A cold trip to Hilbre

A dark and frosty morning saw the team braving the cold with the promise of copious quantities of tea and mince pies! As the sun rose it became apparent the day was going to be beautifully sunny but bitterly cold. This was reflected in the bird sightings with a presumably cold weather movement of Pinkfeets overt he island with flocks appearing throughout the morning.

Several Wigeon were also logged and the now semi-residnet flock of 4 Eider were present off the north end.

This small group have been around for awhile and its rare to have them for so long off Hilbre. With the population on Puffin Island Increasing perhaps these birds are from there rather than Walney island? Either way it would be nice if they eventually stayed to breed.

As well as the resident Brent Geese we also had four flyover Greylags. Star billing, however, went to nine Whooper Swans that appeared from the east before landing on the sea off the West Hoyle bank for awhile and then flying west towards Gronant where they were picked up again and tracked past Llandullas all the way across to the Alaw reservoir on Anglesea.

The first birds of the year were caught and ringed with a Blackbird and Song Thrush being trapped in the heli trap and duly ringed by trainee Thomas.

With the visitor numbers arriving from West Kirby increasing we packed up and left around 11.00 and I was home for 12.00. With the rest of the family out for the day I decided to go for a walk around the lanes to see what species  I could find for the New Year patch list. An hour later I'd added three new species - Bullfinch, Stock Dove & Nuthatch but failed to find Woodcock along the railway embankment where I'd seen them previously. A cold day turned into a cold evening and a beautiful sunset with Moel Famua bathed in a golden light as the slid behind the hills.

Happy New Year and a review of the 2017.

Well 2017 ended with a bit of a whimper with a household full of flu!
2017 was our first full year in our new house and my first year birding a new patch. With 102 species being recorded its looking pretty good! 100 of those species have been recorded from the house with only Kingfisher and Barn Owl being logged elsewhere in the village. One of the undoubted highlights has been the resident pair of Little Owls followed closely by a pair of Hobbies that spent a couple of weeks displaying before moving off elsewhere to breed.

Our annual jaunt to the northern isles again took us to Fair Isle where, although we didn't find any major rarities this year, the sheer grandeur of the place and the spectacle of migration made it a memorable trip.

As far as county ticks I managed only one this year - Pallid Harrier.  Blue Rock Thrush was the first addition of 2017 to my British list followed by Western Swamphen (after the Minsmere bird we saw in 2016 was accepted). I had to wait until the autumn to catch up with another - Cedar Waxwing on St Agnes where we had a memorable day trip that included Cliff Swallow and Isabelline Wheatear as well as the Waxwing!

See here for a trip report.

Hilbre has had to take a backseat this year due to other commitments and I didn't get across to the island as much as I would have liked. I did manage to get out for most of the SCAN trips to N Wales and Puffin Island as well as a memorable trip to Formby to catch and colour flag Knot.

Cold weather movements.

We've had the coldest spell of weather for several winters. Temperatures have been below freezing in our part of Cheshire with snow and sleet falling as a result of storm Caroline passing directly over the UK and sucking down cold arctic air.

The cold weather has resulted in a big increase in the numbers of winter thrushes and starlings feeding in the field opposite the house. A nice surprise came yesterday in the form of a small flock of Snipe that had presumably moved from somewhere colder and spent the day feeding around the edges of the flooded pond.

I counted 9 in total but there may have been more hidden away. This is only the 2nd sighting of Snipe I've had since we moved in last December and the last bird was in the spring.

Number 97. Redshank

Following on from the recent Dunlin the wet field opposite the house has now attracted species No. 97 for the house and garden list. With the field being full of gulls after having farm yard muck spread on it I've been checking through them on a regular basis all weekend.  Friday afternoon I spotted this Redshank feeding around the edge of the pond and it remained all weekend.  Photographed at extreme range through the telescope- probably about 400 m!

Fieldfares

Its great when a plan comes together. When we first moved into our new house I was keen to attract some winter thrushes into the garden by leaving the windfall apples from our very old and gnarled trees on the ground. last year our builder asked if he could take some for his pigs and ended up taking the lot so no thrushes!  This year I've been collecting them in buckets (to stop my son & daughter in laws labrador puppy eating them!) and have been spreading a few around - its worked. We've had a few Blackbirds and Redwings feasting and at the weekend a couple of Fieldfares dropped in.

They were extremely aggressive towards the other birds and very protective of 'their' apple. They were also extremely wary and it took an hours wait  in the wet and cold, crouched down behind a wall, to get these photo's.

Caw. Will you rook at that!

One of the benefits of our new home is, being in the country and surrounded by pasture, we get to see lots more Rooks. They really aren't the most attractive of birds but in sunshine their iridescent plumage is stunning. We've been getting a lot coming to pick up grit off the lane in front of the house. They're usually very shy and as soon as you open a window and point a camera out they're off. Today  I persevered and got these shots.

Theres also a large flock of Jackdaws including one that looks good for an eastern race bird with a large white collar. It didn't stick around but hopefully it'll come back and I'll manage some kind of photo.

Hawfinch.

There's been a massive influx of Hawfinches into the UK this autumn and Cheshire has had its fair share with flocks of up to a dozen being reported. Everyone around me seemed to be adding Hawfinch to their patch lists but despite many hours diligently searching the skies and with my ears tuned in there wasn't even a sniff!

With a family wedding Saturday, at which I was best man, there wasn't going to be anytime to continue the hunt this weekend! Sitting in bed at 6.45 am Saturday morning, with a mug of tea and browsing the news on the iPad before contemplating cooking scrambled eggs and smoked salmon for the bride-to-be and chief bridesmaids breakfast, I heard a familiar call. Jan nearly spilt her tea as I yelled 'Hawfinch' and leapt to the window. There it was sat at the top of a black poplar tree in our back garden! Grabbing the handily placed binoculars I watched it calling softly to itself before rushing to grab the camera for a record shot........ It flew whilst I was out the room.

This was only my 2nd Hawfinch in Cheshire following a showy bird at Marbury Country Park in January 2009 - see here

We had a couple more garden visitors that did actually stay long enough for a photo.