A mixed day but a good one

21 February 2012

Yesterday was a birding day.  Our plan was to visit three birding sites in one day, Welches Dam, Welney and finally Lakenheath Fen.  We set off at 7.55am and arrived back here at 8.20pm.  Over all we had a good day out but we couldn't do parts of Welches Dam because of the deep gravel that our scooters sank into.  At Welney the only access to the site is by lift or up a lot of stairs.  The lift is not working and it seems that it has been like that for some time.  They will be receiving and email shortly.  At Lakenheath Fen our scooter batteries were well down on their charge and we were concerned about getting stuck, so we gave up.  We were both getting pretty cold at that point too.  OK, it doesn't sound like a good day but in fact we still enjoyed being out and about.  The hardest part was lifting the scooters in and out of the car three times.  No matter much we enjoyed the day, we will in future just do one site each day, not get to bolshie and try three site in one day;-)))

I did take my camera but even my 300mm lens was of no use yesterday.  The light was good but it didn't have the reach to get decent shots of anything.  Later in the day I got shots of loads of real ale pump signs - but that's outside the remit of this blog.  Anyway, we stopped for tea and toast at our usual Little Chef on the A47 and as we approached it said to Jan, "You know, every time we stop here we always get the bins out and look around for birds but we've never even seen a spuggie have we?"  Jan agreed.  So we were sat happily eating toast and drinking tea when shouts, "Look, a red kite!"  And there not 20 meters away from was the most beautiful red kite I've seen.  The sun shone of its back, it's belly looked great as it turned in flight ... and me damned camera was stuck in the car!  By the time we had finished and returned to the car it was gone ... ha well, another lesson learnt - for the umpteenth time!

One the trip down we saw species, woodpigeon, starling, blackbird (enough to make 3 or 4 pies), collared dove, magpie, crow, great tit, black headed gull, herring gull, jackdaw, rook, red kite, greater black backed gull, kestrel, sparrow hawk, pheasant, long tailed tit, redwing, red legged partridge, coot, chaffinch, great crested grebe - a total of 22 from the car.

Once we began riding around Welches Dam we found it to be very cold.  As well as the gravel we also found the board walk at one point to be a nightmare too.  There are raised tar stripes with stone in it along there.  I understand why it's there but for us in our scooters it really did shake us up badly.  The next problem was gravel.  Now that was annoying seeing as from that first hide we were in we could see a lot of birds in front of the next one.  Anyway, we sit got another sparrow hawk resting on a wire as we arrived, great tit, skylark, shellduck, pintail, black headed gull, lapwing, mallard, cormorant, mute swan, shoveller, teal, tufted duck, widgeon, pochard, moorhen, collard dove, tree and house chaffinch, dunnock, reed bunting, goldfinch, peasant and whooper swan.  But that reed bunting cause some excitement.  We're not the best id experts so seeing a female reed bunting in the sun like threw us quite a bit.  It also showed just how limiting our Mitchell Beazley field guide is!  I've used it for year but compared to Collins, it's poor.  We had decided that we had found all sort of rare birds but wouldn't claim one until we got home to look at our Collins.  Now we take a Collins (we have 3 copies here), when we go out.

At Welney we only got three, buzzard, whooper swan and skylark, and that is all I'll say about that place for now!

On the way to Lakenheath Fen we got pheasant, red legged partridge, rook, woodpigeon,  collard dove, chaffinch, great tit and as we were leaving we also got a green woodpecker.  I make that a total of 47 for the day.  We were frustrated at not being able to do as much as we would have liked, but even so, we did enjoy the day overall.  Just being out together and away from Dorktown made it worth while.                        

Bloody people!!!

I was asked the other day how often I go birding.  I replied that it might be a better question to ask when I am not birding.  Yes, I do go out for the day with the intention of birding but every time I go out I'm on the look out for birds.  The Urban Birder David Lindo says, "Look up," and I do, and I've seen loads more birds over Dorktown.    

Seeing it's Sunday I have to make do with the Sunday Express today and not the Dorktown News.  I starting having the Express delivered because Stuart Winter has a birding column in it, called Birdman - which is fair enough.  In yesterday's post my copy of Bird Watching magazine arrived and I lay in bed last night reading it.  Winter has also picked up on one the stories in there and wrote about it for today's Birdman tale.  The story is about a number of raptors that have been rescued by the RSPCA.  The birds of prey were found ill or injured but can never be released into the wild because they were raised a pets.  They are now recovering somewhere near Nantwich.  But what on earth of people things about when they decided to have a barn owl as a pet? 

These birds take a lot of looking after, they are not budgies or canaries where you can stick in a pot of seed, water and some millet and clean them out every so often.  They eat raw red meat, not seed; they need to be flown out in the open so they can be exercised; they need to be worked to keep their instincts sharp.  I have a feeling that a lot of these birds are bought under pester-power form kids who have seen the Harry Potter films.  What should have happened is more discipline being used and a very firm "NO!" being given. 

There is apparently a growing internet industry in selling birds, with raptors being most popular.  RSPCA is wanting action to stop ISP from carrying such services.  No one has managed to stop the trade in kiddie porn yet so how do the RSPCA hope to get things done about selling birds of prey?  Not much hope there I think.  No, parents have to grow a  pair of balls and say "No, you can't have one," one the kids start pestering.  They normally do it with dogs, so why not with birds? 

Burton Wood Wetlands

13 February 2012

And a good morning to you all.  Yesterday we finally managed to get to the new RSPB site at Burton Mere Wetlands.  Finding the place was a real nightmare however.  We looked for the usual brown tourist signs but only saw one of them.  A local we asked told how to get there but in actual fact the site is on two parts and he sent us to the smaller one of the two.  We couldn't get out scooters down the path to the hide because it was far too muddy.   

However, it wasn't a total wash out seeing we did get photos of some snowdrops ... 

I also tried Jan's new Tamron lens which has a macro setting on it but I couldn't get it to work properly.  I just need to try it more often and learn how to use it properly.  It was at this smaller site that we found out where the main site was.  The village of Burton is a special conservation are and so the RSPB were not allowed to have the usual brown sign.  Instead they were allowed to put a small blue and white sign not at a great height, it's about a meter from the ground on a lamppost.  I found this very strange because estate agents are allowed to put their signs and of course there are the normal road signs all over the place.  There seems to be a bit of hypocrisy going on there methinks!

Once we arrived though we found the site to be not at all bad really.  There were plenty of birds about, which after all is what it is all about and we got 4 or 5 for our year list.  Now we know where it is we will go back later in the year and see what's about there then.  There are no photos from yesterday because of the dark grey and overcast conditions.  Altogether we got 34 species of bird, the start being what we thought was a honey buzzard sat on fence post beside the A41 as we drove home.  On getting home we looked it up in our Collins and sadly we can't now claim it ... nanas!!! 

We left home 8.15 am with Jan driving and me taking note of what we saw. Our route was the A444/M6/M54/A41 and it was a fairly quiet drive the whole way.  It wasn't until we got to the M6 before saw our first bird, a wood pigeon.  As we continued on we saw magpie, grey heron (flying over the M6), common buzzard (we saw around 10 though out the day), blackbird, rook, crow, pheasant, greater black backed gull, jackdaws, collared doves, chaffinch, herring gull, kestrel, black headed gull, mallard, dunnock, blue tit.

At the wetlands itself we got chaffinch, mallard, coot (at which time I was ready to come after seeing my favourite bird), lapwing (large flocks of them on the ground and flying around), widgeon, tufted duck, shoveller, teal, redshank, greenshank, gadwall, dunlin, mute swan, bar tail godwits, crow, Canada goose (but only 3 of them, probably the smallest number I've ever seen), shellduck and robin.  Not a lot of birds yesterday but hey-ho, that's the joys of birding enit?  You never know what you will see when you go out.  We are just happy to be out enjoying what we can see. 

Yes, we keep a list but listing is not the be all and end all of birding for us.  I'm always envious of those birders who can get out and walk for miles, managing to get to places that I can only ever dream about.  But I don't resent them their abilities.  Birding would be so much poorer without the efforts of such people as The Fleetwood Birder (http://fleetwoodbirder.blogspot.com/2012/02/yellow-bunts-abound.html ); Wirral Birds (http://wirralbirders.blogspot.com/2012/02/date-with-gorgeous-red-head.html );  Phil at (http://anotherbirdblog.blogspot.com/ ) and not forgetting The Urban Birder at (http://urbanitybirder.blogspot.com/2012/02/cecil-fowler.html ).  I'm sure there are hundreds if not thousands of others blogging about birding. 

The only addition to our days list as we drove home was a flock of redwing just outside Neston.  The rest of the day was spent in photographing pub signs.  You can see my Flickr site at http://www.flickr.com/photos/15764683@N00/

Oh yes of course, I did get one shot at Burton ... 

I was going to name this Wind Up because that is what it turned out to be.  I saw the carving on the tree and called out, "Woodpecker!"  Jan stopped dead and tried scanning around, "Where?" she asked.  "There, on the tree in front of us," I replied.  "Where, I can't see it!"  Then the penny dropped ... I'm sure my black eye will soon be unnoticeable ;-)))

Another of my many interests is art and public art in particular.  We stopped for a drink at a pub called The Little Owl on the outskirts of Chester.  A nice pub and nice pint of Pedigree too.  But facing the road was this beauty ...

Well worth a shot this is.

 

 Another photo I got in Dorktown town centre on Saturday is this one ...  

We are getting quite a few these little beauties in town these days.  Always a joy to see the,  Common they may be, but they do brighten up the town.  I like 'em anyway.