Moel Famau

It was cold, but not windy and actually it was quite pleasant to walk the Clwydian ridge today. There were very few birds about, but we did at least see a nice male Stonechat.

Eccleston Mere

Snipe 14
Gadwall 2 (male and female)
Lesser Redpoll 30
Siskin 10
Goldfinch 50

Eccleston Mere

Jack Snipe 1
Snipe 16
Lesser Redpoll 40
Siskin 30
Goldfinch 60
Bullfinch 1
Fieldfare 50
Redwing 5
Tufted Duck 5
Grey Wagtail 1

Local patch birding is a real joy when it's like this, I can't think of anywhere I'd prefer to go at the moment. To see birds of the quality I have seen at Eccleston Mere over the past few weeks, only a mile from my house, is fabulous. There is such a great variety of habitat, mere, fen, wet woodland, alder Carr, marshy grassland, mixed woodland, arable and manicured golf course, it's got a lot going for it. If I could find a way of creating a wader scrape, I wouldn't need to go anywhere else, except perhaps the coast and the mountains! Another great view of the Jack Snipe, I may already have seen my bird of the year 2013.......


Finches are wonderful birds, I don't know which is my favourite. These Siskins take some beating I reckon, but then again the dainty Redpolls are not bad either, and nor are the more gaudy Goldfinches. Perhaps it's best just to admire the whole flock on a nice sunny day like today.


The ground is saturated at the moment, which probably helps explain the relatively large numbers of Snipe. The Alder carr is the prefered habitat of the Water Rail this winter, but I didn't see it today despite waiting.

Eccleston Mere

Jack Snipe 1
Snipe 31
Lesser Redpoll 40
Siskin 20
Goldfinch 60
Bullfinch 2
Goosander 1 female
Teal 4
Tufted Duck 7
Great Crested Grebe 13
Pink-footed Goose 100 (over N)
Cormorant 9
Buzzard 1
Kestrel 2
Treecreeper 1
Goldcrest 2
Coal Tit 1

It was dull and misty for most of the day, except for a brief period of blue sky directly overhead around 2pm. Numbers given above are generally a minimum. There may have been 40 Snipe, but I wasn't sure if I'd already counted a flock of 9 so I didn't include them and there were about 150-200 finches in the alders but they're so active, mobile and often silhouetted that an accurate count of each bird to species level is difficult and 40+20+60 is well short of 150, let alone 200. The Teal were under the trees close in to the island, and there could easily have been more than 4 given the relatively good numbers so far this winter, and Cormorants were coming and going all of the time and it's difficult to know how many individuals were involved. Definately only 1 Jack Snipe though, and it was a cracker, a nice and close view. Great bird! As for the Snipe, 31 or 40, it doesn't make a lot of difference, my previous best count at the mere was 10, so either smashes that record! A great couple of hours birding.


Female Goosander (today) and immature male Goosander (4th December) for comparison.

Video of Gigrin Farm

As you can see from the photos of Gigrin Farm, the light was pretty poor, but somehow this video clip isn't too bad, although it is a bit distant. Once again though, it's more about the spectacle than the detail!

Talgarth, Powys

Three Dippers and a Grey Wagtail on the river in the centre of the village today. The Dippers in particular were a great sight. At least one of them was singing, possibly the first time I've ever heard this, and then three of them chased each other along the river and right past me.
Back in September 2006, I was walking around Eccleston Mere, near the south west corner, when I heard a call which I thought at first was Grey Wagtail, but it didn't seem quite right, perhaps a little too harsh for that species. I was amazed to see a Dipper fly past me calling, and then it headed off down the stream, never to be seen again. One of the most amazing sights I've ever seen at the mere. It was a call which at the time I didn't associate with Dipper, or perhaps it was the unexpected circumstances of that day back in 2006, but these birds today were making exactly the same call.


Talgarth.

I was on a GIS training course yesterday and today. Geographic Information Systems are used to digitally map all kinds of things these days from areas at risk from sea level rises, to supermarket home delivery areas, to hotspots for various illnesses, to geological features, to crime hotspots, to virtually anything you can imagine. I've used GIS to map plant communities with Phase 1 Habitat surveys and to map bird flight lines. The course I went on was MapInfo, which I'll be using a lot this year, but I've also used ArcMap. They're both very similar packages. The Image below was produced in ArcMap and is a Phase 1 habitat survey of the area around Eccleston Mere, which I produced as an assignment for my MSc.

Gigrin Farm, Rhayader

I called in at Gigrin Farm, Rhayader in Powys today. It's the first time I'd been to this Red Kite feeding station, and what an impressive place it was. I've never seen so many Kites, there were easily 200 in the air at feeding time. The farmer brought his tractor round in front of the hides and spread a load of prime beef for the birds.

At first the kites just circled overhead, and seemed too nervous to come down for the food. After a short while, the corvids came in, Crows, Rooks and Ravens and a soon as they landed, it was like the starting gun for a feeding frenzy. Immediately the kites swooped down, some birds picking food directly off the floor, whilst others harassed the corvids, but I didn't see any kites land one the ground. The Buzzards seemed less agile, and were forced to land in order to get the food.

Unfortunately it was a very dull day, so I don't have the stunning photos some people get from here, but I do at least have a few which convey the spectacle, if not the detail!

A Cheshire walk

Two views of Budworth Mere, Marbury Country Park. There has been a Bittern in the reeds over the past few days, but we didn't see it.


Tree Rat or cute little squirrel?? Certainly not Squirrel Nutkin, that's for sure, since he was a Red Squirrel, which are virtually gone from England now. There were a number of these Grey Squirrels around the woodland feeders. Unfortunately no Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers, but there was quite a nice selection of woodland birds.
After spending some time in the park, we walked to the picturesque Great Budworth and had a coffee in the George and Dragon.

Eccleston Mere

Water Rail 1 in the Alder Carr in SW corner
Snipe 4
Bullfinch 3
Lesser Redpoll 30
Siskin 10
Goldfinch 60
Pochard 1 male
Tufted Duck 7
Cormorant 16 flew over
Great Black Backed Gull 1 adult flew over
Pink-footed Goose 50 flew over distantly


It was a beautiful mild day, with not a breath of wind. Lots of Robins were singing, a few Wrens and one each of Mistle Thrush and Song Thrush. In the south west corner, I saw the Water Rail very well, albeit briefly, feeding with a couple of Moorhens under the Alders. This is only the third time I have seen it this winter, and it made me wait silently for over 30 minutes today before it showed itself.

Eccleston Mere

Snipe 5
Teal 9
Lesser Redpoll 5
Siskin 1
Goldfinch 60
Cormorant 18
Little Grebe 2 juvs
Tufted Duck 5

The end of another year

The end of a very exciting 2012! This was the year that I walked away from a 27 year career in I.T., I graduated from Edge Hill University with an MSc in Conservation Management, I spent much of the year working for the university as a research assistant studying saltmarsh invertebrates, I got a job surveying upland breeding birds with the BTO and I ended the year working as a freelance ornithologist.

Holidays included a week in New York, a week in the Pyrenees, a week in Barcelona and a long weekend to Anglesey, and my survey work included three weeks in the North Pennines and Yorkshire Dales, two weeks on Anglesey, a week at Betws-y-coed, a week in Pembrokeshire and a few days in the north east of England.

Despite the weather, I still managed to get in a walk with Elaine most Sundays, and during the year we walked in the Lake District, North Wales, Yorkshire Dales and the Pennines, and I did more cycling than ever before, clocking up just under 2500 miles in the year.

I had one of my best ever years for birds, not in terms of my UK year list perhaps which ended up around 200 species, but certainly in terms of quality. I finally managed to see Lammergeier in the Pyrenees, whilst in the UK I found American Black Tern at Eccleston Mere (only the 5th ever in Britain) and I found the first Welsh Rough-legged Buzzard “for many years” on Anglesey. Even better, I managed to get photographs of them both to prove it! Hard to imagine topping those two birds unless I move to the east coast! I also twitched two species which were new for me, Little Swift at New Brighton, and Semipalmated Sandpiper at Hoylake.

I had fabulous views of Otter, Badger, Roe Deer (in St Helens), Bottle-nosed Dolphin, Common Dolphin and Harbour Porpoise. The high alpine, flower filled meadows of the Pyrenees were a real eye opener and one of the highlights of the year, and I managed two visits to Upper Teesdale, perhaps the best botanical site in England. I saw more gentians this year than is good for anybody, and certainly more sedges!

Oh yeah, I nearly forgot, I also got divorced and celebrated my 50th birthday.

It’s hard to imagine 2013 being quite so exciting, but with a new job about to start in the New Year, there's every possibility that it will be!


Happy New Year and good birding to everybody who reads this blog! Let's hope that it's a good one!