Bird Fair, Risley Moss and Dee Estuary Burton Mere

Little Egret

I had a great time at my first Birdfair on Saturday. It took around 3 hours to get over to Rutland Water from Warrington but it was worth it. I had read about the Birdfair in "The Biggest Twitch" http://www.thebiggesttwitch.com/ and since this book was my main inspiration to get properly into birding, I was quite excited to see that Ruth and Alan were giving a presentation at Birdfair, which was why I decided to go. I watched three talks in total. The first on birding in Gujarat, India which wasn't great, then Ruth and Alan's talk which was fun as expected. Later in the day when our legs were tired we sat in the Extremadura talk and that was also very inspirational and somewhere that is now definitely on my list to go!.


Swallow

All in all Birdfair was great and I hope to attend again next year. I saw demos on ringing birds (felt sorry for the poor little blue tit though), grabbed loads of freebees and generally learned a lot. The only problem was that apart from a sneaky use of some scopes I had no intention of buying to see what was going on, on one of the lakes (a Little Eegret, Lapwings, Canada Geese, Mallards) I didn't see any birds!

To rectify that the next day we went to Woolston Eyes where we again circumnavigated the area with the hides and came to the conclusion I better just pay to get a key. I did see my first Pochard there though so it wasn't all bad.


Bullfinch sitting in the Risley Moss Carpark

The day after we went to Risley Moss where we watched a Hobby, Kestrel and colourful male Bullfinch (none were new for any of my lists but still fun).

After lunch we went to Dee Estuary Burton Mere for the first time, this was a treasure trove. Great trails, different habitats and a wealth of birds even in August. I definitely want to go back in Autumn as it was wader-licious! My year total now stands at 88 (rank 283 on bubo listing website), 12 away from target after only two months.

Bar-tailed and Black-Tailed Godwits (and a Moorhen)

We had trouble identifying this one but in the end settled on plain old common Buzzard, still great views though!



Another tricky identification for us, the new bird book I purchased from Bird Fair pointed towards Common Sandpiper however.

Gadwall, we also saw female Teals which was new for the list too.



Yellow Wagtail

Woolston Eyes, Risley Moss, Rixton Claypits - exploring the local patch - 27th July 2014

I have been sick this week with some kind of summer flu bug. Thursday and Friday I was laid up in bed reading bird books. Saturday I managed to get the energy to look into the nearest nature reserves to us but I didn't manage to get up early like I planned and we didn't leave until lunchtime, by which time it was boiling. A thoroughly unpleasant time was had by us both. Despite walking for about an hour from the gate at Woolston Eyes we never even managed to find the reserve!! Instead we saw mute swans and a few mallard ducks on the Manchester Ship Canal and a Buzzard overhead. Exhausted, thirsty and tired we gave up and thrashed our way through some bushes and down a small ridge (we were very lost by this point!!) to eventually get back to the car and go home.

After some respite at home we set off again for Risley Moss, which I have visited three times now and really liked. I don't know if it was because it was a warm summer Saturday afternoon or what but we were thwarted by weirdos walking their wet dogs (which kept rubbing against us) at every turn.  After we sought refuge in the tower hide thinking we had finally shook them off unfortunately they (and their three big wet dogs) came up there and it was impossible to see anything with all that racket going on so we just left without seeing anything.

Thinking third time lucky, we tried Rixton Claypits with only 45 minutes to go before it closed for the day. We had a pleasant walk and René managed to get a photo of a bird we couldn't identify. It turned out to be a Reed Bunting which was a new "lifer" for me so that cheered me up a bit but all in all for all the effort we put in today, that was a pretty poor show!

On Sunday we went back to Rixton Claypits in the morning and explored it more fully by walking the acorn signposted route right around the lake. Saw nothing new whatsoever, apart from a load more chavs+scary dogs. List total stays at 69.