But, Happy New Year to All.
We brought in the New Year at Tina's sisters up in Cheshire by the river Weaver at Winsford, so after the festivities we woke up late to a very soggy morning, the plan being to pop up to Burton Mere (hence the title of the post!)
Firstly Jo's garden is always worth watching, so we started off the 2014 list with the usual garden suspects, plus a Nuthatch, Great Spotted Woodpecker and some Mallard who were jumping up onto the bird table!
So after a hearty breakfast and consulting the weather forecast, it looked like we might have a couple of dry hours between 2 and 4, so we staggered out to the car with all the bad weather gear, flasks of coffee etc. Looked like we were actually heading for the Arctic!
We arrived at Burton about 2ish to a very dismal and bleak scene. A warm welcome was had though from the RSPB staff and the roaring fire in the visitor centre was welcome (Although, I think I have said this on our last visit, having come in from a miserable and cold outdoors all the optics steam up!!)
So we added Tufted Duck, Teal, Wigeon, Shoveler, Shelduck, Lapwing and a Black Tailed Godwit which was very nice. There was Little Stint about but it had moved into the soggy fields and didn't show whilst we were there. After a coffee we wandered down to the hide, but only added a Little Egret, Buzzard and a Pheasant.
On return to the visitor center we had a little excitement with a Merlin sitting on a fence post, excellent!
We then thought that we'd drive around to the far hide before dark to see any birds coming in to roost, but the wardens had already locked the gate! Well I suppose it was New Years Day and they wanted to get home, so I'll let them off! So instead we continued down to Burton Marsh where the Buff-bellied Pipit twitchers were arrayed in large numbers, but packing up as the light was fading fast and the rain was just about to set in again. Did we see the pipit..... what do you think!
I haven't posted any photo's from Burton as the light was terrible and none are worth putting on the blog.
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