SATURDAY BIRDING

I arrived at Moore Nature Reserve near Warrington just before dawn this morning and added some great birds to my year list. I started off at the feeding station, where I spotted a Brambling, which was a nice highlight. However, I didn’t see anything else noteworthy, just common woodland species. I was surprised not to see any Willow Tits, as they are usually present and feeding in this area.

The feeding station was underwater

 Long Tailed Tits

Great Spotted Woodpecker

I then moved on to Birchwood pool and Pumphouse pool. where I had Wigeon, Tufted Duck, Teal, Shoveler and Goldeneye. No white winged gulls were seen, but there were plenty of other gull species around in good numbers. I then moved onto the eastern reed bed, where I had just missed the Bittern showing well and was well gripped off with the photos I was seeing from birders in the hide. Anyway, after a good two-hour wait in freezing cold wind, I had a brief flight view over the reed bed before the Bittern disappeared into the reeds, Cetti's warbler and a Kingfisher were also good additions.

 Eastern reed bed where two Bitterns have taken up residence this winter

This Robin kept me entertained in the hide whilst waiting for the elusive Bittern

Moving on from Moore, I headed to an undisclosed site to see a very rare and scarce bird in Cheshire and Wirral, the Marsh Tit. The birds have been resident at this site for several years.

Marsh Tit

After good views of the above, I headed towards Birkenhead to the docks to try and photograph the Scaup that my mate Allan Collin had found in the week. When I arrived at the east float dock, thanks to Allan's spot-on directions, it was blowing a hooley, there were waves in the dock, and then the hail started. It wasn't looking good, but I found the Scaup over the other side of the dock sheltering out the wind with Great crested grebes. There was no chance of any photos, so Allan has kindly let me use one of his photos of the first winter male.

East float dock-Birkenhead

Scaup 1st Winter male

Finishing off the birding day, I called in at New Brighton and got good views of Purple Sandpiper, Redshank and Dunlin on the pontoon.

 Dunlin

 Purple Sandpier

The Pontoon at New Brighton with Perch Rock lighthouse in the background

NORTH WALES DAYOUT

I set out early this morning with my son Dylan for a day's birding in North Wales. We soon made are way down the A55 and I had to stop to take a few photos of the Conwy Estuary as the sun came up, the views of Snowdonia were stunning.

Conwy Estuary and Snowdonia 

Conwy Castle

We soon arrived at Llanbedr-y-cennin and soon connected with five Hawfinches around the churchyard. After a good hour, a good number of birders had turned up to see these scarce birds when a Sparrowhawk flew through the churchyard and up to 11 Hawfinches appeared out of the conifers and flew west. I have never seen this number of Hawfinches at this site, so they must be doing well in the area.

Hawfinch

Plenty of birders were around this morning

After great views of the Hawfinches, we moved on to Penrhyn Bay, where we caught up with a Twite that had joined up with a flock of Linnets on the beach.

Twite

Moving along the beach, we walked up to the quarry at Little Orme, where a Black Redstart showed really well, along with a couple of Stonechats.

Stonechat

 Black Redstart

Looking down from the quarry to Angel Bay, the Grey seals, which breed here every year, were basking in the winter sun.

  Grey Seals

Other birds of note offshore were good numbers of Common Scoter and a Great Northern Diver. The Fulmars were showing really well in the quarry.

Fulmar

A quick call in at Pensarn beach on the way home, but there was no sign of any Snow Buntings. Another cracking morning birding with my son on the North Wales coast.

My son Dylan stood on the top of the Little Orme

RIVACRE VALLEY LOCAL NATURE RESERVE

At last it has stopped raining and with the sun shining and clear blue skies, I had a nice afternoon's walk around my local nature reserve in Rivacre, Ellesmere Port. The nature reserve used to be a huge outdoor swimming pool from 1934 until 1985. Due to indoor swimming facilities in the area, the baths shut in 1981 and were demolished and filled in in 1985.

Rivacre Baths

The Rivacre is so named because of the Rivacre brook, which runs through the area, and it is known locally as Rivacre valley because of the beautiful valley through which the stream runs.

 Rivacre Valley stream

On arrival, I soon connected with a stunning Kingfisher and up to 4 Grey wagtails were seen along the stream.

Kingfishers breed on the stream

Grey Wagtail

The area had a good variety of woodland birds, which I managed to get a few photos of, and a fly over Little Egret was a bonus, heading towards the River Mersey.

Two Great Spotted Woodpeckers were seen

 Robin

Nuthatch

 Song Thrush

Blackbird

Other birds of note were Siskin, Lesser redpoll and Bullfinch.