{"id":2099,"date":"2016-03-17T12:13:39","date_gmt":"2016-03-17T15:13:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/?p=2099"},"modified":"2016-03-17T13:37:02","modified_gmt":"2016-03-17T16:37:02","slug":"martin-mere-29-january-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/archives\/2099","title":{"rendered":"Martin Mere, 29 January 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

As always, click on a photo to see in slide format, or scroll down for normal view.<\/em><\/p>\n

My first birding outing back in the UK was to Martin Mere, near Southport. I suppose the plat du jour\u00a0was the recently hatched Grey-crown\u00a0Crane:<\/p>\n

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Juvenile Grey-crowned Crane, Martin Mere<\/p><\/div>\n

Here’s a reminder of what mother crane looked like, with a close up below of the colourful plumage.<\/p>\n

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Grey-crowned crane – adult<\/p><\/div>\n

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detail of feathers, grey crowned crane<\/p><\/div>\n

Here’s a Northern Pintail – looking crisp as the weather I experienced on this visit …<\/p>\n

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Northern pintail<\/p><\/div>\n

… and a few\u00a0friends from Argentina, first the Southern Screamer …<\/p>\n

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Southern screamer<\/p><\/div>\n

and below, the Chilean Flamingo …..<\/p>\n

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Chilean flamingo<\/p><\/div>\n

… and finally some Muscovy Ducks.<\/p>\n

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Muscovy ducks<\/p><\/div>\n

Moving outside the collections area,\u00a0I didn’t stay very long on this visit as I mistimed train connections, but I did attend feeding time for the Whooper Swans, a main feature of Martin Mere. Below a close-up.<\/p>\n

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Whooper Swans<\/p><\/div>\n

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Whooper Swan, close up<\/p><\/div>\n

Other wild birds I saw included a snipe \u00a0about his business\u00a0…<\/p>\n

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Snipe<\/p><\/div>\n

A glorious robin singing his heart out ….<\/p>\n

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Robin<\/p><\/div>\n

A shelduck …<\/p>\n

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Common Shelduck<\/p><\/div>\n

A greenfinch …<\/p>\n

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Greenfinch<\/p><\/div>\n

Quite a few reed buntings<\/p>\n

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Reed Bunting (female)<\/p><\/div>\n

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Reed Bunting (male)<\/p><\/div>\n

And, back on the shoreside, a lapwing<\/p>\n

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[Northern] lapwing<\/p><\/div>A grey Heron …<\/p>\n

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Grey Heron<\/p><\/div>\n

And a ruff, sadly not in breeding plumage but I’ll be back!<\/p>\n

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Ruff<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, click on a photo to see in slide format, or scroll down for normal view. My first birding outing back in the UK was to Martin Mere, near Southport. I suppose the plat du jour\u00a0was the recently hatched … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","category-for-fb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2099"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2121,"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099\/revisions\/2121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}