January 20-28 2007
A week back in the UK allowed us to see family and old friends and I managed a little birding in familiar spots. Unfortunately the British Airways proposed strike meant that we had to lop a day off the trip so we squashed into the cattle class seats a day early having missed a few people that we had hoped to drop in on.
That aside the weather was quite pleasant throughout and we saw 101 species. If you are a UK reader of this blog the species illustrated won’t interest you but North American readers might find them interesting.
Our first base was Preston and I visited Leighton Moss for an afternoon, and we decreased the average age of the strollers on Lytham St Anne’s seafront by several years and enjoyed some casual birding there but no cup of tea at the open all year’ tea shop.
On the way south we visited Martin Mere and watched them feed the Whooper Swans, which, under the terms of wildfowl records, are presumably all of unknown origin due to tameness.
Resisting the temptation to detour for an American Robin (a gap in my British list) we spent a few days in Nottinghamshire and birded my old patch Colwick and did a bit at Rufford Park and the wolds around Southwell.
I’m still having problems with captions but I’ll try, lots of common birds but I like them.
Black-headed Gull
2cy European Herring Gull
Ruddy Turnstone
Jackdaw
Red Knot
Eurasian Oystercatcher
Common Shelduck
Northern Pintail
Northern Lapwing
Whooper Swan
Mute Swan
A little bit of glamour, an inscrutable Mandarin
Tufted Duck
Male Red-crested Pochard
Male Common Pheasant
An old friend, a Lesser Black-backed Gull, (intermedius) ringed in 1999.
Common Gull of the nominate race.
Great Cormorant probably sinensis.
Eurasian Treecreeper
Rook
Eurasian Robin (a real robin!)
Great Tit
Blue Tit
A black Blackbird
And a white Blackbird but not an albino, no pink eyes.
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