Paxton Pits delivers the goods

Photos:

Pale morph Common Buzzard, Barrow Lane, Newton-Le-Willows
Dodgy record shots in the late evening gloom of Smew, dark-bellied Brent Goose and first winter Yellow-legged Gull at Paxton Pits
Skylark at Houghton Green Flash

21^st March 

Yet another fruitless early morning visit to HGF. At least the Mute Swan is hanging around. The feeding station held 35 Tree Sparrows, 4 Yellowhammers, 3 pairs of Grey Partridge and a Stock Dove. 

On my was to the office I diverted down Rixton Mosses. A small flock of brown jobs flew off at the top end of Holly Bush Lane – I just managed to get my bins on two laggers which turned out to be a Tree Sparrow and a Yellowhammer. Further down two Corn Buntings were singing on the wires and I found my first Wheatear of the year – a somewhat distant male. 

This evening I took Bill down Barrow Lane. I have been quite a few times over the last few weeks but just walking the dog – not birding and I haven’t seen much. This evening the pale morph Buzzard that has been hanging around since autumn showed well – it looks very Rough-legged like from certain angles but clearly isn’t. At dusk a flock of 47 Fieldfares flew over. 

22^nd March 

This morning there was little change at HGF when I took Bill for a walk. I have given up any hope of seeing any Black-necked Grebes here this year – the water levels are just way too low. I’m not sure why the BNG’s don’t like low water levels – maybe its because dog walkers are much closer or because the Great Crested Grebe numbers have increased. Sad considering I could normally expect up to 12 BNG’s to be present during the Spring. 

The Wigeon flock has increased by 5 birds. This is fairly typical at this time of year – I wonder if it is birds that have gone walk about for a few days returning or passage migrants dropping in for a pit stop. If it was the latter I would also expect to see a large influx from time to time which I never do – the fluctuations are always very small. Nice to see two singing male Skylarks in the south field this morning – the three birds present for several weeks seem to have comprised a male and 2 females. 

The feeding station was a bit busy this morning, however I had to hang about a bit to see anything as all the birds had flit down to the far end of the hedge. When they did return there numbered around 60 Tree Sparrows and 4 Yellowhammers plus 2 pairs of Grey Partridge. A stunning cock Reed Buntings also appeared briefly. On my way into the office, a flock of around 50 Fieldfares flew over Holcroft Lane in Culcheth. 

I am working away in Milton Keynes tomorrow so this afternoon was a travel down session. I was able to make good progress and so early evening I diverted to Paxton Pits for a walk in the sunshine. It really was balmy Spring weather today! On arrival the warden saw me with birding gear as I walked away from the car and came over to give me an update on local sightings – very good of him. I was almost tempted by regular sightings of Lesser Spotted Woodpecker by the hides, however when he mentioned large gull numbers at the Diddington Pit I decided to drive the 2.5 miles up the road to a different part of the reserve. 

You won’t find Diddington and Pumphouse Pits on the Paxton Pits website or anywhere else that I can find so if you don’t know the area, there are hard to find. I parked up at the end of Diddington Village and started walking towards Diddington Pit. A large mixed flock of Greylag and Canada Geese were grazing the fields next to the path. I decided not to browse through them – oh what folly! On arrival at the pit, the path winds around the northern end of a long stretch of water which is dotted with small islands. Lots of gulls were loafing on the islands, however most were of the Black-headed variety and there were few large gulls. Fortunately the first one I put a scope on turned out to be a first winter Yellow-legged Gull. This species, however, is common here and large numbers appear here at certain times of year. 

I carried on walking down while listening to singing Chiffchaff, Yellowhammer and Reed Bunting. I met a local gull watcher who hadn’t seen much but then told me about the dark-bellied Brent Goose I had walked past feeding with the other geese. Doh! I then back-tracked a bit until I could get my scope on it. Nice one! 

I then carried on walking around to the next pool where there were few islands – this is Pumphouse Pit. There were lots of water birds on the pool including a female Red-breasted Merganser (locally rare), at least 15 Goldeneyes and, best of all, eight Smew comprising three white nuns and five red-heads. I watched the Smew for a while at the same time listening to two more singing Chiffchaffs and three calling Green Woodpeckers. What a supremely pleasant evening. 

The icing on the cake was a Barn Owl which suddenly appeared out of the rough grass by the path and gave a superb hunting display for a few minutes. I was so mesmerised that I did not think to take any photos even though I was have got some crackers with my little digiscoping camera even without optical aids. 

Walking back to the car I met an interesting local character who seems to dabble in birding and goes everywhere phatographing them (spelling intentional). I listened to tales of a rare wader he found at Titchwell (he had forgotten the name), Blue-winged Gull at Minsmere and Beared Harrier at Salthouses. In fairness he had not identified any himself, just shown photos to a friend who had tried to identify them a bird book. Which bird book I think will always remain a mystery. Very entertaining though. 

23^rd March 

No birding today