A little bit of Spring... #iPhone

A quick morning out at Burton Mere. House Sparrow starting to nest & a new visitor in the house.

A quick blog post - Burton Mere.

2 pairs of Plovers
1 stunning Male Hen Harrier
1 Little Grebe
pair of Gadwalls
1 Little Egret
3 Heron
Shelducks, Wigeon, Teal, Mallards, Tufted ducks, Shovelers
Lapwing
Pintail 2 pairs
8+ Black-tailed Godwits
30+ Avocet
usual Canadian and Greylags geese, along with others.

A pair of Mediterranean Gulls thanks to Phil (Twitter: @PhilGatley) one of them was ringed, mixed in with a load of other gulls.

3 Jays, a Little Egret again and 1 very large Buzzard on the way home.



Back at home
A male House Sparrow in the garden, looks like he's starting to collect nesting material. I have been having a regular pair to the feeders this week, so hopefully there nesting around the garden/house.

Below, the regular greedy pair waiting for me to top up the feeding tray!

Also...  a new visitor in the house a large house spider I'm guessing?  I haven't hardly had a spider in the house for about two years! 

Burton area & Burton Mere: Shoveler, Avocet, Reed Buntings, Lapwing, Godwits & great weather!

Just a quick post... Yesterday we had excellent weather so I headed out for a bit to make the most of the sun and actually got to see all the Avocet people have been talking about!

32 Avocet in total.

Godwits.

Lapwing.

Greylag goose (not the one that nipped me on the arse! - FB).

Little Egret.

Quite a good number of Starlings around, these two were the only ones that would stay still!
My favourite little sighting of the day was watching the Reed Buntings. It was quite hard getting a photo with the light being so bright, but two turned out okay.

Not the best shot as they were at a distance - Shoveler, a first time seeing them at Burton.

and a few more tits... aren't they cute!

Garden birds and a "twit twoo!" or maybe "ke-wick" and "hoo-hoo-oooo" more like!

In Scotland around the lodge there was a lot of wildlife in the garden areas and on the river behind. I created a small feeding station within the first day or two then after two weeks it started to look a little crazy but it was worth it! (the owners of lodge probably thought I was more crazy!) .

I had minimum of 50 little garden birds visiting each day from day two of being there, a lot of regulars but I never get sick of seeing the little dinky ones! 

My main aim was to get a nice group of Long Tailed Tits #AFavourite - I succeeded! had minimum group of eight each day #HappyFemale.

The birds:
Blue Tit, Great Tit, Coal Tit, Chaffinch, Sparrow, Dunnock, Black Bird, Starlings, Thrushes, Long Tailed Tit, Greenfinch and Robin.

No photo's on this post of what was on the river, but had a lot of Dipper sightings, Mandarins, Goosanders, Mergansers and the odd pair of Mallards.

A LOT of Tawny Owl sightings, a few recordings but you can only hear them! I spent a lot of evenings out looking, watching (while the light lasted!) and listening to them. Saw two pairs and I could also hear a few more in the distance. 
The recordings sound ok on my phone, but not sure if you will be able to hear them well on here.

Above: a LTT rather enjoying my 'Bird Cakes', I made quite a few a long with reusing the coconut shells to make more inside them.

As well, the feeding station attracted quite a few Pheasants too! 

The next one was recorded outside the lodge, some people might of found this a pain, but I loved it! There most welcome around my house back here in Cheshire!  
The male especially, around 3/4am woke me up nearly every morning, quite a spooky sound when your kind of in the middle of nowhere!

Another quiet day around Burton Marsh

Yesterday was another quiet day a bit like Saturday, weird considering before I went to the Highlands lots was going on!
Geese all around the place and most of the usuals Coots, Moorhens, ducks :-/ but did see a few Tufted ducks that were not around on Saturday, Little Egrets, Godwits, Cormorant, Teal, two pairs of Buzzards, Chaffinches, Great Tits, Blue Tits and the usual cute rats. 

Also quiet around the Parkgate area for birds (loads of adults and kids with being off school!), was hoping for a Short Eared Owl - didn't happen! 
Hopefully some sightings next week when the place is back to being quiet with the usual birders/dog walkers.

As always a few photo's below... nothing terribly exciting!