Travelling to many wildlife sites

As I look through my study window, hundreds of fieldfare and redwing are flying across the Brown Heath Farm fields. They seem to have been missing for me for most of January, maybe flying further south for food, although I’m told they have been seen daily in the area of the King George VI Playing Fields in Christleton, and farmland towards Littleton. In their place at Rowton came skein after skein of Icelandic pink footed geese, some mornings totalling an estimated 2,000 birds. It is fantastic to see them. There are still regular reports of a kingfisher, seen anywhere between Egg Bridge at Waverton and Chemistry Lock in Boughton. I’ll deal with the Garden Bird Census next month when I’ve spoken to friends in the village, but our numbers of species recorded this year seem to be well down on previous years.

I’ve been doing a lot of walking for health issues recently, and travelled to many wildlife sites to exercise. One bird that has been a prominent sighting has been a gooseander, good numbers of males and females in fact. These beautiful sword billed ducks were seen at virtually every site, from West Kirby Marine Lake, to RSPB Conway, Burton Meres, Ellesmere, Delamere, Marbury Mere & Martin Mere WWT. We’ve enjoyed really good sunshine for most of these visits and been delighted with being able to take some good close up photographs, some of which I’m sharing with you this month. My favourite photograph was one of a lapwing taken from very close up, but we also had wonderful views of black tailed godwit, ruff, shelduck, wigeon, teal and pintail. I had travelled to Matin Mere to check on the whooper swan population, and was distressed to find that whooper numbers from Greenland and Iceland have dropped by 2,500 or so before lockdown to just over 650 this year. There were no Bewicks, or any mute swans at Martin Mere, and many of you will know that we’ve lost our wintering herds of swans from the Inner and Outer Dee Marshes, primarily because their main feeding ground has been covered in a solar panels. I understand that the number of wintering swans at both Slimbridge and Welney WWT reserves, are also well below what might be expected.

The above almost mirrors what’s happening to the swan population in our area, where I see more white egrets than swans. This is true for other parts of both Cheshire and North Wales with all three species, Great White, Little and Cattle egrets seen each day. Delightful and rare snow buntings have been seen at several sites, including six in the sand dunes at Wallasey. We missed seeing them there due to gale force winds, but we have been fortunate to see several brambling this winter, together with several pair of colourful bullfinches. These can pop up anywhere and have been seen around the village and at Hockenhull. We have always had friendly robins in our garden, and each time we go out of the front door, are greeted by a thrilling song. We would rather not have regular visits from a sparrowhawk, but we also see jays and buzzards at several village sites most days. Whilst returning from seeing our family in the south Midlands at Christmas we saw several beautiful red kites and they now seem to be spreading well across Northamptonshire & Buckinghamshire. I understand that the population in the country is now well over 2,000 birds, a welcome return from the remnant group of six birds, with only one female, to be found in mid Wales in the 1950’s. The best site to see them today is Cigrin Farm off the A470 just south of the small town of Rhayader, where about 500 red kites drop in every day at the feeding station. It is held at 2.00pm in Winter, and 3.00pm from March, but it’s a sight well worth seeing if you happen to be in the area. There are also nature trails at the Red Kite Feeding Station, and an opportunity for getting some amazing close ups of not only kites, but buzzards, ravens and other species.