Martin Mere 13-04-09

With the bank holiday sunshine continuing for a change, we decided to take a trip up to Martin Mere for the afternoon. Checked the recent sightings on their website and the various warblers took our interest as some we haven’t seen before and the need to brush up on the ability to ID them.
First we checked in at the Infocus shop to see what had been seen and we soon added Crossbill, Restart and the nesting Kingfishers to our ‘What to look out for’ list.

Showing well from the shop were 40+ Avocet as well as a single Ringed Plover on one of the islands.
Next we headed down to the Ron Barker hide looking for the reported Crossbill but as usual unable to find any sign of it. Sightings from the hide included the male Kingfisher from the nesting pair, Black Tailed Godwit, 3 Ringed Plover, Redshank, 2 Teal (male & female) and Shellduck.

Heading back we around towards the UU hide we saw the usual array of Finches, Tits, and Tree Sparrow which seem to do well here. Also Song Thrush and plenty of Pheasant milling around amongst the bushes surrounding the paths, no sign of the warblers or Redstart though, maybe we should have visited in the morning (early bird and all that).

From the UU hide we sighted Greylag and Pink Footed Geese, Heron, Oyster Catcher, Reed Bunting, and a single Hare resting in the sun (for at least 15 minutes a guy who was trying photograph it told me).

Walking the dogs up at Stags Lodge (the Bamber Bridge end of Cuerden Valley Park) I noticed there’s an early (5 am) walk with a local birdwatcher on the 26th April. I might drag myself out of bed if only to try and increase the species number I see there.