After our morning at RSPB Marshide, we stopped off at WWT Martin Mere for a cup of tea and then had a look around. With limited time and the United Utilities hide still closed (though repair work has begun) we retricted ourselves to the area between the Ron Barker Hide and the Discovery hide. Even then, we still managed to get a couple of year ticks and a good species list.
The birding group visit to RSPB Marshside was blessed with some quite pleasant weather with sunshine and only a slight wind off the sea. Apart from the usual suspects we managed to get a few year ticks and some nice waders
The birding group could not take full advantage of the high tides on the Wirral that ran from the 1st to the 3rd of March. The nearest they could find was Tuesday the 4th so the tide was only 9.8m at 14:16.
With a high tide at 12:52 on the Wirral, it made sense that we stop off at Burton Mere Wetlands for an hour or so to see if we could catch the first Avocets f the year and see what else was around before heading off to Parkgate for the high tide.
The first birding group meeting of the term that we had been able to get to was a visit to Tatton Park – a walk that is longer than I remember but it was good exercise and we got a couple of good birds.
More illness picked up on the plane to Lanzarote meant that for the first hald of Ferbruaty I was still recovering. Eventually I felt well enough to venture out to Burton Mere Wetlands for the day.
January was a quiet month apart from some good birding whilst we were in holiday for two weeks in Lanzarote.
As is often the case, January saw us taking a break in order to get some winter sun and, whilst birding wasn’t our main purpose, we still managed to fit some casual birding in. The coastal and desert envirnments gave us good opportunities to find some interesting birds.
Our quiet spell of birding continued into November with more bad weather being a disincentive. Also we were had a week in Sicily that limited our birding opportunities. Be that as it may, November did have one or two nice birding experiences.
