Wanderings in the Strangest Summer. Tittesworth Reservoir, 21st June 2020

 I accepted Natty's kind offer of a lift up to Severn-Trent's Staffordshire reservoir at Tittesworth, in the shadow of the Roaches, and was surprised to find the site heaving with people and their dogs, running everywhere including the foreshore, putting up the waders, including a small crowd of Oystercatchers, surprised and confused at their previously quiet habitat suddenly robbed from them. 
The woods were relatively quiet, and I escaped the throng as I walked away from the Visitor Centre. The carefully managed Wild Flower meadows were alive with meadow browns and Small Tortoiseshells, flying among the ox-eye daisies and the Orchids, and they were a beautiful sight in the sunshine.

Small Tortoiseshell, photographed in 2015. Diving into the archive to illustrate these as I was still waiting for my new camera. 

Most of the avian interest was to be found on the Western side of the Reservoir, where a patchwork landscape of copses and scrub, fringed by fenced off farmland, dominates. A disheveled and unwell-looking Willow Tit adult fed a noisy fledgling. According to the Collins, Willow Tit fledgelings produce loud begging calls, while the near-indistinguishable Marsh Tit is near silent in its youth.  The Willow Tit is a fast declining bird and it was sad to see the adult in such an unfortunate state, showing severe feather loss and the suggestion of avian pox around its face. I hope it survived long enough to see the youngster to independence and the disease was not transmitted between the two of them, as this charming little species needs all the breeding success it can get. 

A beautiful Little Ringed Plover scuttled back and forth beside the water's edge, and Common Terns fished gracefully. The banks were alive with midsummer flowers, foxgloves and Ragged Robin. 
I reconnected with Natalie and we paused a while on the Bridge, and watched a Common Sandpiper probing about in the mud, possibly a returning migrant. A distinctive shape, like an obese torpedo on hummingbird wings, a Kingfisher whirred by, as the Terns continued fishing in the open water.

A Kingfisher photographed in Suffolk in January 2020. 

Birds Seen: Canada Goose, Mallard, Tufted Duck, Great Crested Grebe, Grey Heron, Cormorant, Oystercatcher, Lapwing, Little Ringed Plover, Common Sandpiper, Black Headed Gull, Common Tern, Swift, Kingfisher, Magpie, Carrion Crow, Coal Tit + Fl, Willow Tit +Fl, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Swallow, Long Tailed Tit, Chiffchaff, Blackcap, Garden Warbler, Goldcrest, Wren, Blackbird, Song Thrush, Robin, House Sparrow, Pied Wagtail, Chaffinch, Goldfinch. 

Butterflies: Meadow Brown, Small Tortoiseshell, Green Veined White, Red Admiral. 

Lockdown Walks, a Retrospective.

 6th May 2020

I took a brief afternoon stroll in Stoney Wood, the little local greenspace in a disused quarry I have visited many times, for an informal bird and butterfly survey. Here I witnessed predation, nature, in all its shocking glory. 

The prey, fast, agile, and undeniably beautifully marked, was flying at treetop height, and clearly very aware of the danger it was in, jinked and turned aerobatically, in a desperate attempt to escape the snapping mandibles. The predator, faster, but not as agile, hung briefly in mid air, before locking on again with its sharp vision, darted and snapped again, and missed again. They prey had almost reached cover, but changed direction, and this loss of speed afforded the predator another chance, and this time, with an audible snap, the sharp bill found its mark. The Spotted Flycatcher returned to its perch in the scrub with the Peacock Butterfly flapping desperately in its tight grip. The bird struck the insect against a branch several times, until the manic struggling ceased. Then it shook its head violently, and the four jewelled wings of the butterfly fluttered to the ground like falling leaves, and the bird devoured the body, a small, sad morsel but of course a substantial meal to the tiny bird. 

Peacock Butterfly. Not the one in this story but one in Cambridgeshire in August.

This horror aside, the weather was still glorious and there were plenty of butterflies on the wing, including several Dingy Skipper, and Robins, Whitethroats and Willow Warblers, insect killers all, sang melodiously to the summer sky. 

Birds Seen: Black Headed Gull, Stock Dove, Woodpigeon, Swift, Jackdaw, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff, Whitethroat, Blackbird, Spotted Flycatcher*, Dunnock, Goldfinch. 

Butterflies: Orange Tip, Peacock (alive and dead) Green Veined White, Dingy Skipper. 

Orange Tip Butterfly near Kirk Ireton.

8th May 2020

 Wirksworth to Carsington via Kirk Ireton

I strolled along footpaths from Summer Lane, where the housing on the Southern fringe of Wirksworth gives way to farmland. I crossed the open fields and climbed up to half moon lane, which was quiet and offered beautiful views over the Ecclesbourne Valley. The roadside vegetation was well grown and butterfly infested. A Sparrowhawk soared as racing pigeons took their daily exercise from someone's loft. Swallows and Martins wheeled above a farmyard. I arrived in Kirk Ireton, and was surprised to find the human population out and about, celebrating VE day in the streets, a dose of normality, but still a surprise. 

After a couple of wrong turns, I think I had been aiming for the Trig Point called The Mountain, I found myself unexpectedly stood beside Carsington Water, not far from the Millfields car park. A beautiful Garden Warbler sang on the Hawthorn, and the Black Headed Gull colony was typically noisy. A few Lapwings and a single Redshank waded in the shallows. A pair of feral Barnacle Geese were on the gull colony island and one appeared to be incubating.  Long Tailed Tits foraged in the shrubs, gathing beakfulls of insects for their waiting chicks.

Long Tailed Tit at Carsington Water. 

I returned via Kirk Ireton once again, through sunny fields full of butterflies and horses, and filled my empty water bottle with takeaway beers from the pub there. I sat in a field on the way back and raised a glass to the men and women of 1945.

Garden Warbler at Carsington Water

Returning in near darkness I saw hares close to where the footpath crosses the Alderwasley Hall School site. The vegetation here was a sad sight, the farmer appeared to have sprayed herbicide on nearly everything, and wildflowers and nettles alike drooped forlornly. I crossed the Ecclesbourne Brook and returned to Wirksworth through Miller's Green. A pond, signposted as a fishery, beside the road reminded me how I was still discovering this town, I had not known it existed. 

Birds Seen: Canada Goose, Barnacle Goose, Greylag Goose, Gadwall, Mallard, Tufted Duck, Pheasant, Great Crested Grebe, Sparrowhawk, Moorhen, Coot, Lapwing, Redshank, Black-Headed Gull, Lesser Black Backed Gull, Swift, Stock Dove, Woodpigeon, Collared Dove, Magpie, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Swallow, House Martin, Long Tailed Tit, Chiffchaff, Blackcap, Garden Warbler, Whitethroat, Blackbird, Mistle Thrush, Robin, Pied Wagtail, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Goldfinch. 

Butterflies seen: Green Veined White, Orange Tip, Speckled Wood, Red Admiral, Small Tortoiseshell, Peacock. 

Mammals Seen: Rabbit, Brown Hare. 

Stonechats

One of the signs of Autumn down at my local RSPB reserve is the arrival of the Stonechats. Related to the Robins and Redstarts, these charming little denizens of the open countryside descend on the marshes fringing the Thames estuary from their breeding habitats on higher ground, perhaps on the continent or in upland western Britain.  Their harsh calls, reminiscent of two flints being struck together may give them their name, although the generic  Saxicola comes from a latin root meaning “stone dweller”, perhaps referring to the often rocky moorland and heathland habitats on which they breed. They are also among the only insectivorous birds to spend the winter in Great Britain, supplementing their diet with seeds, berries and molluscs. A hard winter can be devastating, causing very high juvenile mortality and knocking back populations hard. Some individuals in the British breeding population are migratory but they do not go further than the Mediterranean. Other populations, such as those in Siberia, are much longer distance migrants, and wintering populations are found in sub-Saharan Africa and in India, though some in Britain are thought to be near sedentary.  These sedentary birds get to begin their breeding season early, in March or April, typically sitting on eggs or feeding chicks when their nearest relative in Britain, the Whinchat (S. rubetra) is still making its way back from Africa, and can raise 3-4 broods compared to the Whinchat’s average of one. While migration presents its own challenges, there is a cost to its long distance travel in breeding opportunity.  Unlike long range migrants, the Stonechats in Britain also look set to gain from climatic change, as winters become milder.

Pair of Stonechats at Purfleet Marshes.

Stonechat numbers at RSPB Rainham Marshes, as it is known to the RSPB, or Purfleet Marshes as it is known to everyone else, begin to rise in September. These birds are often accompanied by Whinchats, similar but distinguished by their more slender shape and bold pale supercillium.  The Whinchats are gone by the time the winter sets in, down to Subsaharan Africa like so many British-breeding insectivorous birds, but Stonechats however must tough it out. They are related to Robins and share many of their relatives’ charm, and are often very confiding and will allow people to get quite close, and get good views. They are striking, even in winter when their fresh plumage is duller, before it wears down to reveal its breeding finery. The male has an orange breast, and near black upperparts with a white partial collar around his neck, and white wing markings.  I met a pair last weekend at the reserve, perched on the dry, upright remains of an umbelliferous plant, against a grey and forbidding sky.  They tolerated my slow approach, even when I was concerned I had flushed the female from her perch she had simply taken off to snatch an insect out of the air, and returned to it.  Somewhat romantically, stonechats, like some other species, typically move in pairs throughout the year.   Eventually she dropped down into the reeds as I walked by, although she rose occasionally to hover and seize passing insect, taking advantage of the continuing mild spell which allows these creatures to remain on the wing. Her mate eventually followed.

Walking on a moor near Bakewell in Derbyshire with my partner in the last days of October, tenacious Stonechats were still present, and are likely to remain so through the winter.  The moors are sparse, the vegetation faded to the colour of a red grouse, though a few small insects were flying around boggy patches. Wild animals were few and far between, Meadow Pipits were present in ones and twos, and a predatory Merlin flew over us, but a gaze across the damp and dead vegetation would typically reveal only sheep. The wind was cold, and as the winter progresses it will only get colder.  One handsome male perched on emergent fronds of dry bracken as Red Grouse flew out of the heather around them, watching us, calm and confiding as a garden robin.   He may spend the winter up here, or perhaps move down to open spaces such as wetlands at lower altitudes, but he, a tiny insectivore, will not be visiting gardens or attending feeders like his relatives from the Christmas card, he will be out here, toughing it out.

Male Stonechat at Purfleet Marshes

The War on Wildlife I

*I wrote this blog in May, but did not publish for some reason A few tweaks have been made, and better late than never, perhaps.*

In another chapter of their ongoing bid to cement their position as real-life pantomime villains, the Conservative government in their wisdom to consulted in May on the legalisation of the destruction of Robin (Erithacus rubecula) Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) and Pied Wagtail (Motacilla alba) nests and the killing of their eggs, which is currently a criminal offence under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. Now, I dislike Tory ideology intensely; I make no claims of political neutrality. Under current plans, the eggs and nests of these much-loved species will be added to the General Licence, essentially a list of agricultural pests and invasive species that farmers and other land managers feel it necessary to control.  There is no suggestion that such unobtrusive and much loved birds as the gardener’s friend the Robin are pests, so the decision remains a mysterious one.   However this suggestion has come directly from the statutory body responsible for delivering Nature Conservation in England, the logically named “Natural England.”  Intriguingly, unlike tough decisions made by Natural England in the past, such as the deeply troubling decision to licence the destruction of Buzzard nests on a pheasant farm, made under the threat of the funding axe and of judicial review from the powerful game shooting lobby, and still an admission of weakness, the legalised Robin-killing was offered apparently voluntarily; there was no public call to be allowed to destroy robins nests, no clear source of external pressure, Natural England simply offered the helpful suggestion that it “would not have appreciable conservation impacts."

Our unofficial national bird, a target for the Tories.

In the interests of proportion, the consultation ideas could indeed be worse; they also propose to remove the Jay (Garrulus glandarius) from the General Licence, as it is seldom cited as an important agricultural pest, and also to offer some protection to Atlantic Herring and Lesser Black Backed Gulls (Larus argentatus and L. fuscus respectively), both declining species endemic to North Western Europe.  They suggest that Robin and Pied Wagtail nests may present a hazard to human health if they occur in air vents, for instance, yet do not propose similar measures for hole nesters such as Blue and Great tits, though their nests occasionally raise the same issues, and one hopes this distinction is made the basis of an understanding of their ecology.  A lost nest, though a considerable blow, will not necessarily rule the parents out of the gene pool, Robins breed more than once a year and can live for several years.  Blue and Great tits make a single annual nesting attempt and seldom live far beyond 18 months.   However the potential for worse moves does not validate these awful ones, and I’m going to stop with them lest our malevolent rulers get wind and put them in the next consultation.

The declining Starling, the target of politically motivated persecution.

The reason for this strange proposal probably lies in the unusual choice of Natural England chair, as identified in an excellent blog post at Pride’s Purge (http://tompride.wordpress.com/2014/05/18/heres-the-real-reason-the-tories-are-allowing-the-destruction-of-robin-eggs-and-nests/ accessed 29/05/2014) Andrew Sells is not an ecologist, he is an accountant and entrepreneur, who includes major development companies in his portfolio.  He is also a major Tory donor, having given over £100000 to the party.  It is easy for one to suspect he may have bought his position with Natural England, despite repetitious denials from the government, and he certainly appears to be exploiting it.  Adaptable Robins and Pied Wagtails, and unfussy hole-nesting Starlings can often present problems for development companies, as their presence can hold up developments when they are scheduled for the Spring, as work must, of course, stop when nests are found, necessitating brief postponements.  All three birds are adept at exploiting the nesting opportunities provided by brownfield sites, utilising cavities in abandoned buildings or industrial apparatus, or hiding their nests in developing scrub. Pied Wagtails frequently roost in town centres and can eke out a living picking invertebrates out from between paving slabs. Now Brownfield sites are valuable to developers, and this change could free developers from some of the shackles of basic environmental responsibility and compassion.  While the consultation does not explicitly allow the removal of nests in the interests of development- they can only, in theory, be destroyed when human health is threatened-it does make it markedly easier for any company to break the rules.  Nests are currently occasionally removed or destroyed in the interests of human health; doing so is a licensable activity, and some licences applied for are granted.  The government, already has a licensing system which does not appear gravely dysfunctional, licensing some but not all nest removals.   If successful in implementing these proposals, there will be no need for any such application, no reporting procedure, no monitoring of the number of nests destroyed, and an assumption by the law enforcement agencies that nest destruction is legal.    These changes will clearly make breaking the law much easier for developers, like the business owned by the chair of Natural England. Despite their claims to the contrary, Natural England and Andrew Sells know this is the case. Indeed, it all smells a lot like a clever ruse by the government and its stooges.

This is actually a White Wagtail. It's okay, because it lives outside Natural England's jurisdiction.

 Combined with the badger cull, shamefully recommencing as I type, and the government’s decision to continue subsidising recreational shooting, most of the cost of the shotgun licencing system, for example, is met from the public purse, at the Prime Minister’s personal insistence, during such times as we are told we cannot afford the most basic of public services or the weakest environmental standards, and at whatever cost to our moorlands, mammalian predators and birds of prey, the government certainly appears to be waging a war on wildlife. It is relaxing the planning laws, promoting fracking, known to have caused serious water pollution in the USA, and disempowering conservation bodies, replacing their informed leaders with accountants and venture capitalists, and it wants to legalise the slaughter of Robins. The greenest government ever has revealed itself to be an ecological pantomime villain.

Martin Mere 12th January 2013

A bright winters day and an exam behind me, a new year with few opportunities to get out,  today it was time to go birding again. With friends from Lancaster I drove down the M6 to the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust reserve at Martin Mere near Southport, on the Lancashire Coastal Plain, about forty minutes South of Lancaster.  In stark contrast to the terrain up here, the area is disconcerting flat, a landscape at odds with my previous experience of this county. At the time of my last visit back on October I had been impressed with the site in general, but a little disappointed not to find the huge numbers of swans associated with other sites in the area. As we drove down narrow but appropriately named “Curlew Way,” a single track road through the flat country which represents one of the approaches to the site, we saw a number of swans grazing beside the road.

Drake Pintail

We arrived just after 11, and made our way through the wooden visitors centre and into the “duck zoo” area. At many of its Wetlands Centre the Trust manages a collection of wildfowl and other creatures from the wetlands of the world, and Martin Mere is  no exception. The flamingos were beautiful to look at, as were the eider with which they rather inexplicably shared a pond, the latter cooing contentedly. A few Whooper Swans seemed to have ventured into the duck zoo as well, and it was these which were to be rather the stars of the day.

Whooper Swans and Greylag Goose.

We made our way through the heavy metal gates and leaving the domesticated waterfowl behind us made our way to the Raines Observatory, one of several wooden hides overlooking the lake and reed beds. The sheer density of wild waterfowl was impressive, and “never seen so many birds in one place in my life” comments were overheard. The ground in front of the hide was muddy, disturbed by the big feet of the Whooper Swans (Cygnus cygnus) and Greylag Geese (Anser anser) both of which were present in dozens. On the shore ran Ruffs (Philomachus pugnax), smart wintering waders enjoying the relatively benign conditions of the Mere, while their breeding sites on the continent become uninhabitable.  A couple of Lapwings (Vanellus vanellus) whistled and flew their big, sweeping display flights, on their distinctive broad wings over the water. In the water were a number of handsome drake Pintail (Anas acuta) with chocolate brown heads and white neck flashes, large, only subtly smaller than the Mallards (A. platyrynchos) but far more slender and elegant than their more abundant relative, with sharply pointed tails in both sexes, the drake’s sharp, black tail quill giving the species its name.  Teal, widgeon and shelduck were also here among the ducks. In the distance skeins of pink-footed geese flew in and alighted on the fields adjacent to the reserve.  It was an overheard comment about a Green-Winged Teal being seen from the Ron Barker hide which spurred us on to move.  Enquiries revealed the bird had been sitting on an outflow pipe “right in front of” the Ron Barker hide.

Ruff with drake Teal (r) and Pintail (l) behind

Wandering on down the path toward the Ron Barker Hide, named for an early supporter and friend of Sir Peter Scott, founder of the WWT, we came to a split in the path, and of course followed the spur which led us through some promising looking scrub woodland. A mixed flock of passerines above us had my attetion. Identifying birds from immediately below as they forage for seeds in the alders was something of a challenge, but as one of the birds turned to extract some seeds from a choice catkin it revealed a chestnut crown and a black cheek marking that was distinctive. A tree sparrow! A lovely bird and a year tick. Some people passing us seemed intrigued by what we’d found, only to walk away uninterested when we said it was a Tree Sparrow. Having, not so long ago, expected to travel to Dungeness to see this charming species, a close relative of the more familiar house sparrow, I was rather surprised by their indifference. Perhaps they’d been to Eastern Asia where it is far more common.   The tree sparrow was accompanied by chaffinches and a couple of goldfinches, which busied themselves feeding on the alder trees.

Pintail pair (front) and Widgeon pair (back)

We reached the Ron Barker hide, and looked out over the open expanse of wetland. There were several Teal about, and a scruffy individual swimming in the ditch immediately outside the hide briefly caught my attention.  It turned out to be just that as a couple beside us had found the Green Winged Teal (Anas carolinensis) sitting on an outflow pipe as described, well out of the range of binoculars. They let us have a glance through their telescope, and although not terribly distinctive, the vertical white line on its flank, and the absence of a horizontal one, was clear to see. This American bird had presumably been blown of course during a flight down the Eastern seaboard of the United States, and, reluctantly, one imagines, became one of the handful of birds to cross the Atlantic to Britain every year. We would, I admit, never have found it without the help of the couple with the scope, but what a lovely bird! The white line is something I’d think to look for, scanning through flocks of teal with the bins for it, but this bird is a first. It was far too distant for a photo, but it is memorable. 

As we sat in the Ron Barker hide we saw the distant flocks of pink feet moving again, and watched a Grey Heron fly along the length of a small channel cut into the grassland in front of us, spooking several Teal (Anas creccia) and Widgeon (Anas penelope) into making brief flights. We took lunch and watched a Little Grebe diving about in the drainage channel. Gadwall and  Shoveller seemed curiously conspicuous by their absence.

View of Martin Mere

From the Ron Barker we went into the Kingfisher hide, a pill-box like, reinforced-looking structure, which offers panoramic views of the wide, flat landscape and the Marshes. Once the largest body of freshwater in Lancashire, prior to several drainage attempts for agriculture, a shared history with many of Europe’s wetlands, the lake and surrounding marshland still looks huge from here. There were noisy finches in the trees behind the concrete hide, but a scan through the flock revealed them to be composed of common greenfinches and chaffinches, scarcer finches absent, surprising given the sites’ tree sparrows and the richness of other wet woodlands nearby. Perhaps it lacks the continuity and large area of similar woodlands in Lancashire. A large bird of prey sitting on a fence turned out to be a Buzzard. It sat calmly on the fence, apparently uninterested in the cluster of brave or foolhardy teal and mallard which swam in a pool beside it.  Sometimes these dramatic birds will take up perches like this to hunt for worms, looking for movement in the mud or grassland beneath. It is an effective strategy, Buzzards in Holland are thought to thrive on worms, although phrases like “reduced to hunting worms,” an anthropomorphism, are forgivable when considering the majesty of raptors like this when they are more commonly encountered, doing things like soaring over open moorland.

Asian Short Clawed Otter

We headed into the Duck Zoo for the inevitable cooing over otters experience. The Kits had grown since my last visit, and were as big as their parents. They came trooping over for the whitebait one of the guides threw them. Again we were advised to swim in the Amazon with the huge and highly territorial Giant River Otters which feed on Piranhas in it. Someone should probably advise the enthusiastic and otherwise well-informed volunteer of the folly in this before some young traveller sues him for a lost arm.  The Asian Short Clawed otters here had none of their South American relative’s menace and elicited the inevitable cooing noises that only otters can generate. The otter feed takes place only half an hour before the wild swan feed. Having encountered this at the WWT’s site at Welney on the Cambridgeshire/Suffolk/Norfolk border, down South, I was keen to see it again. What awaited us when we reached the Swan Link hide was impressive, and indeed somewhat breathtaking. Hundreds of the big white adult Whooper Swans with their black and yellow beaks, plus a handful of greyer Juveniles, with paler beaks, were waiting eagerly on and by the lake shore. There were greylags, more Pintails than one could shake a stick at, Mallards, a few of the feral farmyard type, Teal and Widgeon, but the swans! It is an experience well worth the WWT entrance fare and a fine demonstration of what a good cause it goes to. These birds had flown in from Iceland, where they breed, for the winter, in their family groups, and now they were gathered, spectacularly, just feet away from us.  A man walking down with a wheelbarrow signalled the beginning of the feeding frenzy. He walked along the muddy shore and scattered grain for the hungry and expectant waterfowl. Ducks scurried about the feet of the swans grabbing what they could and trying to avoid the hard beaks of the Whoopers, which would deliver a sharp peck if the ducks came close. The Ruffs, uninterested in the food, just scurried about bemused by the activity around them.  The swans and ducks plumage was soon muddy from the churned, wet earth. Shelducks seemed to have adopted a habit of flying over the swans, grabbing a few unattended seeds, and then flying back over the swans before they were noticed.  The smaller species seemed more vulnerable to getting a sharp peck from one of the aggressive swans. As the man passed by and the seeds had largely been filtered from the mud by broad beaks of various sizes, a calm descended. We took the opportunity to have a look at some distant Cormorants (Phalacrocorax carbo) through someone’s scope, one of them was already developing the white markings on the neck which marked it as a subspecies sinensis, more typical of central and southern Europe than Lancashire. Another which appeared to be a juvenile held its wings spread to dry its feathers in the wind.  

Swans waiting to be fed.

Shelduck.

 

Despite the beauty and spectacle of the densely birded Wild Side, we decided to check out a little more of the duck zoo.  Although it has never truly caught my imagination I was encouraged by the interest among my friends that the global waterfowl collection seemed to generate. We saw a Black Swan, handsome American Buffleheads, and stunning Mandarin and Carolina Wood Ducks from China and the USA respectively. It would of course have been far more exciting to encounter these species as vagrants on the wild side, but they were pretty and I suppose the educational value in showing people the world’s wetlands, and telling them about the threats they face cannot be bad. Nonetheless after a no-show, again, from the WWT’s elusive Beavers, we went back out to the wild side and down to the smart, elegantly carved “Harrier Hide” which overlooks some wetland recently reclaimed from agriculture for wetland wildlife, its drainage reversed. I’d hoped for a Marsh Harrier, or a Short Eared Owl quartering over the reeds, but no such luck. We’d seen a Kestrel on the way up so I would have to be content with a two-raptor day. A few Tufted Ducks and sleepy Teal sat about on the water, and some mallards, one a white farmyard type, browsed in a shallow pool. The sun had begun to set, staining the sky a deep red, reflecting off the cirrus clouds which had gathered in it.  We made our way back to the car in the fading light, the honking of the geese still ringing in our ears.

Sunset over Martin Mere

Full Species List: (broadly, international common names used, my preference)

 En Route: Pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) Starling (Sturnus vulgaris)

At Martin Mere in the wild:  Whooper Swan (Cygnus cygnus) Greylag Goose (Anser anser) Pink Footed Goose (Anser brachyrynchus) Eurasian Teal (Anas creccia) Northern Pintail (Anas acuta) Mallard (Anas platyrynchos) Feral Duck (Anas platyrynchos. ssp domesticus) Eurasian Widgeon (Anas penelope) Green Winged Teal (Anas carolinensis) Shelduck (Tadorna tadorna) Eurasian Coot (Fulica atra) Common Moorhen (Gallinula chloropus) Pochard (Aythya ferina) Tufted Duck (Aythya fuligula) Little Grebe (Tachybaptus ruficolis) Great Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo ssp. carbo & P. carbo ssp sinensis) Ruff (Philomachus pugnax) Northern Lapwing (Vanellus vanellus) Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea) Black Headed Gull (Chroicocephalus ridibundus) Common Buzzard (Buteo buteo) Feral Pigeon (Columba livia) Common Woodpigeon (Columba palumbens) Collared Dove (Streptopelia decaocto) Carrion Crow (Corvus corone)  Blue Tit (Cyanistes caeruleus) Great Tit (Parus major) European Blackbird (Turdus merula) Redwing (Turdus iliacus) European Robin (Erithacus Rubecula) Dunnock (Prunella modularis) Common Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs) European Greenfinch (Carduelis chloris) Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis) Eurasian Tree Sparrow (Passer montanus)