin Mere are few and far between these days,
so I'll take what I get. At least it wasn't species number 200!
Bearded tit!
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