26/01/2019 Hope Carr Nature Reserve, Leigh

Blyth's Reed Warbler: Last Sunday while Dawn and I were out looking for Long-eared Owls in Cheshire the lads Whatsapp ground pinged in my pocket, it was Patrick saying that there was a Eurasian reed warbler spotted at Hope Carr nature reserve near of Leigh. He caveatted saying 'at this time of year its got to be rarer then a normal reed warbler.'

Patrick was spot on as later that evening a message was put up on MBF saying that the reed warbler is now thought to be a Blyth's reed after studying video footage.

This makes this bird the first Blyth's reed for Lancahire and a local mega that has been pulling in the crowds.

The bird however is not very reliable it showed well on the following Monday then went to ground for almost a week before coming out again on the following Saturday and doing a no show on all day on Sunday. Today, Monday, the bird put on the best show it has done since it was found.

When I saw it on Saturday all I could manage were these typical LBJ images with plenty of branches and 'bum' shots!

But today folk were able to get some crippling shots including Gary Crowder who was kind enough to share with me his cracking images of the bird (the first two images).

20/01/2019 Sandbach Flashes, Cheshire

Long-eared Owl: A bird not easily seen during the breeding season, when they are mostly nocturnal. But during the winter they can be seen much more easily at their winter roosts.

LEO winter roosts used to be much more common than they are now. In fact, in some areas where they appeared to be well established, they have disappeared altogether, and a winter LEO roost is now a rare sight.

So I can understand when there has been some displeasure and resentment via a Whatsapp group recently to people sharing the sightings of LEO roosts. I understand in certain circumstances that suppressing sightings is a positive move.

However there has been an historic roost at Sandbach Flashes, one that is pretty much inaccessible as they are found on the opposite side of a very boggy flash and well known.
All you have to do is type in on Twitter 'LEO Sandbach' and you will see tons of sightings, they even have them on their web page.

https://sandbachflashes.co.uk/tag/groby-flash/

Brambling: Still, I would recommend practising good field craft, keeping quiet, don't wave your hands about or move them too quickly and respect the owls. And please check with County Recorders or other local bird watchers before putting LEO info on social media & out into the public domain.

Before going to see the owls Dawn and I headed over to Hanchrch Woods a bit further south near Stoke.

Here we watched the fantastic feeding station for these orange finches.

19/01/2019 Winwick Road, Warrington

Iceland Gull: This bird as been eluding me for the past few years. I have fond memories of chasing it across the town, from Tesco car park to the roof of Matalan and each time I dipped!

I even took Dawn with me once witch didn't go down too well, but nothing a McDonald's couldn't sort out.

Top local birder John Tymon found the bird last weekend loafing on the grassy field in front of Warrington Collage and reappeared yesterday afternoon on the grassy pitch in front of Decathlon.

This adult bird has been returning to Warrington for its 6th winter from it's Breeding grounds in Arctic Greenland.

Iceland gulls typically breed in the far north of Greenland that's a 2000 mile journey, a long, long way!

This morning I met up with Neil Wilcox and set off in search of the pure white gull, we checked its usual haunts, the grassy fields around the college, the playing fields of Orford park and the area around Decathlon.

For a long while I wasn't holding out too much hope, well until we bumped in to Liverpool birder Steve T. We were catting away when Steve spotted the white winged gull flying over Decathlon.

Here we got some good views as it flew around the area and perched upon the nearby Premier Inn hotel.

I was thrilled, after years of dipping I finally got some decent views of this local celebrity.

Kenya Trip Report

Mount Kilimanjaro: Here you go a new trip report from Kenya from way back in 2016.


First of all it took me ages to edit all the pictures and even longer to write up the report before I lost all my work by a computer error.

Kori Bustard: Yeah, can you believe it, losing all that work, I was devastated to say the least!
Its taken this long to get over the loss of all that work and have the will to continue.

African Fish Eagle: Well I am glad I did and here you go for all to enjoy.

Its been really good revisiting the images and the memories of the trip too.

White-eyed Slaty Flycatcher: Dawn and I along with her sister and partner spent new year of 2015/2016 and stayed for 10 days.

Secretarybird: In this short time we managed to pack in a ton of safaris and I managed to bag a ton of birds.

We visited Amboseli National Park is located immediately northwest of Mount Kilimanjaro and 240 km southeast of Nairobi, right on the Tanzanian border.

African Lion: Then spent some time Lake Naivasha, a superb oasis to in Kenya and an African Mecca for all sorts of wildlife.

Marico Sunbird: We also visited Lake Nakuru National Park which is renowned as a bird sanctuary with over 400 bird species, including huge flocks of flamingoes and many other water birds. It is an excellent park for wildlife spotting and is home to many water-loving animals such as hippos and waterbucks.

Superb Starling: And our final destination was the wold famous Masai Mara National Reserve. Considered Kenya’s best park and one of Africa’s highest wildlife density region for predators. The reserve covers 583 square miles (1510 square kilometers) of outstanding wilderness in southwest Kenya.

Pale-bellied Bustard: Not only did we get tons of beautiful and exciting bird, but the large mammals, the vistas and the habitats were great.

Chin-spot Batis: Spending time enjoying wildlife with Dawn and experiencing Africa with her was defiantly a highlight.


It was a truly excellent trip.

Cheetah: It’s easy to see why so many visitors flock to Kenya from around the world to experience a truly unique African adventure in one of the world’s most pristine safari destinations.


https://austinmorley.blogspot.com/p/kenya-january-2016.html

04/01/2019 Calderstones Park, Allerton, Liverpool

Brambling: Second stop was to Calderstones Park in Allerton, named after the ancient megaliths situated in the park, which are said to be older than Stonehenge.









This park is huge, and without the help from Gill and Paul Kurs i would still be wandering around the park, lost, looking for ginger finches.

They are best viewed from the entrance opposite Harthill Road, concentrate on the boundary fence to the allotments and the big holly near the gates.

There is a large flock in this area of around 20 birds. I happily spent most of the afternoon with these fine birds as they foraged on the ground amongst the beech nuts of the beech trees.

Their orange camouflage is suburb aganist the beech nuts and leaves.

Due to its stature the bird has a similar diet to the chaffinch and will was mixing with its commoner counterpart.










As I observed brambling enjoy feeding on beech nuts and we always get more of them in Britain when the beech trees in Scandinavia fail to produce sufficient seed but any cold snap.

04/01/2019 Lambeth Road, Liverpool

Waxwing: Today I ventured out to Gods country, Liverpool, and after yesterdays defeat to Man City it was nice to get out and enjoy what bird life Liverpool has on offer.








First stop was to Lambeth road were a small flock of waxwing had been reported. I've yet to catch up with one this year so it was great to see seven feeding so close today.

Its been a good time for waxwing as today there were reports from Lancaster, Manchester, Chorley and Liverpool - so no excuse to get out and see them.

03/01/2019 Starr Hills, Blackpool

Snow Bunting: One of my favourite birds (I may say that about a lot of birds) but snow bunts are great little things, pretty to look at and typically confiding.

There have been two birds that have been feeding in the area south of Blackpool Transport Tram Depot in the dunes off Clifton Drive.

Thanks to Neil G for the info on the directions.

Snow buntings are arctic breeders with a circumpolar distribution that winter in the northern United States, northern Europe, and central Asia.

Snow buntings typically begin arriving in Britain around mid-October and early November.

Interestingly I've read that they migrate at night. Experiments have shown they navigate by using the earth’s magnetic field in addition to the stars.

These two birds spent most of their either within the dunes foraging amongst the vegetation and on the highest tide line feeding in the debris before getting spooked by dogs and their owners.

Smart little birds.

02/01/2019 North Wales

Reed Bunting: Bored by sitting at home over the festive holidays day, I decided to head  join the lads (Damion Young, Iggo and Patrick) on a trip out to the North Wales coast.

Our plan was to get a head start on a year list, not something I am doing but for me it was an excuse to catch up with mates and get out birding.

Black Guillemot: We started early and headed straight for South Stack in Anglesey, one of the fisrt birds we saw when we got out of the car was a merlin, a close flyby before landing on the cliffs. Here we also had red-throated diver, guillemot and chough and Damion had a harbour porpoise.

From here we headed down to Holyhead Harbour, except for two black guillemot a few shags and great-crested grebes there was nothing in the harbour, the day before were reports of divers, perhaps the calmer weather had been too nice to push the expected divers and grebes out of the harbour.

Slavonian Grebe: Our next stop was Penrhos/Beddmanarch Bay, and the only birds of note were Brent Geese, two Slavonian Grebes and a female type long-tailed duck. But we did have a nice spot of lunch and a hot cup of tea from 'Petes Burger Van' pretty nice it was too.

Great Northern Diver: From one side of the road to the other we headed across to the Inland Sea and enjoyed lots of birds!

We had great views of a golden eye and a flock of greater scaup flock, always good to see. We had a good walk here and enjoyed checking through the mass of birds feeding in the shallow sheltered waters.

Greater Scaup: There where plenty of waders feeding in the shallows including a dunlin, black-tailed godwit and grey plover . Lots of waders and wildfowl in these sheltered area and fantastic views of Mediterranean gulls, every other gull seemed to be a med here. The best birds had to be both black-throated and great northern divers.

Red Squirrel: I've been to Penrhos/Beddmanarch Bay numerous times but never realised there was a red squirrel feeding station here.

After only getting record shots of distant birds though my swaro scope I was keen to get some stonking, frame filling shots of red squirrels.

But alas, once again the ignorance of dog walkers with their barking dogs running free, off their leads come to scare of the timid mammals and all I am left with is a tail.....


I wasn't happy!!

Black Redstart: Our last stop was Kinmal Bay in Rhyl where the black redstart gave us a bit of a runaround and we only got some brief distant views before the light went.

Still I had a top day with some top company and we ended on 74 species.