Manchester Birder's February 2025 Summary

 

Jack Snipe, Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, American Pipit, Willow Tit, Little Owl, Kestrel and Eastern Yellow Wagtail are the photographic highlights of the month.

This month has been more of a focus on local patches and towards the end of the month looking for spring migrants over Pennington Flash and the Mosses.  There have been none yet, but there is a lot more song and start of breeding season behaviour and it’s good to see the local Willow Tit population seeming to remain steady, and Dipper paired up ready to breed even though the state of the River Croal along their stretch is more polluted and full of rubbish than I’ve ever seen it.  Numbers of Chaffinch locally seem good, after a couple of years of decline, but I haven’t seen any Tree Sparrow at all on the Mosses; a worrying sign, with the House Sparrow population also seeming to have crashed here.  Great Skua killing and eating a Lesser Black-backed Gull during a two-day stay at Heaton Park reservoir in urban Manchester was as strange as it gets in our landlocked county, and shows that the reservoir there is probably under-watched.  A good candidate for Siberian Chiffchaff was an interesting sight at the Glazebury sewage works, and both Caspian and Yellow-legged Gull have been present at roosts in the local area.  An Iceland Gull continues to appear at roost very late, only showing up after sunset.

 

I’ve had a couple of longer days out combining a visit to Newcastle to see family with the American Pipit, dropping my son off at his residential week with a tour of the north Wales coast, and a work meeting with looking for Firecrest in the rain in West Yorkshire.  It’s been a month of some near-misses birdwise, but with perseverance and help I’ve seen all the birds I set out to see, except Great Grey Shrike, something of a bogey bird for me since seeing my first couple in the space of two weeks in the early 2000s.  I resisted the temptation to travel to Cornwall to see Booted Eagle and Pacific Diver by way of Least Sandpiper at Steart, but I sort of already regret it...!  Though having spent a week last summer watching Booted Eagles in the south of France, it was too much of a “drive to tick it off” experience rather than an interesting encounter with wildlife for me.  If reports of the Wallcreeper in Cornwall had proved true, I suspect a lot of people who dislike twitching would have made this their exception, and the bizarre apparent finding of a White Tern inland in north Wales might yet be the weirdest news of the month, if not year.

Doing a little statistical look at my “lifers” (how I hate that word, but it’s hard to find an alternative!) I have never seen a new-for-me bird in March (at least outside of the birds you’d expect to see as an experienced birder), but a family long weekend in Scotland during the month might give me the time to finally see a Ptarmigan. Though I’d also love to see a Capercaillie, I won’t be looking for them purposely – the less disturbance the better. 

 

Highlights

The beautiful walk to the super tame American Pipit, a very close encounter with Firecrest in West Yorkshire, brilliant views of Jack Snipe at Leighton Moss, Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, Eastern Yellow Wagtail, Woodlark, Goshawk all in one morning, Little Owl back at local breeding site and calling, Willow Tit in relatively good numbers at Cutacre, a north Wales selection including Glossy Ibis, Chough and Surf Scoter.

Year List total: 175

New for me in the UK this month: 2 (American Pipit; Eastern Yellow Wagtail)

10k circle total: 91

Birds I missed: Great Grey Shrike at Hatfield Moors; Goshawk at Welbeck viewpoint (though later seen there); Eastern Yellow Wagtail at Wintringham (though later seen there). 

The year list so far:

Brent Goose	Red Grouse	Ruff	Red Kite
Canada Goose	Black Grouse	Sanderling	Buzzard
Barnacle Goose	Grey Partridge	Dunlin	Barn Owl
Ross's Goose	Pheasant	Ross's Gull	Little Owl
Greylag Goose	Red-legged Partridge	Black-headed Gull	Long-eared Owl
Taiga Bean Goose	Feral Pigeon	Mediterranean Gull	Short-eared Owl
Pink-footed Goose	Stock Dove	Common Gull	Tawny Owl
White-fronted Goose	Woodpigeon	Caspian Gull	Kingfisher
Mute Swan	Collared Dove	Herring Gull	Lesser Spotted Woodpecker
Bewick's Swan	Water Rail	Yellow-legged Gull	Great Spotted Woodpecker
Whooper Swan	Moorhen	Great Black-backed Gull	Green Woodpecker
Shelduck	Coot	Lesser Black-backed Gull	Kestrel
Mandarin Duck	Little Grebe	Iceland Gull	Merlin
Shoveler	Red-necked Grebe	Great Skua	Peregrine
Gadwall	Great Crested Grebe	Black Guillemot	Ring-necked Parakeet
Wigeon	Slavonian Grebe	Common Guillemot	Jay
American Wigeon	Oystercatcher	Red-throated Diver	Magpie
Mallard	Grey Plover	Great Northern Diver	Chough
Pintail	Golden Plover	White-billed Diver	Jackdaw
Teal	Ringed Plover	Fulmar	Rook
Pochard	Lapwing	Cormorant	Carrion Crow
Ring-necked Duck	Grey-headed Lapwing	Shag	Hooded Crow
Tufted Duck	Curlew	Glossy Ibis	Raven
Scaup	Bar-tailed Godwit	Spoonbill	Coal Tit
Eider	Black-tailed Godwit	Bittern	Marsh Tit
Surf Scoter	Jack Snipe	Little Egret	Willow Tit
Velvet Scoter	Woodcock	Great White Egret	Blue Tit
Common Scoter	Snipe	Cattle Egret	Great Tit
Long-tailed Duck	Green Sandpiper	Grey Heron	Penduline Tit
Goldeneye	Redshank	Sparrowhawk	Bearded Tit
Smew	Spotted Redshank	Goshawk	Woodlark
Goosander	Turnstone	Marsh Harrier	Skylark
Red-breasted Merganser	Knot	Hen Harrier	Cetti's Warbler
Nuthatch	Firecrest	Song Thrush	Long-tailed Tit
Treecreeper	Goldcrest	Mistle Thrush	Chiffchaff
Starling	Wren	Redwing	Blackcap
Blackbird	House Sparrow	Water Pipit	Greenfinch
Fieldfare	Dunnock	Rock Pipit	Twite
Robin	Eastern Yellow Wagtail	Chaffinch	Linnet
Black Redstart	Grey Wagtail	Brambling	Redpoll
Stonechat	Pied Wagtail	Hawfinch	Common Crossbill
Dipper	Meadow Pipit	Bullfinch	Goldfinch
Tree Sparrow	American Pipit	Snow Bunting	Siskin
Corn Bunting	Yellowhammer	Reed Bunting