Cheshire weekend

Saturday. After a naughty breakfast, we start at Parkgate. As we stare out at the marshes up pops a white head, and then another...  Not the spoonbill we'd been hoping for, but equally  delightful - Great White Egrets - Parkgate regulars, but rather scarce away from the area.  Later we were treated to a very close fly-by from a Little Egret. It landed near-by, on display. As I lifted the camera, it stepped forward ... and disappeared !! How can a bright white bird disappear? The marshes are full of ditches, and once a bird has stepped down into one, it's as good as invisible...

A quick dash for an equally naughty lunch (poached eggs - mmmmm), and it was off to Marbury for a walk with the Friends of Northwich Woods...  An interesting walk, with all sorts of titbits for future reference. Finished at the hide near the reed-bed, and more views of the Bittern.

Honest - it is in there! The camouflage markings are so good, it is really hard to see until it moves. Thankfully, just as the light starts to go, it emerges from hiding to have a stretch and a scratch...

See - told you there was a bittern there!

And then a strange thing - a Grey Heron pops it's head up in another part of the reed-bed, and then lumberingly flaps across to the Bittern, and lands close by. It stayed there for a good five minutes before heading off again...

So what was all about? A birder present said that it wasn't the first time that a Heron had done that - it was almost as if it was trying to show the presence of the Bittern - but why? Answers on a postcode please!

Sunday - the other half had a preaching engagement, so time for a flying visit only...  Where to go? It had to be a flying visit to a sewage farm!! Plenty of noise from the hedgerows as the birds were waking up, but it was left to this greenfinch to test out the sunlight.

Meanwhile, in the works themselves, we saw this indistrious little pied wagtail, hard at working darting between the rotating booms.

Perhaps not the most romantic of locations, but one that hold promise for a future (longer) visit.

Perhaps common, but still very special

Went down to a riverside car park for a January high tide... And this character was in the area.  Couldn't believe she came so close, within 10 yards. She sat there for more than five minutes patiently waiting while photos were taken...

The feeders at one the local country parks always has a regular stream of visitors - amongst them cheeky chaffinches, resplendent bullfinches and a good number of very flighty dunnocks - the slightest movement or sound, and they dashed for cover

 Of course the seed feeders are for the smaller birds, finches and tits and the like. The larger birds hunt for the dropped seed on the floor - WRONG !! This trio of Collared Doves obviously hadn't read the rules...

It may seem a bit artificial watching birds at the feeders, but they are still wild birds, and it gives an opportunity to seem them a little closer in. And in the cold of winter (there had been heavy hail between pictures!) they do need a helping hand - have you been topping up your feeders today?

The following day we went slightly further afield, to the other side of Cheshire. I've been trying to get a shot of a Long-tailed Tit for the last few weeks, but they've always been to flighty - each time by the time the auto-focus gets its act together, there's been an empty branch!  Finally one sat still long enough to fire off a shot...

 And then, as the light faded, there appeared an apparition in the reed bed - a bittern!!  Sorry about the image quality, but this was extreme distance and the light was going fast...

 A stunning bird - and to be honest we'd never have seen it unless someone had talked us into it - 'see that tree, drop down to the hump, now go left a smidgen'...  And even then it was only when it moved that we saw it...

Many thanks to the local lad who showed us where it was, and spent a good time talking to us, giving local hints that we've stored away for future... Some birders can be very elitist and snooty - but most, like this chap, and the older gents we met at Frodsham, and the wardens at the local RSPB reserve, are down to earth and real friendly, even to beginners asking daft questions! Thanks folks, a pleasure to meet you...

Wonderful Wirral Winter Waders

Oops - time to catch up...  I've lived on Wirral for more than twenty years now, and it always has been a good place to live. A walk on the beach has been a long favourite activity in summer, but it's only recently that I've found out just what a special place it is for the birds, and that includes in the Winter.

Actually, it's especially during the winter that the Dee Estuary shows it's value, as it acts as home to many waders. As the tide rises the waders move up the beach, and large groups gather (*), sometime ten to twenty thousand. Every now and again something will spook them, a sparrowhawk overhead, or someone walks to close, and the entire flock will leap into the sky, and wheel around the sky, before settling further along the shore.

For a novice birder (well, for this one at least) it's a nightmare... What are they all? Clearly they're not all the same, but how do you work it out???

At the moment at least it feels like an uphill battle, yet by looking at the colour of the legs, the colour and shape of the beaks, the pattern of the markings, the relative sizes, slowly, very slowly, we're starting to make some sense of the mass of birds in front of us... From the mass emerge oystercatchers, redshanks, curlew, dunlin and sanderling...  The Knot flash white and black as they fly...

It's a challenge, and there's always more to learn... but that's the beauty of the world around.

So next time you have some time to spare at a High Tide, why not come and try the Wader Challenge !

p.s. I undertand that Waders are a doddle compared to Gulls...  


(* I gather that the numbers were much larger in the 1950's/60's - like garden and woodland birds, waders have had a hard time in the last half-century; it may seem that there are plenty of birds on the beach, but in reality they are incredibly vulnerable)

Last Day of 2012

I'm sure that not all birding is like this, but the last day of 2012 brought some comfortable surroundings.  On a windy and stormy day we decided to head down to New Brighton front just in time for High Tide. The tide was right up to sea-wall, and in the marine lake was a jetty. This jetty was obviously a welcome place of refuge, as there was quite a crowd.

Right by the marine lake is a cafe/bar, so we could sit in shelter, with a nice cup of coffee and a bowl of chips, with plenty of space on the table to spread out the field guide and notebook, and try and work out what we could see...

Loads of Dunlin...

Loads of Redshank...

Loads of argumentative Turnstones...

A sprinkling of Purple Sandpiper (we think!)...

And a solitary Greenshank....

A very pleasant way to spend a couple of hours :-)