02/12/2022 Amberswood Lake, Hindley, Wigan Amberwood

Greater  Scaup: Working away this week it was nice to catch up the pair of 1st winter greater scaup that have been spotted mid week on a local flash, a stones throw away from where I live. 

Amberswood is one of the local flashes I've not been to before, part of the Flashes of Wigan and Leigh National Nature Reserve and consist of 160-hectare of wetland mosaic consisting of a lake and a series of smaller ponds and lowland raised bog, linked by ditches and streams and interspersed with species-rich grassland and woodland.

The scaup were confiding and not particularly camera shy, foraging close in shore. 

This is a lovely little place that offers something for everyone a new patch to keep an eye on. 

 

24/04/2022 Pennington Flash

Arctic Tern:  Excellent day ended with these marvoulls terns at penny, blown in on the strong easterly winds they came as a small flock of Arctic and a few common.  

Typically hey never stopped, whizzing past and feeding on the main lake they were best viewed from the northern bank near the rucks.  

Common Tern: I took my mum and  Autumn with me, along with the promise of a lolly ice and a trip to the park.  Autumn was really well behaved and was happy to walk all around the the other side of the lake and watched me take photos of the birds while sitting with me mum. 

The common terns came a little closer which gave me better opportunities for some more infocus shots. 

Really end this little trip out, not too far from where I live, some loved ones in toe and some great birds. 

Greater Scaup: The day before I this very smart looking greater scaup. It was showing really well off the spit at Horrocks Hide associating with a small flock of tufted ducks. 

More cautious  than the tufties it never came super close, but still good to see. 

29/12/2020 Elton Reservoir, Bolton

Greater Scaup: Staying within Greater Manchester today combined with a short trip to the office and I thought I would check out the local scaup.

This was my second visit Elton to see this drake scaup and I was surprised to see how much it had undergone a transformation as it leaves its eclipse plumage to its adult plumage. 

The bird had also moved into a more sheltered inlet area on the west side of the lake. There was high congregation of water birds here with several tufted duck, kingfisher, teal, mute swan and  two little egret. 

Here is a side-by-side comparison of the same bird, the top image was taken on the 15th of October and the bottom image today. 

The bird has changed from it's mottled brown head to almost full adult plumage with no white blaze around the face.

15/10/2020 Elton Reservoir, Bolton

Greater Scaup: With Lockdown 2 looming I was keen to capitalise on any small opportunity I can get to go out birding. So when dawn asked me to collect a parcel from Whitefield after work today I jumped at the chance. 

As I was passing Elton Reservoir  I thought I would stop and see if I could relocate the greater scaup that has been there for a few days and also the bar-tailed godwit that's taken up residence there. 

It didn't take long to pick up the scratty looking 1st winter drake scaup as it was feeding con its own lose to Capsticks.   

The bar-wit was was also foraging in its usual flooded field, viewed from the muddy track around the res. 

Losing the light and with the rain clouds moving in fast I didn't hang around the res for too long and made my way to the shop to collect Dawns parcel. 

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.

10/03/2018 West Kirby Marina Lake

Greater Scaup: I've not seen one of these for what seems like a long time, so it was great that these birds hung around for a week or so and showed pretty well. Happy days.

There were seven scaup in total on the lake, including four drake and three female of which five of then stayed out in the middle of the lake.

Two drakes were brave enough to come a little closer and came down to at least 5 feet, foraging for crabs in the shallower water.

Great to bump in to John Tymon,  Karl Bishop and Andy Ingham.