13/10/2024 WWT Martin Mere, Burscough, Lancs

Snow Goose: I found myself with a free day, as Dawn took Autumn to her sisters for the day so I decided to spend the morning at Martin Mere and see if the snow goose I saw the previous weekend was showing any better today.

They are native to North America and are rare vagrants to the UK, but also a frequent escapee from waterfowl collections. There is a feral breeding population of snow geese also, thought to be around 100 pairs. 

Although these feral flocks are typically found on the Inner Hebrides and other smaller feral flocks in Norfolk and Hampshire. Any snow geese that  are usually considered to be genuine ‘wild’ birds are those occurring with carrier flocks of Greenland white-fronted geese in northwest, Scotland and Ireland. Yeah, so I think the fact it’s associating with greylags does it no favours. But who knows?

Lapwing: I spent a few hours in the hide overlooking the mere, watching c40 whooper swans many showing really close to the hide, honking and whooping at each other. 

 

In the fields surround the mere and flocking overhead where c2000 pink-footed geese were sighted and there were c150 greylag goose keeping the snow goose company on the mere too.

It was a really pleasant way to spend the morning, not only with the Autumnal flocks of wildfowl but with the company of Marcus and his dad Dave Owen. Good to catch up lads. 

07/04/2017 Pennington Flash

Lapwing: A pleasant day spent birding locally starting off with the morning at penny, were I was hoping to see the Drake Garganey that has been on site for a couple of days.

But alas It had I missed it by an hour or so as the bird out of sight from the spit near Horrocks Hide.

Little Ringed Plover: Still there was plenty to see, including two Common Sandpiper, three Little Ringed Plover, two Shelduck and I also had my first Swallow of the year.

Horrocks was typically busy with birders all gabbing away so much so that I was actually surprised that a LRP came all the way down from the top end of the spit right under the hide despite the decibel levels.

Redshank: Struggling to out do the guys in the hide a Cetti's Warbler was singing from the right hand side of Horrocks.

These two were getting rather frsicky!

07/08/2013 Titchwell Marsh RSPB

Ruff: Our next stop on our second day in Norfolk was to the very excellent Titchwell RSPB nature reserve.

The ting with Norfolk is that the birding is ace! From the number of waders to the species it draws and Titchwell was no exception.

Lapwing: One of the first birds we saw was a female Marsh Harrier cursing over the vast reed beds. The scrapes were full of waders, Ruff, Lapwing, Black wits, Green Sands, Wood Sands, Spotted and Redshank but the highlight for me was very close views of a Little Stint.

Little Ringed Plover: (juvenile) I bagged another new tick with two female Red Crested Pochard which I believe breed at Titchwell.


This LR Plover was happily feeding right in front of the hide.

Sparrowhawk: All of a sudden all the waders lifted off the scrape as out of the corner of my eye came a female Sparrowhawk clutching what looked like a Starling.

Spoonbill: We decided to make a move and head back to the car for the long journey back up north when we stopped on the causeway looking over the scrape and spotted this elegant Spoonbill passing over.

Little Gull: We also spotted a single Little Gull sleeping on the scrape, this picture shows the difference in size between the Little Gull near the waters edge and the Black Headed Gull at the to of the picture.





We had a great trip birding and twitching around Norfolk where I bagged six new lifers which were Night Heron, Nightjar, Roller, Red Crested Pochard, Little Stint and believe it or not Common Scoter - on a brief sea watch but I'm hoping for better views one day as they were miles away. I will definitely  be back for more excellent Norfolk birding soon.

09/04/2013 Martin Mere WWT

Ruff: We soon wandered down to Martin Mere were I am still astonished to see how variable Ruff are, I mean if you were no birder you would not be mistaken to think they are a different species.

Take a look at this pale white ruff, absolutely stunning.

This darker Ruff's plumage looks nothing like what you would see in most books, from the Swan Link Hide we spotted at least 2 white headed Ruff 4 dark phase Ruff and at least 15  brown Ruff.

And look at this Ruff, presumably the females with their brown plumage phase. There were loads of theses normal looking Ruff, some with a white fronted face and others without. Even their legs can be different colors making identification even more tricky!

Lapwing: Other waders from the Swan Link Hide induced this Lapwing which unlike the Ruff  blackwit was very flighty.

Black Tailed Godwit: There was half a dozen blackwits from here too and once again put on a great show foraging right up close. We caught 2 Tawny Owl near the United Utilities Hide a Stoat and a female Wheatear all in the same area.

One thing that was striking was the lack of Whooper Swans from the last time I was here there was about 100 and this was only about 2 weeks ago . We only saw one pair from the Swan Link and one pair from the United Utilities Hide.

Spoonbill: I was made up to spot this Spoonbill knowing we had missed it earlier that day at Marshisde.

On the way home Scott said 'lets go see some Corn Buntings' and I said 'OK, but I doubt we will see any' and just as that sentence left my lips he said 'Oh, look over there' and there was a tree full of Corn Buntings.


Brilliant, two lifers in one day Corn Bunts and Black Grouse now that can't be bad!