13/05/2022 Elton Reservoir, Bury

Spotted Sandpiper: Great find my Simon Warford, a top bloke to regularly patches Elton res. This was the third spot sand there is at the moment in the north west, with one in Cumbria and one turning up today in Cheshire. 

These distinctive shorebirds have bold, dark spots on their undersides during the breeding season., but during the winter months they lose most of their spots. So having a nice summer plumage bird is a real treat. 

Common Sandpiper: The spot sand gave us the runaround, having disappeared just as I arrived (typically) and it took awhile to relocate it and even longer to wait before it came closer.  

The bird was associating with a couple of common sandpiper feeding along the western sore line of the reservoir.   Some spot sands migrate short distances to the southern United States and Pacific Coast, but others travel as far as South America so to have this vagrant turn up in Bury is a big thing.  

It a bit of patience I managed to allow this common sand to approach me giving me a rare chance to get some point blank pictures.   

There were a few locals with dogs wading into the water and flushing everything along the shore, but in time they would return. 

Turnstone: Another great bird was this turnstone, usually they are found singly or in small groups along the coastline and only occasionally inland. 

Ringed Plover: Elton res was also playing host to a small flock of dunlin, turnstone, little ringed and ringed plovers as well as common sandpiper. 

It's a really nice time to go, not only to see the waders but there were also a ton of common swift feeding above the water.   

17/08/2014 North Wirral Coast

Dunlin: With the weather report saying that the North West will be receiving some strong winds I decided to record the match and spend this bright day outdoors.

Ringed Plover: I went straight to New Brighton and pitched up beside the lifeboat station and spent a couple of hours sea watching.

The highlights were a couple of distant Gannet, no Manxies unfortunately.

From there I drove around to Leasowe and did a couple of circuits around the horse paddocks. Here there was a large flock of Linnet and a few pied wags, but no migrants.

Oystercatcher: I did however get some nice views of some common waders as they hunkered down waiting for tide to retreat.

03/06/2013 Farne Islands, North Sunderland

Bridled Tern: A 1am start, two ferry crossings and a 466 mile round trip from Chester to Manchester and then  Manc to Farne.

But what a AWESOME day!

Once again we struck lucky as we arrived early and decided to jump ship and get the early 6am crossing from Seahouses to Farne.

The ferry crossing was brilliant we were surrounded by hundreds of Puffin,Guillemots and Kittiwake. We also spotted Gannets, Razorbills and the ships captain spotted two Manx Shearwater, but unfortunately I missed them.

As soon as the ferry landed we saw the bride tern roosting within a giant flock of Arctic Tern. The bird then flew right passed us and landed just a few meters away giving us some spectacular views.

Obviously Scott, Liam and I were made up and grinning from ear to ear, not only because this bird is the first twitchable bird since 1988 but the fact we bagged the bird so early as Mr Payne and co were booked on the 9am ferry and had to wait almost 4 hours before catching a glimpse of the bird.

Ringed Plover: Other highlights included this Ringed Plover which was happily watching all the twitchers marveling at the Bridled Tern.

Arctic Tern: The Farne Islands are famous for its summer breeding seabird colonies and are home to over 100,000 pairs of breeding seabirds, including 55,000+ pairs of puffins.

Although I think its the Arctic Tern colony which the Farne's are most famous for,they can be tolerant of people however, that may not be quite the right word for the Arctic Terns.

They have a very aggressive side as they try to protect their nests from anyone who comes too close.

They do this by dive-bombing unsuspecting folk like this ranger and pooing all over their heads and shoulders as they pass through their nesting colonies, not something to be forgotten in a hurry!

05/04/2013 Houghton Green Flash

Ringed Plover: Back from my trip to sunny but windy Essex, dam eastalies. I decided to go Grebe hunting, Black Neck specifically, and headed to Houghton Green Flash a large fresh water pool next to the M6 motorway and over the road from Woolston Eyes.






There has been reports of the Black Necked Grebes here over the few Days I was in Essex, but as I arrived they had all disappeared, there was no sign of them at all. However I did spot 3 pairs of Great Crested Grebes, 1 Redshank and 4 Ringed Plover.

Kingfisher: Trying to find the place was hard, OK I had no Sat Nav or map apart from the scribbling's (which I never actually followed) Dawn wrote before we left. I dropped her off at work and was soon lost but ended up at Sankey Valley Park were I was surprised to see a pair of Kingfisher on the Sankey Canal.

I also heard my first Chiffchaff of the year here and spotted a tone of garden birds, nice little place.  

25/07/2012 Gronant

Ringed Plover: My final day volunteering at the Little Tern colony and yet no more attacks from the Kestrel and all is looking good. Geoff from the RSPB tells me that the colony on the Northern Isles and in Ireland have had disastrous breeding results, affected by the prolonged bad summer weather, predation and usually high tides.

Gronant’s colony will have had bad results compared to previous years but im sure if you compare it to the other UK colonies if they have 60-40 successful fledglings then I would certainly view that as a positive result.

Sedge Warbler: The tide was out during my shift so didn’t see much in the way of sea birds but Ringed Plover can be found all over the site, many with young, one of which was sadly taken by the kestrel today.

Sedge and Reed Warblers where also seen on the salt marsh.
 

Curlew: There was a flock of about 30-40 Linnet on the salt marsh, a sighting of a Whimbrel and Natter Jack Toad reported by Andy the warden.

There was a huge mass of Oystercatcher on the tide line, I could hear Sandwich Tern but didn’t see any although I was pleased to see a fleeting glimpse of a Grey Wagtail heading towards Talacre.

And a single curlew was briefly seen along the tide line.
I would like to thank Wendy, Andy, Tom and everyone else I have spoken to while there for being very friendly and wish them and the Little Terns all the best.