Just returned form a child-minding trip to England, where we contracted Covid after two years of avoiding the beast. This clearly limited birding as we had to self isolate in Bolton and also on our return home. We managed a couple of strolls around Elton Reservoir before we locked down, but were unable to do planned visits to Pennington Flash and Leighton Moss for mouth-watering goodies. The Bolton garden was well watched as it was pleasant enough to sit outside and watch the resident birds go about their business. I saw blue tit, great tit, long-tailed tit, chaffinch, goldfinch, greenfinch, bullfinch, dunnock, wren, robin, blackbird, song thrush, blackcap, woodpigeon, house sparrow, collared dove, carrion crow, jackdaw, magpie, jay, black headed gull, lesser black backed gull, herring gull and great spotted woodpecker. There was some lovely bird song as well, a couple of timed I dozed off in the garden to the song of multiple blackbirds.
The two walks at Elton early on gave swallow, little ringed plover common sandpiper and willow warbler for the list as well as blackcaps and chiffchaffs singing. On a cold blustery Friday a circuit produced no singing warblers, Six days later they were everywhere. I could have justified a solo early morning walk last weekend but unfortunately I was just too tired and washed out to make an early start. What I did get during a restless night was a calling tawny owl close to the house.
I'm going to use the absence of photos to try and add in a couple of videos from the trail cam as we now have hedgehogs back and badger and fox passing through. If the videos do not load I will repost the links.
On a more positive note I was back at WOW for the first time in three weeks and we had a good number of birds including a few year firsts and patch firsts listed below. At least there are a few bird pictures.
 |
| Common sandpiper |
 |
| Shelduck |
 |
| Med gull being photo-bombed by black-headed gulls |
%20(3).JPG)
%20(2).JPG)
