Beeston Birds and Butties

February 21st 2017

Beeston and Attenborough

 

 

After quite a lot of careful planning by Helen J the February gathering was able to go ahead under the strict timetable of plan Z.

A surprisingly mild and pleasant morning and four babes, two Helens, Maggie and Alison(not forgetting Betty) met exactly on time at Attenborough for a quick walk to Beeston Marina.

 

What has Betty spotted?

 

Aha... that is what Betty has spotted!

 

Our riverside walk was accompanied with some quick fire bird spotting and entertaining tales of Sri Lanka from our globetrotting babe - yes Bubbles seems to have had a wonderful time on her first trip abroad. We even spotted a gaggle of Beeston Babes out for a stroll.

 

Signs of spring

 

Think we could all do with a spot of Groovy Grooming!

 

In record time and keeping exactly to the timetable for the day we reached the café at Beeston Marina for mugs of tea and bacon (or

egg) butties. We did our very best to totally confuse the lovely chap who works there but he rose to the challenge and served up exactly what we wanted.

 

Might not look 5 star but jolly good buttes

Great to have Johnny Depp keeping a look out

 

Egyptian Goose waiting for fuel

 

It was warm enough to sit outside which was wonderful and it really did feel as if spring might be just around the corner.

 

Bubbles was very excited to meet Barnaby and can't wait for him to show her his moves on the ski slopes.

 

Betty was very excited to meet an Italian Spinone - don't think that he felt quite the same, possibly something to do with Brexit.

 

Making sure that we kept to the carefully planned timetable we headed back to the elevated hide to rendezvous with Lynn, spotting a few more birds to add to the list on the way.

 

We enjoyed playing spot the Bittern

 

Very rare black masked bandit duck

 

Babe number five joins the gathering

 

Having met up with Lynn we headed back to the visitor centre as Helen J had to leave us to our own devices for the afternoon session. Having said our goodbyes her place was quickly taken by Jo so we all headed to the café for coffee and cake.

After a good gossip we headed off for a short stroll to see if we could make the already impressive list of birds up to 40. Helen J had given us strict instructions not to make them up and we manage do do it without any improvisation.

 

This was a breathtaking sight

 

Who knew!

 

Is he following us?

 

We finished our stroll back at the car park as the first drops of rain started to fall. Thankfully we had avoided the bear that Lynne spotted in the woodland (which turned out to be a Shetland pony!)

Another lovely day, such a shame that Pam couldn't join us due to her Wetter commitments, but we thought of her when we spotted the wigeon!

 

Today's very impressive bird list

 

black headed gull

blackbird

blue tit

canada goose

cetti's warbler* (GB first, heard in  reed bed)

chaffinch

coot

cormorant (with breeding white spot)

crow

dunnock

egyptian goose

fieldfare

gadwall

goldeneye

goosander

great crested grebe (lots of flirting)

great tit

grey heron

greylag goose

house sparrow

lapwing

little grebe

long tailed tit

magpie

mallard

moorhen

mute swan

pheasant

pied wagtail

pochard

red crested pochard

robin

shoveler (Maggie’s favourite and making up for a no-show last year)

snipe

song thrush

tufted duck

white fronted goose* (GB first)

wigeon

wood pigeon

wren

 

And a point of praise from the chief twitcher:

'A stunning 40 today!  Well done everyone.  We now have a total of 44 for the year and two firsts! Running total stands at 91…. '