Great Snipe - Great Day

As work commitments kept us from seeing the Great Snipe on the East coast at Kilnsea over the weekend we set out this morning with fingers crossed, as initially negative news had been put out.  

I have found 7 Great Snipe in Europe over the years but have dipped at least six in Britain, bearing that in mind I was very keen to add the species to my British list.  Survey work out of the way we were on the road for 10.30am and around three hours later we arrived at the site.  The next 3 hours were spent watching this wonderful bird.  The Blue Bell Cafe provided us with half an hours relief from the increasing gusts of wind,  along with an excellent light lunch in the company of an even rarer sight than the Great Snipe,  Shropshire Birder Martin Ryder and his wife whom we have not seen out birding for a long time.   

Gannet has eluded me so far this year so I decided to have an hour sea watching.  For those of you who know me - yes it really was an hour - for those that don't know me,  I hate sea watching and an hour is as much as I can take.  However, the hour produced 3 Gannet, a single Arctic Skua and 20 Common Scoter, so was well worth my time.  From here we moved on to the nearby Yorkshire Wildlife Trust Kilnsea Wetlands wader scrape.  2 Spotted Redshank, 4 Greenshank, 3 Ruff, 3 Little Egret and a couple of Little Stint to add to the days list.  

A Red-backed Shrike had been showing well for a few days at Peter's Lane Easington,  just a short drive away so we stopped for 10 minutes before heading back to Cheshire. 

 "Give me some room and I will show way better than this"

 Great Snipe

 Little Stint

 Red-backed Shrike  - "honest" 

Little Egret

Local Patch and Pennington Flash

Late Thursday afternoon I decided to take a walk with our dog up to Cholmondeley and have a saunter around Deer Park Mere.  It turned out to not only be a pleasant autumn walk but a worthwhile venture recording three Spotted Flycatcher. This is the only time we seem to record this species on the Estate - during the return migration. Other birds of note were Raven (4) and a couple of Reed Warbler along with a very showy Tawny Owl.  On the drive back home the lanes of this part of South Cheshire well, the wires above the lanes, were alive with Swallow readying themselves for there long journey South. 

 Tawny Owl

 Barn Swallows

 More Swallows

Friday morning the weather was bright and sunny as I made the 50 minute drive to Pennington Flash in Greater Manchester.  A moulting male Lesser Scaup had been seen there and my aim was to get some close up photos.  3 hours later the nearest the bird came was in the shot you can see below !  Still a very pleasant place to while away a few hours birding.

 Lesser Scaup

 Great Crested Grebe

Tufted Duck

Another Cheshire Lifer Stilt Sandpiper

Ashley Powell (author) / Mark Powell / Alex Gummer 

I was working away on Saturday, so it was not until Sunday that we had a chance to nip down the road to Northwich for yet another Cheshire lifer!! Stilt Sandpiper has been a bit of a bogey bird for me over the years, so to potentially see one less than 20 miles away from home was a very exciting prospect.

Despite being distant the Stilt Sandpiper showed well and at 60 x magnification a great view was achieved. All of the identification features of this superb North American wader could be seen after a while, including the leg colour when it eventually stopped feeding. After spending a couple of hours with the bird and chatting with some old friends, we went for a stroll around Ashton's flash, here a number of Ruff and Snipe were added to the wader list, see pictures below. Thanks to Pete Antrobus for his fantastic picture of the Stilt Sand, featured below.

 Stlit Sandpiper Cheers Pod

 its there somewhere

 there it is

 Ruff

 Green Sandpiper

 Common Snipe

 Ruff

 four of the seven Ruff on site

Two More

Home, Local Patch and a morning in Yorkshire

Thursday morning the 15th and the Buddleia in our front garden was alive with butterflies so I enjoyed an hour or so watching and photographing six different species.

 Peacocks

 Peacock

 Red Admiral

 Small White

 Painted Lady

Red Admiral

 Small Tortoiseshell

 Peacock

That afternoon I headed to our local patch at Cholmondeley Castle grounds with Ashley and Scruffy. We decided to walk around Deer Park Mere where there is still plenty of Reed & Sedge Warbler activity. Overhead five Buzzard were taking advantage of another clear blue sky.  Three Raven joined them and we sat watching this wonderful air display for ten minutes or more. 

As we sat watching the Raven I asked Ashley if he still needed Two-barred Crossbill as a UK Lifer ? "Yes Pop why"? was his response.  I told him about the record at Broomhead Reservoir in South Yorkshire of 6 Juvs and 2 Adults.  We decided we would go the following morning and see if we could add a lifer to Ashleys' list - something not so easy to do nowadays. 

 Reed Warbler

 and again

 Small Red Damselfly

 Speckled Wood

 Speckled Wood

(Library photo) Two-barred Crossbill - whapped on .......

Caspian Tern

After missing the Caspian Tern on Wednesday evening and the bird not being seen at first light on Thursday morning,  I thought I had missed my chance of adding a UK lifer in my home county of Cheshire.

However, 19.45 last night the phone rang and it was Dan Pointon telling me the Caspian Tern was back. No time to waste, a quick dash across town to pick Ashley up then an even quicker, but within the law !!,  dash a couple of junctions up the M6, and in no time we were on site, amid a lot of familiar faces from the Cheshire birding scene.  Included in these was the "Legend" that is Uncle Phil Woollen,   who kindly emailed the bottom three photo's to me this morning  - (Cheers Phil)

 It's there somewhere !

 Caspian Tern

 Another

... and one more.

Sacred Ibis in Shropshire

As we are only around 35 minutes from where this bird had been recorded Alex and I decided to go and see the Sacred Ibis this morning.  Armed with the information from Bird Guides we arrived on site mid morning - Please note: if you go and see this bird please ask the permission of the landlord to use his car park.  

It had been recorded earlier that day near to bridge 9W but was not there when we arrived.  We carried on approx. 300m further down the tow path and were rewarded with these excellent views.

Pied billed Grebe finally

Since our last post we have all been ill so not much news. However, I felt well enough to venture out last Thursday Feb 28th.  On my way to my local patch I had a flock of 350 Pink-Footed Geese grazing. We usually get skeins passing over toward the Lancashire Coast but to get such a large flock on the ground was a pleasant surprise.

Friday 1st March decided to make the drive down to Somerset to Ham Walls RSPB where a Pied-billed Grebe had been on sight for around two weeks. We arrived just after first light and photographed a Great White Egret fishing out in the open which we watched from the first viewing platform.  It didn't take long to locate the Grebe which was really quite close to the second viewing platform.  We had good views using our scopes and then spent an enjoyable four hours on the Reserve.  Other birds worth noting included Bittern, a single White-fronted Goose and a drake Ferruginous Duck.