2 Bar-tailed Godwits were at Watergrove Reservoir today apparently (info per David Winnard), a great record and more evidence of a nice little passage through the county today
caught up with the 5 bar t. godwit about 6pm before 4 of them disappeared. big thank you to steve atkins for putting me on the little owl and showing me all the hot-spots. nice one mate
cracking close views of black tern (lifer), yellow wag, blue-headed wag (lifer), raven, whinchat (lifer), whitethroats, cormorants and herons nesting on lagoon (no.6 tank?). was watching the little stints (lifers) when a peregrine put everything up and chased a godwit that eventually got away...
languishing in 7th place at the moment and have just not found a lesser whitethroat (was a cert that one) i,ll carry on checkin the quays for vagrants and blow ins.someone has got to knock ian off his lofty perch and find a flock of countables.what you up to??
geoff
no suprises today all the usual crowd,worthy of note 2 gadwall and 12 pochard on back pools some of the unmentionable ducks squabbling,also in abram near bamfurlong canal bridge 1 whitethroat showing well
cheers geoff
After the shock of finding a new and heavily hardcored road across the bottom of my beloved peat pools after not visiting for 4 days due to work yesterday I'm afraid I perhaps rather prematurely called the it the end of them after finding not a single bird present. I shouldn't have worried though as an ev...
1 Peregrine sat on top of the gasometer in Liverpool street Salford this morning at 6.40am.
On the BBC site at 12.40pm only 1 Lapwing and 3 Wheatears which were staying well away from the falconers caged Harris hawk and life size plastic red fox which had been put near the area where the Canada geese...
Went down to Watford / Man City on Saturday 1 Kestrel, 2 Sparrowhawks, 6 Buzzards and 10 Red Kites along the various motorways M6/M42/M40/M25 Even 5 years ago it would have been the other way round. Along the M56 I rarely see a Kestrel at all these days - whereas there is a Buzzard every few miles. What is g...
Two Derbs birders found a Wryneck just NE of Hollingworth Hall Farm at SK006979. This is just inside the GM boundary. It couldn't be re-found later this morning, but Rob Adderely and others are going there this afternoon to search for it.
I could only find 3 Water Rail territories in the Abram Flashes - several usual territories were vacant - when I did my annual tape census today and yesterday. Some parts of the Wigan Flashes (but not all) are also down on last year.
There were 4 Grasshoper warblers singing in the Abram Flashes and one...
Today male Ruff on Horrocks plus 2 Oystercatchers, 1 Ringed Plover and 2 Little Ringed Plovers; 23 Common Terns, 100+ Swifts/House Martins, 2 Pink Feet. Also Grasshopper Warbler showing well near Moss Bridge, 2 Sedge Warblers and at least 14 Reed Warblers
i ment to post yesterday but forgot
saw these at the ponds/marshes at the bottom of phillps park road at the side of the moterway
6 canada geese
1 phestan
3 lapwing
3 mallard
2 moorhen
1 song thrush
some of the candas looked to be nesting
jake
I have been in touch with the owners of this site, Peel Holdings. Apparently infrastructure works are due to start at the end of May for the new BBC site there, so they don't want to be held up by breeding birds. Not much we can do about this, then, unless a nest of LR Plovers is found. I also queried the road c...
Remembered to take my MP3 player out with me today, not to listen to music while i bird I've loaded my bird song cds on it and it's great to use in the field. Every spring when the songsters start up it seems like starting from scratch again. Some are really obvious but it's so long since i last heard them i...
sorry didn,t post yesterday,along with 15 sand martins and the usual crowd a common sandpiper was struggling to get to grips with the dock wall and would only settle for a moments in any one spot,it wasn,t there this morning but the sand martins are gathering nesting material.
cheers geoff
Brief visit early this morning of note
1 Linnet singing
1 Sedge Warbler singing (a pleasant surprise)
2 Whitethroat singing
1 Swift
Also the aquaduct is a very good place to get right in amongst the Sand Martins that nest in the brickwork. A great experience as they skim past your ear.
...
2 Med Gulls flying round Heaton Park at 18.30 this eve for an hour, Adult and 2nd Summer bird in a flock of 40 or so Black headed Gulls.
Also picked up a distant Osprey from Heaton Park flying north over the M61 dicrection.
Not a bad evening's birding!
Another successful breeding season for Ringed Plovers on rough ground around SportCity has seen 3 chicks hatched. Well, at least the birds are a success for this stadium!?
Others of note are the Lapwings nesting there too, 3 pairs this year. The pair of Little Ringed Plovers were chased off by th...
New scope, its spring and I had a full day to bird Rumworth Lodge 1 Dunlin 1 LRP 5 Common terns 3 Cormorants 2 Oystercatchers 2 Singing Reed Buntings Abram 2 Blackwits (county lifer) on first pool on your southwards down the canal from Red Lion Pub. Is this Dover Basin 1 Lesser Whitethroat nr the first far...
Barn owl seen Sunday flying low over M60 between jct 24 and 25. Around 3.30 am. I am unfamiliar with the area around those junctions - would that be close to Reddish Vale? How do we do for barn owl sightings overall?
39 SPECIES ENCOUNTERED ON TODAYS SURVEY. They included 6 Grey Partridge, 18 Lapwings, 13 Yellowhammers, 10 Skylarks, 6 Linnets, 2 Little Ringed Plovers, 2 Redshank and 1 Snipe
Still 9 Blackwits at Dover Basin (8 in breeding plumage) and a singing Lesser Whitethroat, showing well, on the canal at Lightshaw Hall Flash nr the farm on the canal - a regular site for this species. Also Gropper singing on the marsh at Lightshaw
