Mere Sands Wood - 15 March 2012

Another Trip to Mere Sands Wood today with the intention of ignoring the Bittern hide until later in the day and having a good walk around, spending some time in the other hides. However, the plan went out of the window in the car-park at 9:00am when two guys arrived from Yorkshire to see the Bittern. I took them to the hide, put them in prime position and pointed out where it was usually seen. I stayed with them for a while to give them some confidence that it would show. It did take a couple of hours before I spotted it in the far reeds and as I was explaining where they could see it, it took flight and flew low over the water directly towards us. What a view! It wandered around for about an hour and came very close to the hide.

I moved on and was pleasantly surprised to find the pair of Goldeneye still there on the other side of The Hollow. I also saw a pair of Great Crested Grebe building a nest on the edge of the sunken tree, well one of them was working hard, probably an optimistic male. Far too early surely!

Back to the visitor centre and a mug of coffee which I took into the Lancaster hide, where a good number of Reed Bunting were showing. A Water Rail popped out for a while to round my day off nicely.

If you haven't been to MSW you are missing a little gem.

Bittern showing well for its Yorkshire visitors

Male Goldeneye feeding on The Hollow

Some people wait for hours and never see this Water Rail - I guess I just get lucky!

Mere Sands Wood - 27 Feb 2012

Hello, welcome to my birding blog and this my first post.

Although it is now July, I have chosen to start this blog from February as this was the time that my birding fires were fully re-kindled. This really happened by chance after missing the Marbury Country Park Bittern by minutes in January and my disbelief that I had never managed to see it during the course of my 3 years walking there. So next day on a very cold January morning, I sat it out at Marbury and managed to get a quick view of it as it popped out of the reeds for 30 seconds or so before disappearing for the day. A brief but magical encounter!

Then, on this my first visit to MSW for a walk with my better-half, one of the staff asked if we had seen the Bittern. Armed with the location, off we went, more in hope than anything else but within minutes of reaching the hide, out it came from its well camouflaged position to spend some considerable time wandering around feeding. What a fantastic bird! And given that there are two, possibly three that winter here, I look forward to many more visits to this remarkable place.

Other sightings included Mallards. Grey Heron, Coot, Moorhen, Canada Geese, Shelduck, Teal, a Water Rail, a pair of Goldeneye (always a joy) and the Great Crested Grebe pictured below.