Gatewarth 8.00pm ish No Grasshopper warblers reeling, several Reed Warblers singing.
V close views of a Short Eared Owl hunting over the old tip area (right by entrance to reserve/small wooden bridge.) Kept low, perched up on the fence too. Right over my head, giving great chance to watch it. Picked it up again about an hour later on far bank of River perched up on post.
Gatewarth 6/4/13 M Stonechat still present At least 4 Chiffchaff seen and/or heard including one in reedbed doing an impression of reed warbler. 1 Buzzard low over
Gatewarth Am : lots of gulls on the River...couldn't locate anything unusual, the bright sunlight made viewing majority of birds difficult. Pm : tide higher, far less gulls. Buzzard been mobbed by crows. Single Teal on River.
Spent an hour or so at HWH this morning - mainly looking for a Brent Goose that had been found late sunday afternoon. Just about to head home when a Brent goose suddenly appeared, initially flying around the S/E corner of Norton Marsh it then joined a small flock of Canada Geese on the S/E corner of Fiddlers Ferry. A patch first for me (cheers Den and Mal!!).
Cheshire has had it's first confirmed record of genuinely wild Barnacle Goose, on the Mersey Estuary in 2011
2 adult (colour ringed) and 3 juvenile Barnacle Geese were present on Hale Marsh on 28th November 2011, the birds were ringed as part of a programme in Svalbard archipelago (Norway)
Info courtesy of Bill Morton & Tony Broome
http://frodshammarshbirdblog.wordpress.com/
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Lapwing 350 Golden Plover 11 Curlew 1 Grey Heron 2 Cormorant 3 Shelduck 5 Canada Goose 50 Mallard 10 Pheasant 1 Plus Corvids and Woodpigeons Over 1000 mixed gulls on the mud but I did not pick out anything unusual.
-- Edited by Brian Baird on Saturday 5th of January 2013 05:50:01 PM
Gatewarth Sodden and muddy this morning. Not much moving.
Fields on the other side of the railway, around Penketh Old Hall/ Riding Stables flooded. Ducks swimming around here inc a pair of Shoveler. Single female Grey Wagtail here.
Anybody regularly birding the cheshire mersey estuary , have you considered submitting counts as a weBs counter ? The currents weBs team is seriously undermanned in our attempt to map the estuary , some more info on the mersey estuary weBs facebook page or contact the area co-ordinator of the team on dermot.smith@fsmail.net
Early light frost made GW look almost picturesque this morning. Single Fieldfare with finches (green and gold mainly) in bushes. 2 more over. A Fox cantered by, along River, near-side. Semed to have prey in mouth,poss mouse. As it ran it put up Redshank and a single Snipe from reedy edge of River.
High tide around there was just after midday today Pete and it was a big one! More likely these gulls are headed off to roost after spending the day around Arpley Tip and Richmond Bank, maybe from even further afield too as I see late flying gulls heading that way over here in Astley
As well as the starlings displaying nicely at the bridge this evening there was an amazing stream of gulls heading out of the river and over the bridge - must have been several thousand in the five minutes or so I was queuing. I regularly see small and large parties of gulls there but these were remarkable for their numbers - guess the tide was coming in...
100 + Golden Plover 500 + Lapwing 20 Greylag Geese 4 Redshank 300 Canada Geese 500+ mixed Gulls including around 50 Great Black - backed gulls 9 Shelduck 7 Mallard 2 Cormorant 2 Grey Heron 2 Mute Swans 1 Kestrel 1 Buzzard 23 Starlings on the pylons 1 Pheasant 6 Redwing en route to the watchpoint and 100 Pinkfeet flew over - north
-- Edited by Brian Baird on Thursday 15th of November 2012 05:08:05 PM
2 Stonechat here this morning near the river, (a male was present on 21 Oct. at Phase 3) 25 Redwing flew over towards Moore. 8 Curlew and 3 Canada Geese on the mud banks. 11 Lapwing flew west.
The field facing the wooden walkway that has recently been used to graze the Longhorn is now much less sparsely grassed than last year. 2 Mippits flew over it today , compared with last year 50+ M.pipit,50+chaffinch,30+linnet along with pied wagtail,goldfinch,starling and possibly skylark. If the fields higher up facing the start of the Widnes Warth NR trail are utilised for these, then i can see some long term benefits of attempting to add bio-diversity from grazing. They don't seem to be at the moment though.
Site tick for me today with a Green Woodpecker calling , heard from old tip area as I walked on to reserve. Eventually tracked the bird down to a Willow tree close to the Wind Pump. Called briefly then flew down into trees closer to the River ,quick view. Prob juv bird.
Long Tailed Tits, Jays, Kestrel.
Good nos of Gulls on River Bank being disturbed deliberately (for some reason?) by a couple in a small red sailed boat.
Approx 3hrs at HWH/Owens Wood from late morning with Andy Dutton checking the mudflats west of Norton Marsh. 1 Black-tailed Godwit Several sightings of Dunlin, probably involving a total of 20 birds. 2 Redshank 68 Curlew 1400 Lapwing 1 Little Egret 1 Peregrine 11 Shelduck 1 Willow tit
A Kingfisher was perched on the dead tree branch on the riverbank after high tide this afternoon. Also noted were Kestrel 1 Buzzard 1 Cormorant 2 Grey Heron 4 Lapwing 38 Mute Swan 4 (juveniles) Canada Goose 1
A dog Fox was seen in the fields south of the river.
300+ Lapwing on the mudflats this morning with 2 Common Gulls, 200+ mixed Black-headed and Lesser Black-backed Gulls, incl. many juveniles, 10 Greylag Geese, 60 Canada Geese, 3 Cormorants,1 Grey Heron (juv) and 10 Sand Martins.
Gatewarth Gull numbers up on the River. Majority LBB and Herring. Whitethroat, Linnet, Goldfinch in small groups all with young birds. Toadlet on path. Small Skippers and Gatekeepers on wing.
Checked the Mersey mudflats from HWH mid evening yesterday - 1 adult Med gull amongst 2500 BHG, 1000+ LBBG, a couple of GBBG, 1 adult YLG and a yellow legged Argenteus Herring Gull. Lapwing flock now 1000+ also 243 Curlew, and singles of Dunlin, Black-tailed Godwit and Greenshank. Earlier in the day en route to HWH came across a 'new' Purple Hairstreak tree - a relatively small tree and had excellent views in the sunshine, also 2 Commas.
Thanks Dave...armed with this exact information , unsurprisingly, I managed to see Bee Orchids this afternoon . 3 Spikes on the towpath, still half out.
Three Grasshopper Warblers reeling persistantly 4.00pm ish.
We found at least nine Bee Orchids along the canal towpath on Friday, mainly concentrated by the bridge at the end of Hall Nook, we also found a mole on the towpath by the Ferry tavern, eating a worm, before moving into the grass, only the second time we have ever seen a live one!
A stroll around here in the sunshine this afternoon produced at least - 12 Common Whitethroat, 4 Willow Warbler, 4 Greenfinch, 4 Goldfinch, 3 Linnets, 2 Reed Bunting, 2 Sedge Warbler, 2 Blackcap, 2 Swift, 6 Swallow, 2 Stock Dove, 2 Gadwall,1 Chiffchaff, a very busy Great Tit and 2 Buzzard hovering and circling over the area before being mobbed by 4 Crows.