Leighton Moss

During a holiday last week I spent a day at Leighton Moss reserve in Lancashire. It's a beautiful place and it's a shame I don't live closer, i'd be spending a lot of time there!

Unfortunately the Bearded Tit, one of the star species, was elusive but I did add some new birds - Little Egret, Ruff, Black Tailed Godwit.

A few photos

St Aidan's Nature Reserve

I paid a visit to the newly opened RSPB reserve at the weekend. What a beautiful place it is, we spent a lot longer there than we planned and still didn't walk around it all. The wide pathways make it easy to get around and there is definitely plenty to see!

It's full of nesting Black Headed Gulls and I saw chicks for the first time, spotty little things, nothing like the adults!

Here's a list of the birds we saw for anyone interested in visiting.

Great Crested Grebe
Black Necked Grebe
Mute Swan
Greylag Goose
Shelduck
Canada Goose
Gadwall
Tufted Duck
Pochard
Moorhen
Coot
Avocet
Reed Bunting
Lapwing
Swift
Meadow Pipit
Sedge Warbler
Whitethroat
Crow
House Sparrow

We heard lots of noise from the Bitterns but they proved elusive this time, just another reason to go back though. 

Lastly this huge machine - a Walking Dragline - sits on the reserve, it's an impressive sight and we were told is a possible breeding ground for Kestrels and Little Owls.

Rodley Nature Reserve

The week before the snow hit we spent the afternoon at the reserve. It was a gorgeous spring day and we saw plenty including a Mandarin duck on the river as we drove in.

There were the usual Coots, Moorhens, Mute Swans, Mallards, Herons, Canada Geese and Cormorants. We also saw Teal, Tufted ducks, Pochard, Great Crested Grebe, Gadwall and my favourite spot of the day a pair of Snipe by the Kingsfisher hide.

Unfortunately I couldn't get a good shot of the Snipe.

There were frogs everywhere in the ponds a few large groups (not sure of the right term) of frogspawn too.

My daughter spotted a couple of Red Kites circling overhead with a flock of Black Headed Gulls

Final shot from the managers garden.

Snow at Easter

As usual these days i'm a bit behind!

Like many we had a large snowfall over the last week and it's taking some melting. It's been a while since we've had snow at Easter.

Last weekend our garden looked like this.

This weekend the garden still has a fair bit of snow and I found a pot of daffodils abandoned in the garden from last spring!

Our young cat Kevin loves the snow, she spent a lot of time charging around in it having an absolute blast, she may possibly be the only one sad to see it go.........

Yeadon Tarn

A visit here at the beginning of February brought another new bird to add to my list - a Goldeneye, such a beautiful bird too.

 There were plenty of swans out on the water and on the jetty.

Pochard

The ever present Coots and Moorhens

Such a beautiful day but we were numb from the wind by the time we'd walked around!

I love this place, even after all these years there's always something new to see there.

Waxwings

After a tip off from a friend back at the beginning of January I made a small detour on the way to work to see if I could spot the elusive Waxwing!

They had been seen on the Sunday in the local park but as I couldn't make it till 3 days later I wasn't holding much hope. Luckily for me there are plenty of trees filled with berries there and they'd hung around, I spotted them straight away. I didn't have long to hang around but managed about 5 minutes watching around 30 Waxwings and a handful of Redwings flitting between the trees.

A new bird for me, well worth the detour and a great start to the new year.

Back at the park a few days later and the trees were pretty much stripped bare with just these few berries left.

It's been a while!

I didn't realise it had been over a year since I last posted. Life just took over unfortunately leaving me little time for anything else. For the first time in years I didn't even get chance to do the RSPB garden bird watch in January.

Of course we still have the birds in the garden and even had a visit from a Waxwing a couple of weeks ago, my second only ever sighting of one and a lovely garden tick! I only got chance to take a distant picture.

I'm hoping to do a few catch up posts and then try and post a little more over the coming months. I'm looking forward to catching up on all the blogs I've been missing out on too.