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| Martin Mere Whooper swans, mallards, tufted ducks, wigeons, pochards and pintails. |
The start to this year threatened to be a copy of the last but it changed its mind at the last minute and became grey and mushy with periodic bouts of mild days and sunshine and not the same two days running. Actually, there were weeks when it would have been nice to have had the same season two days running or even, some days, two hours running. The wind in the latter half of March just hastened this dynamic with weeks starting with sunny May days and ending in sleet and snow in high places.
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| After a year of flirting in the wings ring-necked parakeets became part of the back garden avifauna in January. It was inevitable really. |
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| Mandarin ducks, Etherow Country Park I wouldn't mind these in the garden. |
It was another Winter thin on fieldfares, I saw more in one day in March than I saw all Winter. I don't know if this scarcity was because it was so relatively mild or because the berry crop was so early. Whatever the cause it didn't seem to affect the redwings nearly as much. The huge influx of Russian white-fronted geese into the country might have been hard work to connect with had a flock not tooled up at Lightshaw Meadows for a few days. Following that, a lucky bit of goosewatching on the Ribble Estuary found both Russian and Greenland white-fronts on the same day. And it was nice to finally get close-up views of a shore lark and an Iceland gull.
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| Iceland gull (front), Roundhay Park |
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| Shore lark, Mow Cop |
I added the great-tailed grackle at Speke Hall to my British List, a species that wouldn't have been on my radar in a million years. I keep toying with the idea of having another go at trying to get a photo of it.
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| Collared dove, Stretford |
The year list to date is 150, my life list 391, and British list 312. Just out of curiosity, and I must be careful not to set myself any goals on this one, I had a look at the garden list so far this year. I'm as surprised to have seen thirty-one species of birds as I am that I've only seen or heard the wren thirteen times.
I've pottered about a bit but most of the effort so far as been Western Greater Manchester, Warrington, West Lancashire and Wirral. The pattern is entirely unintentional.
- Cheshire & Wirral 99 species
- Cumbria 44
- Denbighshire 29
- Derbyshire 29
- Flintshire 25
- Greater Manchester 95
- Lancashire & North Merseyside 122
- Staffordshire 20
- Yorkshire 40
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| Leasowe Common |
Despite the early arrivals of sand martins and swallows I've yet to see any. It'll come. The Spring passage has only just begun, I'll need to keep reminding myself not to go chasing here, there and everywhere to keep up with it. One can get so busy drooling at the sweetshop window as to forget to buy any sweets.
