26 January 2012

Strange morning weather wise, during the night I'd heard the rain falling quite heavy and the stream was certainly higher than usual, but walking around especially in the nature reserve there was also a slight ground frost, it was a bright sunny day with a slight SSE breeze, temp 4c but felt a bit cooler, visit from 08.00 til 09.45.

2 Mistle Thrushes were by the bottom entrance and later I had another 2 by the top entrance, 3 male Goosanders were on the boating lake and were soon joined by 2 females, also on here 4 Mute Swans plus the usual 4 on the main lake and a summer plumage Great Crested Grebe plus 1 on the main lake, a couple of Willow Tits were along the sidings plus 1 in the nature reserve and 18 Siskins were feeding around the sidings with a Greenfinch and a couple of Chaffinches, on the main lake, 16 Pochard, 31 Tufted Duck, 3 Goldeneye and a Herring Gull.

Poss one of last years returning Grebe to the boating lake

In the nature reserve another couple of Chaffinches and a Jay by the top pool, on the gas works 2 Stock Doves and 2 Redwings and finally as I walked back along the canal side of the main lake a single Jackdaw flew over which is another Westport year tick out of the way.

Early afternoon and I received a call from Nick asking if I fancied a trip down too Sandbach Flashes where the Glossy Ibis was showing again earlier in the morning, having been for this bird once and been given the run around (literally) I decided to give it another go, and I'm glad I did, on first arrival at Elton Hall Flash there was no sign, good numbers of Lapwing, Wigeon and Teal but no Ibis, we headed up to the Pumphouse Flash when a lady informed George that the Ibis was on the opposite side of the road in a flooded field, we headed straight off and couldn't believe our luck as we picked the Ibis up straight away walking along the edge of the flooded field right by the fence about 20 yards away from us.
Happy with our fill we went up to Pumphouse Flash were there were good numbers of Gulls, including a Iceland Gull and several Great Black-backed Gulls, in the field opposite were 25 Curlews.
The Glossy Ibis was a British tick for myself putting me on 355, and already my 3rd tick of the year, hopefully the year will carry on like this and I'll get closer to the magic 400 mark, how different things could of been if I hadn't of had a 15 year break from birding!!

Also this afternoon at Westport, Jeff & Nick met a couple of other birders who had just seen a Warbler Sp along the sidings (model boating lake side), nick had a good luck but sadly no sign, so keep your eyes peeled you never know what's down there.