I've just moved to Birchwood Park near Risley Moss. Highlights so far are Snipe and Curlew overhead, with all the usual Warblers and Woodland birds near the station. Hopefully get a Hobby next summer. Lowlight was a dead male Bullfinch on the station platform.
Keep an eye on the fields and big hedge line the other side of the railway Tony - I've had Harrier (sp) Hobby, Buzzard, Sparrowhawk, Jay and Kestrel over there [from my works stationary cuboard window :) ]
-- Edited by Pete Welch on Sunday 4th of December 2011 01:56:34 PM
Tony Coatsworth said
Sun Dec 4 10:25 AM, 2011
I've just moved to Birchwood Park near Risley Moss. Highlights so far are Snipe and Curlew overhead, with all the usual Warblers and Woodland birds near the station. Hopefully get a Hobby next summer. Lowlight was a dead male Bullfinch on the station platform.
Dave Thacker said
Fri Dec 2 10:33 AM, 2011
Hi John I've just checked Mikes website and A SMALL HIGH WINDOW sums it up just right
JOHN TYMON said
Wed Nov 30 10:19 PM, 2011
Dave Thacker wrote:
As some of you know I work in a dark and gloomy factory in the middle of Salford. The only light that enters the building is when either everybody is welding or the bay doors are opened and I get to see the two gasometers across Liverpool street where sometimes a Peregrine awaits.
John Tymon Wrote:
Dave -from a Mike Harding song from the album Bombers moon-This sound just like thee , me and Dean Mc from Bowton who still work in old fashioned engineering factories-the story of the song below.-check it out on mikes site.The song is called small high window,its not the usual heavy metal I listen too ,but its good all the same
A SMALL HIGH WINDOW When I was seventeen I worked scaling industrial boilers for a Northern firm. One of the places we worked in was a massive steel foundry in Manchester. There was a window high in the far wall of the sheds, that let the only bit of light into the foundry cavern, where huge steam hammers pounded red-hot steel into shafts for giant turbines and cranks for ocean going ships. There was a boy there the same age as me. He, like me, was crazy on cycling, climbing and rambling the Pennine moors. On hot summer days locked in that noisy dark prison, we could see through that small high window the far shimmering hills where we both so much wanted to be. I was lucky, I got out. I suspect that he didnt I often wonder what happened to him. This is his song
-- Edited by JOHN TYMON on Wednesday 30th of November 2011 10:20:27 PM
Dave Thacker said
Wed Nov 30 7:40 PM, 2011
As some of you know I work in a dark and gloomy factory in the middle of Salford. The only light that enters the building is when either everybody is welding or the bay doors are opened and I get to see the two gasometers across Liverpool street where sometimes a Peregrine awaits. Its not always been this good, in the late 1970's when I was a budding good looking apprentice Engineer there were actually four gasometers across the road and the powers to be decided to knock two of them down. This left a large area [ now the EMR scrap metal premises] which had high walls all the way around so it was not disturbed. The depressions where the gasometers had been quickly filled with water creating two large ponds which started to attract the wildlife. Each dinnertime I borrowed a ladder and climbed over the wall, its only an 8' wall but the drop in places on the other side was 20'. The area was like a large bomb site filled with rubble and building material.
Best birds seen over 12 months before the area started to be developed were Ringed plover, Curlew, Snipe and a Black Redstart[m] which I saw a couple of times over the summer. Two pairs of Lapwings bred on site and there was always a Skylark singing. Mallard, Tufted ducks and Moorhens used the ponds.
It was like having my own private nature reserve which was handy for my workplace as well. It all came to a stop when lots of barb wire got put on top of the wall and the diggers move in and concreted over the lot.
Happy days
John Doherty said
Mon Nov 28 7:24 PM, 2011
Good thread - I work on the outskirts of the City Centre right where Angel Meadow is so I am hoping to see a Peregrine which has swooped down from the CIS when I bird the park (not done it yet!)
Rick Hall said
Mon Nov 28 9:29 AM, 2011
I work for GreenThumb, making peoples lawns look nice. Our office covers Preston North, so I get chance to go to some of the best birding spots in the North-West, Knott-End, Pilling Marsh etc. Best bird I've seen in someones garden was a Little Owl. A few weeks ago I was driving between Knott-End and Hambleton and the sky was full from horizon to horizon with skiens of Pink Feet. It was a real birding highlight for me. Hope to get chance to catch up with some White Fronted Geese and maybe some rarer waders soon.
Craig Higson said
Wed Nov 23 8:07 PM, 2011
I was once lucky enough to be able to get a bit of birding in every day at work, and get paid for it. Then I moved to a job where I got out often enough, and to good enough places to make it worthwhile carrying my bins with me at all times. I still get to venture out of the office occasionally but not nearly enough. Whatever I do, I still keep a pair of bins in the car though. You never know.
Adrian Drummond-Hill said
Wed Nov 23 1:34 PM, 2011
I worked in Saudi Arabia for 38 years. During that time a lot of my work was around military airfields where I saw lots of lifers, such as Houbara bustard and Philby's partridge. At one time I had to make a trip to an airfield about seventy miles from Riyadh near to Al Karj. On the approach I took a wrong turning and ended up in a dump from an abattoir. On the carcasses were scores of tawny eagles and black kites. They were so engrossed in gouging themselves that I managed to get very close.
In my last ten years I was in the Eastern Province working very close to a main runway. Outside our location I dug out a pool which was filled with water via a hosepipe. During the migration we used to get lots of visitors including cuckoo, barred warbler, chiffchaff, blue rock thrush and rock thrush, quail, black-crowned finch-lark etc. etc. The only down point was, as most of my work locations were at military facilities, no cameras were allowed.
john tromans said
Tue Nov 22 7:48 PM, 2011
I had the best job in the world!!!
I was an hotels inspector with the AA and this took me to the far flung corners of the UK. My weeks work would revolve around what rarities were where. Back in the days before pagers I had contacts who could give me the latest news and when pagers were in I got one almost at once. Some of the rarities seen 'whilst working' range from Yellow Throated Vireo in Cornwall - Harlequin duck in Wick - Marmoras Warblers on St Abbs Head to Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler in Norfolk. Even a Corncrake on Coll was added to my list. (Spectacled Warbler at Languard was a special one as it was my 4 hundreth British bird). I could even toast the birds seen at my hotel that night with wine 'On the bill' !!!!!! Ahhh those were the days. I am now retired and although I do not miss for one minute working, the freedom to see new birds is. I still twitch when it suits but I am now more than happy to get a good shots of say Kingfisher in Bramhall Park or Coal Tits in the garden. John T
Paul Heaton said
Mon Nov 21 7:25 AM, 2011
Mel, with two kids, two dogs a large garden to look after, I actually find it hard to bird when I am NOT working, actually if anything passes my eyesight I look up, i am always in a state of birding.
years ago I worked in a factory in Broadheath the brew room list, seen from the window was 17, not a high amount but new birds were always a pleasure.
It doesn't matter where you are you can always see something
Keep Birding.
ps I now have a cool back of the van list
Ian Boote said
Mon Nov 21 12:25 AM, 2011
we look out onto the river irwell directly and sightings include sand martin goosander, mink, a black swan, cormerant, and kingfisher
Melanie Beckford said
Sun Nov 20 10:58 PM, 2011
Just wondering how many of us can bird whilst working ?
l can easily as l work as a Nanny, l have feeders up in works garden and my 'bins' come to work with me everyday. Also l go out with my little charge and often a park is involved
But l realise many people work in offices, factories etc and aren't as lucky as l am...in regards being able to go out and see what's about.
Keep an eye on the fields and big hedge line the other side of the railway Tony - I've had Harrier (sp) Hobby, Buzzard, Sparrowhawk, Jay and Kestrel over there [from my works stationary cuboard window :) ]
-- Edited by Pete Welch on Sunday 4th of December 2011 01:56:34 PM
Hopefully get a Hobby next summer. Lowlight was a dead male Bullfinch on the station platform.
I've just checked Mikes website and A SMALL HIGH WINDOW sums it up just right
-- Edited by JOHN TYMON on Wednesday 30th of November 2011 10:20:27 PM
The only light that enters the building is when either everybody is welding or the bay doors are opened and I get to see the two gasometers across Liverpool street where sometimes a Peregrine awaits.
Its not always been this good, in the late 1970's when I was a budding good looking apprentice Engineer there were actually four gasometers across the road and the powers to be decided to knock two of them down.
This left a large area [ now the EMR scrap metal premises] which had high walls all the way around so it was not disturbed. The depressions where the gasometers had been quickly filled with water creating two large ponds which started to attract the wildlife.
Each dinnertime I borrowed a ladder and climbed over the wall, its only an 8' wall but the drop in places on the other side was 20'. The area was like a large bomb site filled with rubble and building material.
Best birds seen over 12 months before the area started to be developed were Ringed plover, Curlew, Snipe and a Black Redstart[m] which I saw a couple of times over the summer. Two pairs of Lapwings bred on site and there was always a Skylark singing. Mallard, Tufted ducks and Moorhens used the ponds.
It was like having my own private nature reserve which was handy for my workplace as well. It all came to a stop when lots of barb wire got put on top of the wall and the diggers move in and concreted over the lot.
Happy days
In my last ten years I was in the Eastern Province working very close to a main runway. Outside our location I dug out a pool which was filled with water via a hosepipe. During the migration we used to get lots of visitors including cuckoo, barred warbler, chiffchaff, blue rock thrush and rock thrush, quail, black-crowned finch-lark etc. etc. The only down point was, as most of my work locations were at military facilities, no cameras were allowed.
I was an hotels inspector with the AA and this took me to the far flung corners of the UK. My weeks work would revolve around what rarities were where. Back in the days before pagers I had contacts who could give me the latest news and when pagers were in I got one almost at once. Some of the rarities seen 'whilst working' range from Yellow Throated Vireo in Cornwall - Harlequin duck in Wick - Marmoras Warblers on St Abbs Head to Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler in Norfolk. Even a Corncrake on Coll was added to my list. (Spectacled Warbler at Languard was a special one as it was my 4 hundreth British bird). I could even toast the birds seen at my hotel that night with wine 'On the bill' !!!!!!
Ahhh those were the days.
I am now retired and although I do not miss for one minute working, the freedom to see new birds is.
I still twitch when it suits but I am now more than happy to get a good shots of say Kingfisher in Bramhall Park or Coal Tits in the garden.
John T
years ago I worked in a factory in Broadheath the brew room list, seen from the window was 17, not a high amount but new birds were always a pleasure.
It doesn't matter where you are you can always see something
Keep Birding.
ps I now have a cool back of the van list
l can easily as l work as a Nanny, l have feeders up in works garden and my 'bins' come to work with me everyday. Also l go out with my little charge and often a park is involved
But l realise many people work in offices, factories etc and aren't as lucky as l am...in regards being able to go out and see what's about.