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.

26/12/2018 Lunt Meadows Nature Reserve

Tree Sparrow: Dawn and I blew away the cobwebs and burned off the mince pies and Christmas pudding on a Boxing Day birding walk.

Lunt meadows was our destiantion a smart little reserve were thousands of wintering ducks, geese, swans and waders use the flooded reedbeds. 

Short-eared Owl: We plenty of wigeon, teal, pintail, shoveler, mallards, lapwings, ruff, snipe and a handfull of whooper swans.

Besides the tree sparrows that gave us pretty good views we also had two short-eared owls that put on a good show.

Lunt is a tranquil wildlife oasis and a perfect getaway for a festive day out.

21/12/2018 My Garden, Abram, Wigan

Grey Wagtail: Each day this week the bird has come back to my garden feeders and this time I managed some better images.

These lovely birds are very common in Britain and typically found besides rivers, streams and lakes and are less shy than many other birds of the riverside birds.

Grey wagtails are a very versatile predator, catching small dragonflies on the wing, a variety of insects off the ground, and even fishing tadpoles out of shallow water.

So perhaps its no surprise that this bird has come in to my garden each day this week to pick up split fat balls.

A welcome visitor and one I hope to keep helping out in my garden this winter.

20/12/2018 Radgate Recycling cntre, Gorton, Manchester

Iceland Gull: Working from the Manchester office allowed me to go and see the Radgate white winger.

I waited around 40mins before the bird made an appearance, periodically scanning the small building that the gull favours.

The bird is a regular visitor to the site and is well watched by top local birder Rob Creek who provides regular updates on the Manchester Birding Forum

The weather was typical of grey, old Manchester with drizzly rain and dark clouds. So photographing a grayish bird against grayish skies is not always great.










Despite the poor weather and the odd looks I was getting from the truckers and workers around Radgate it was well worth the wait.

16/12/2018 High Rid Reservoir, Bolton

Velvet Scoter: This superb sea duck specialist is more at home on the high seas but has made a dark, cold lake in the moors of Bolton  at high rid its home for the last few weeks.

For a long while I had the place to myself, free from toggers and birders and after yesterdays very poor weather it was lovely to be out under the blue skies and calm winds, but it wasn't long until I was joined by other birders.

The velvet scoter appeared to be unperplexed by the groups of birders, dog walkers and joggers in their high vis clothing and was happily diving, resting up and good views.

Common scoters are dark, almost jet black in colour but the velvet scoter has an attractive white patch around its eye and also a white wing patch, which is very evident when it flies or preens on the water.

It won't stay forever and it was great to catch up with the bird again.

15/12/2018 My Garden, Abram, Wigan

 Grey Wagtail: ****A GARDEN FIRST****

This morning I had an unusual visitor to the bird table, a grey wagtail. This has to qualify as the bird with the most inappropriate English name.

I get the occasional pied wagtail visit my garden particularly in winter, attracted by spilt seeds on lawns and was thrilled to add a new bird to the old garden bird list.

This weekend is going to be colder and harsher for these, ittle garden birds. Probably one of the reasons for the new visitor. So top up your feeders and keep the food supply going.

09/12/2018 West Kirby Marina Lake, Wirral

Great Northern Diver: I've waited all week to catch up with the bird but had no chance of getting over to Wirral due to my work load.

Dunlin: West Kirby Marine Lake can be very empty and devoid of birds  but every so often it can throw up something decent and when it does it attract lots of local of birders, today was no different.








As I arrived there were a dozen or so birders and toggers frantically searching for the diver across a busy and windy lake, busy not with birds but boats. Yeah typically the sailing club was in full swing on the lake and the bird was on the move.

Flock of Dunlin: Eventually the diver popped up out of the grey-ish waters and showed, but not very close! Still it was nice to see.

After I had my fill of the diver IO spent some time with the roosting waders some of which came pretty close.

07/12/2018 Otterspool, Speke

Mediterranean Gull: A nice lunchtime visit to Otterspool prom after seeing some decent footage from Sean O'Hara on a local WhatsApp group.







Otterspool is well known for harbouring good numbers of med gulls who like to spend their time worming on the neatly kept lawns of the prom.

I counted two adult birds in the short time I had but did haer from Sean that there was a third in the area.

Nice to spend sometime away from the office and get out during my lunch break, I must do this more often.

25/11/2018 High Rid Reservoir, Bolton

Velvet Scoter: Nice Manchester tick and a nice find for Phil Rhodes.

Definitely should have worn my thermals ‘tis cold up in em’hills’