Marton Mere (the bogey bird gets ticked) - 26th December 2009

The plan was to head over to Marton Mere to see the roosting Long Eared Owls and then walk around the mere to see what else was about. Well having only found 1 of the Owls (there have been reports of 3) and watching 2 Fieldfare feeding on the nearby apple trees and also bullying the local Blackbird population we headed around to the container hide.

ABOVE LONG EARED OWL BELOW FIELDFARE

Having counted off 120+ Teal, 4 Canada Geese and several Cormorant I saw a bird fly through my binoculars slightly out of focus. Reece shouted Bittern as it headed into the reedbed and out of view, high fives all round and finally we tick the elusive Bittern.

Birds on the mere included 2 Goldeneye, 10 Gadwall, Pochard, Tufted Duck, Coot, Water Rail, Moorhen, Common Gull, Herring Gull, Black Headed Gull, 2 Greater Black Backed Gull and Mute Swan.

ABOVE FEMALE GOLDENEYE BELOW COMMON AND BLACK HEADED GULL AND DRAKE MALLARD

Around the mere we spotted Goldfinch, Chaffinch, Robin, Wren, Long Tailed Tit, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Carrion Crow, Magpie and Redwing. We finally in ended up in the feeder hide and added Greenfinch, Pheasant, Dunnock, Coal Tit and Reed Bunting to our list for the day.

MALE REED BUNTING

Before leaving we recieved a text from Mike saying there was 20 Snow Bunting on Pendle Hill but with both cold and wet feet we decided to give the climb a miss, maybe later in the week?