Weekend Travels

Saturday morning involved travelling down to Gailey to hopefully see the White Front Geese and Little Gull.

We drove down in full sun and the M6 was even running quite well which made for a pleasant drive for once, getting there we noted a goose in the field opposite the pull in off the lane, but this turned out just to be a lone Greylag.

Heading into the main body of the reservoir itself, we first tried to find our targets from the causeway. Well we noted two groups of gulls one to our left on the fishing side and one on the boating side, with time ticking away we had had to make a decision of which to head for.
Well we headed for the group on the boating lake side. This did allow us to see the Whited Fronted Geese which were on the far bank, but no joy with the Little Gull, we did note Great and Blue Tit, Chaffinch, Little and Great Crested Grebe, Numerous Herons beginning to nest on the island plus Wigeon and Tufted Duck.

The afternoon was for old jobs after getting the car cleaned so it actually looks black and not grey with all of the salt from off the road, we decided with still some time to kill and the weather still nice and sunny to headed for Westport Lake which it appeared most of Stoke had done so as well.

Being so busy we didn't see that much the Chiffchaff from last weekend couldn't be relocated. Although there were plenty of gulls on the lake.

Sunday was a day for making use of our National Trust membership, so it was off to Quarry Bank Mill.
We hadn't been here since the gardens were opened up to the public and since Gem appeared on the scene. Getting there soon after the place opened up meant we could beat the crowds and had the place almost to ourselves as we went around the mill. Around the meadow we noted bird wise Great and Blue Tit, Treecreeper, Chaffinch, Chiffchaff and Pied Wagtail.