Forgot about the high tide doh!
Went to the RSPB reserve Inner Marsh Farm yesterday morning and was greeted with a very unusually quite hide with nobody about at all. No sign of the Bittern thats been hanging about recently. And not a great deal happening on the pools either apart from loads of duck mostly Teal, Pintail and Wigeon. Quite a few Pink feet flying over as well.
The highlight of my visit was on my walk back to the car where I had 2 Water Rail feeding in the small wood by the boardwalk. And also around the wood was a single Brambling and 2 male and 1 female Bullfinch. I soon found out why the reserve was so quiet. A birder on his way down to the hide reminded me about the high tide that was covering the Dee estuary. For anyone that is not familiar with the area I will explain. During some very high tides with the right conditions the whole marsh gets flooded. This in turn exposes numerous voles and mice, etc which then attracts loads of raptors and also flushes out Water Rails. So this event attracts a lot of birders to the area.
So I went down to Parkgate and caught the end of it and was rewarded with some nice birds. I had a couple of Hen Harrier a Marsh Harrier a Short eared owl and the Spoonbill thats been there all week. So it turned out a good day even though it was freezing
List: I.M.F
Pink- footed goose
Teal
Wigeon
Pintail
Shelduck
Water Rail
Black T Godwit
Dunlin
Redshank
Kestrel
Fieldfare
Redwing
Skylark
Brambling
Bullfinch
Reed Bunting
Parkgate:
Spoonbill
Snipe
Peregrine
Hen Harrier
Marsh Harrier
Short-eared owl
Stock dove.
The highlight of my visit was on my walk back to the car where I had 2 Water Rail feeding in the small wood by the boardwalk. And also around the wood was a single Brambling and 2 male and 1 female Bullfinch. I soon found out why the reserve was so quiet. A birder on his way down to the hide reminded me about the high tide that was covering the Dee estuary. For anyone that is not familiar with the area I will explain. During some very high tides with the right conditions the whole marsh gets flooded. This in turn exposes numerous voles and mice, etc which then attracts loads of raptors and also flushes out Water Rails. So this event attracts a lot of birders to the area.
So I went down to Parkgate and caught the end of it and was rewarded with some nice birds. I had a couple of Hen Harrier a Marsh Harrier a Short eared owl and the Spoonbill thats been there all week. So it turned out a good day even though it was freezing
List: I.M.F
Pink- footed goose
Teal
Wigeon
Pintail
Shelduck
Water Rail
Black T Godwit
Dunlin
Redshank
Kestrel
Fieldfare
Redwing
Skylark
Brambling
Bullfinch
Reed Bunting
Parkgate:
Spoonbill
Snipe
Peregrine
Hen Harrier
Marsh Harrier
Short-eared owl
Stock dove.
Total Comments 2
Comments
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A nice report Jonny,sounds like a good time to visit IMF! lol.
I've never seen Parkgate with the tide fully up........it never seems to coincide with weekends somehow!
Well done in spotting the Spoonbill and good to see the Harriers showed for you!Posted 02-02-10 at 09:24 AM by Twitcheruth
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Thanks Ruth, I agree with you about the high tides never being at the weekend. But it's just my luck when it fell on a weekend I forgot.
Posted 02-02-10 at 07:00 PM by JONNY74
