Home thoughts

Today's plans were derailed completely by some other stuff that needed sorting urgently. Possibly just as well as after an evening of to-ing and fro-ing and a bad night's sleep I had eyes like peepholes in the snow.

I've completely refilled all the feeders so the spadgers kept out of the garden just to make the point that I shouldn't have let them run down in the first place. Which, of course, gave a free hand to all the titmice to come in and have first dibs at the mealworms and suet balls. Hunger eventually overrode pride and the spadgers bustled in, only to be elbowed aside by half a dozen starlings. Luckily for all concerned starlings are such messy eaters that there was plenty enough food on the ground for everyone to get their share.

I walked into Urmston to do a shop for my dad, taking the route that goes past the allotments so I could see what was about. Dozens of starlings sat in the tops of the trees by the roadside, a few of them getting in some singing practice. The robins were very vocal and a couple of goldfinches were singing in the alders at the corner of the allotments. A bit of unseasonal cherry blossom and bright sunshine underlined how mild the day was, though the cold, frosty nights are a reminder that it's not Spring yet.

One of the emails in my inbox was from the BirdTrack organisers, providing a summary of my reporting on there in 2021. A lot I already knew from looking at the "Explore" function on the website but it was interesting to see that 12th April was my best birdwatching day, seeing 73 species. That was my first post-lockdown visit to Southport. After giving Marshside and Crossens a good looking over I'd gone down to Ainsdale on a whim and had a wander round the woods on Ainsdale Dunes and added a dusky warbler to my life list. Predictably, Marshside was my most productive site (85 species), it's usually a toss-up between there and Martin Mere and I spent the first half of the year limited to walking round the outside of Martin Mere.

I'm surprised there were only another 47 days where I recorded more than fifty species, though. I hadn't realised I'd recorded 40 species from home, a reminder that I could do with keeping a better eye on my garden list.

I've been consciously trying to make sure I covered as many 1km squares in Greater Manchester as possible, to fill in the gaps in coverage in the urban and suburban areas between popular birdwatching sites. I was surprised to find I'm the only person to have submitted any data for one 10km square, SD08, which happens to be the square including the Cumbrian coastline around Bootle Station. Just shows the worth of recording what you see from the train.