We didn’t fancy anything strenuous last weekend and as it was Wendy’s birthday we arranged to stay at The Quay, Deganwy, a truly stunning hotel with a view out of our room that disproved the saying “money can’t buy a view like that”. Looking left we could see Conwy Castle and right, the River Conwy as it met the sea. A truly magnificent location with fantastic food and great service. Yes, it was expensive and not normally something we’d do but it was worth it.

We also visited RSPB Conwy, somewhere we drive past every time we visit North Wales or Anglesey. We arrived just as a tour was about to start so taking full avantage of the guides expertise we spend a great couple of hours walking round the reserve.

It was great to have an ‘expert’ with us, we’re fairly well up on sea birds, waders, ducks, etc. but those fleeting glimpses of little brown birds always leave us a bit lost but with the help of the guide we identified a few new species for us, some of which we’d no doubt seen before but never knew what they were.

The best ‘new’ species was a Whitethroat – fairly obvious once you get a close look in a photo but spotting it in the first place was a bit of good luck.

So, a great weekend not fishing – that was a bit of a turn up…

Sometimes the weather or that annoying thing called real life can get in the way of our fishing or walking but even when busy it’s always great to get out and about, even if it’s for just a little while.

We’re very lucky in Lancashire to have near by the WWT reserve, Martin Mere which, like all the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust reserves is running events throughout June to help showcase the work they do and enable everyone to enjoy some of the UK’s fantastic wildlife.

The agenda for June is below but if you want more information you can visit Martin Mere’s ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ page here.

Guided walk of the waterfowl gardens: Every Day

Walk around the waterfowl gardens with a volunteer to learn all about the different bird species in the grounds. (Weather permitting) 1pm

Flamingo walk and dance: Every Day 12.30pm

Learn how flamingos walk and take part in the flamingo dance

Duckling nursery open weekends: Every Weekend 12-3pm

Follow the duckling walk to the duckling nursery and learn all about the egg to duckling process.

Burscough Bridge to Martin Mere Walk: Every Tuesday in June.

Starting at 10am walk from Burscough Bridge Interchange to Martin Mere and back again with a warden (approximately 2 miles one way – some rough terrain)

Community Reedbed Walk: Every Friday in June

Walk with a warden around the new community reedbed walk starting at 10am. Meet at the main reception and the walk has some rough terrain.

Walk to Mere Sands Wood: Friday 10 & 24 June.

Walk with a warden to Mere Sands Wood over a newly created trail – have a guided tour of MSW on arrival – starting at 1pm (will need 3 hours and over some rough terraine)

Big Toddle

We’re doing the Big Toddle in aid of Banardo’s and think you should too! Join our big adventure – the biggest charity event for 5s, this year with an animal theme!

Not much unusual in the way of birdlife although I’ve seen the Kingfisher a few times this week flying up and down the River Croal, hopefully looking for suitable nesting sites, and on Monday I saw a Teal on the river, a new Queens Park ‘tick’ for me.

Work is continuing on the lower pond where the rangers are building some fishing platforms on the recently dredged lake. Hopefully they’ll move the fish back into the pond before Spring kicks in properly so the local coarse anglers can try their hand at catching some of the local Carp. It looks good and it’s great to see the work continuing to improve the quality of the ponds.

There’s also a bit of work going on at near the Southern end of the park where I think they’re making a new play area or car park – I’m not entirely sure – but it’s refreshing to see the local council is still going ahead with improvements where so many others would have cancelled them due to budget cuts.

After saying the weather in West Lancashire hasn’t been too bad mother nature threw the heaviest snowfall our way last weekend since I was a child. So, after struggling home on Friday night we did what any other like minded loony would do and went for a walk on the Saturday. We had such a good time tramping along the River Douglas through the snow I did it again on Sunday, this time with the ‘proper’ camera.

Instead of just going along the river I spent some time wondering through the boatyard until I noticed an odd sound coming from the river, on looking closer I was shocked to see ice flowing downstream, the noise being generated as it pilled up against the boatyards pontoons.

This may not seem such a big deal until you realise that the River Douglas is tidal in this area and contains mostly salt water when the tide is high (when it’s low water you can wade across it in places, at high water it is over 15 feet deep). I stood there and watched this spectacle for ages until I remembered I had the camera with me.

Dragging myself away from this highly unusual occurrence I continued my walk Northwards along the banks of the river, stopping every so often to see if I could get a half decent snap of the ducks on the river without falling through the snow into a hidden gully. Eventually I gave up on that idea as they were just to far away but climbing back onto the retaining bank I spotted a flock of birds feeding on the Hawthorn. Assuming they were Starlings I just watched them for a while until they flew overhead and I got my first proper view of a large flock of Fieldfare.

I’ve never actually been close enough to photograph these beautiful birds and they certainly played hard to get  as whenever I got close enough to attempt a picture they flew off but eventually I managed to get a shot of a group of them on the bushes, not quite as close as I’d have liked but still, not a bad first go.

After seeing them I slowly made my way back along the farmers track and down Marsh Lane, a short but wonderful walk along our local river. Amazingly the temperature has since got colder and driving over the river this morning there was even more ice so I’ll definitely be going back over the Christmas break for another look

I didn’t get to go out sea fishing this weekend due to the weather being just too damn cold and wet although a few of the guys from the Wirral Sea Fishing website had a couple of sessions on Saturday, one at Seaforth and the other at Hall Road, Crosby. Not much was caught but credit due to them, they stuck it out in truly horrid conditions.

The bravest I managed was a gentle walk along the banks of our local river, the Douglas to see if I could manage to get any half decent photographs. From a birding point of view the walk was great and I managed to spot Mallard, Widgeon, Little Egret, Grey and Canada Geese, Great crested Grebe, Redshank and Oyster Catchers on or around the river as well as Kestrel, Fieldfare, Blue, Great and Long tailed Tit, Goldfinch, Robin and Blackbird on the hedge along the embankment.

Of course, non of these would stay still long enough for a photo in the fog but I did manage an arty shot of a couple walking their dog as the last of the evening sun lit up the fog.

As for sea fishing the BLAS Christmas match has been brought forward to this Sunday at Rossall and with a bit of a thaw, a predicted balmy 6°C with a slight Westerly I may actually be in with a chance of a fish or two.

I did manage to get a few shots of Lapwings as they flew in from the marsh but by the time the Pick footed geese did their nightly V-shaped fly-by the light level was too low to get any decent photographs.

Cow, ignoring the Lapwings and Widgeon... "Can't you see I'm eating?"

There were plenty of other birds in the area; Widgeon, Teal, Godwits, Oyster catchers – all the usual Autumn suspects but the only time they came within camera range was when the Sun hid behind the clouds forming over the sea to the west.

Evening sun lights up a flight of Lapwings at RSPB Marshside

Needless to say as the light level returned and the Sun bathed the area the golden glow the Geese were nowhere to be seen, the only evidence of them being their calls echoing from the surrounding fields.

Light… a photographers best friend and worst enemy…

A lazy hazy day sea fishing on the River Douglas

I’ve not been sea fishing for a while, or any other type of fishing for that matter. Not for any specific reason just other stuff to do around the house and garden while the weather is good. But with the weather being so good this past weekend I couldn’t resist a walk along our local river, The River Douglas, to see what was going on.

The river itself was quite quiet with the usual suspects bobbing along in the wakes of a few boats returning from sea fishing off Blackpool; Mallard, Shelduck, Geese and Swans with Oyster Catchers watching them from the shore.

The banks are very very dry at the moment and keeping low I managed to get a snap of a Skylark before he shot skyward proclaiming to all comers that this was his territory. Nothing quiet announces that Summer is approaching as the never ending song of this small unobtrusive bird with the most amazing song.

Further along the river there were hordes of people fishing. I say hordes – I mean more than 2, which is hordes for here. I don’t think anyone was having much luck but then I’m fairly sure they were all using Mackerel and realistically at this time of year, in the River Douglas or the River Ribble (of which the Douglas is a tributary) you’d probably be better off using peeler crab to catch the Flounder they were all after.

There were a lot of domestic (big white) Geese on the river with young so I couldn’t resist this final shot.

I’m not sure who is who’s parent but then I guess they’re not bothered either – so long as they get fed. Another great walk along a river that always makes me smile.

"Oy, you with your wings out - get off my rock"

Anglesey is a fantastic place for any nature lover, in fact anyone who just likes being outside so while we weren’t fishing or just lazing about we did manage to go for the odd walk, more of a stroll really – didn’t want to tax ourselves after all…

You can tell spring is finally here though as a lot of our avian friends that spend the winter months somewhere a bit warmer are finally arriving.

Walking around the inland sea just to the southwest of Penrhos, on the other side of the main road there were all sorts of small birds, most of which were to far away to identify – or at least by me.

The Wheatear were very obliging though – sitting nice and still on the rocks to get their portrait taken.

There were plenty of the usual subjects, waders of all varieties and in the distance, diving for small fish we could make out a few Sandwich Terns – a beautiful bird with a voice that just doesn’t match the grace of this summer visitor.

A lot of the birds were paired up including Cormorants on almost every exposed rock and a lot of Red-breasted merganser. I’d never managed to get close enough to these sea going, fish eating ducks but on our last day, while having our final lunch on the island this pair swam right in front of us.

Yep – Spring is certainly in the air and everything is paired up – I wonder how many young these birds will produce and if we’ll see them when we go back in a couple of months.

Spring Couples - Oyster Catchers, Shelducks and Avocets

As the weather has been so great recently I went for a long walk along our local river, the Douglas to practice my photography skills and to see if i could manage to get a half decent image of birds in flight with my current equipment.

With the dry weather and the sun the banks of the River Douglas had dried considerably leaving shallow pools for wading birds to sift through for food, the usual suspects were in abundance; Oyster Catcher, Curlew, Shelduck, Mallard but it’s the first time I’ve seen Avocet on my local patch although they do breed at RSB Marshside, Southport which is about 10 miles up the coast.

As for catching birds in flight? These are the best of a LOT of photographs.

Lapwing on flight -probably pushing the lens a little here

Shelducks in flight - sometimes luck is all you need...

I’m pleased with the one of the Shelducks which just flew right past me while I had the camera set up ready to go, although the sky could have been a bit more interesting – can’t have it all I guess. The Lapwing was a bit tougher, they fly very erratically at this time of year and realistically the lens I have (Canon 55-250) isn’t up to the job – hence they’re a bit blurred, although still recognisable.

Still… practice makes perfect.

All sorts of ducks on the River Douglas

After some fairly dismal weather these past couple of months I finally managed to get out for a walk along our local river, the Douglas, and as I’m a bit (understatement of the century) rusty I took out my camera just to check it (and me) is working as it should.

There wasn’t really much to see exfcept a lot of ducks including some Widgeon (which make the amazing whistling noise), Teal, Shelducks and the usual suspects of Mallard and Oyster catchers. I tried to get some pictures of them in flight but a small Duck is very very fast so I gave up.

Spring was certainly in the air today though as i saw a few lambs on my way down to the river, thankfully the boys below didn’t have any as it’s best to stay out of the way of sheep at lambing time so as not to distress the ewes and their newly birthed lambs.

"The Managment" of the banks bleats "non shall pass"

They do look a bit like the mafia though and it felt like I was trespassing on their field…

Hopefully, now the weather seems to be changing for the better I’ll get out fishing, it was almost this time last year that we fished this very river and caught a few Flounder – there were a few people fishing today but nobody had caught anything. It seems the seasons are a bit late this year, but i seem to recall someone saying that a cold winter heralds a hot summer – so here’s hoping…