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| Articles about Martin Mere |
| A Couple of Birders Reborn - Martin Mere Revisited | | 2006-12-03 12:36:00 | | I took a few days off work at the end of last week to do a bit of sea fishing but the weather once again had different ideas. A little wind we want but 45 mph gust onto the shore is a bit much by anyones standards. Fell walking was out of the question so where to go?As Martin Mere is only a few miles from our front door we decided to pay another visit to this fantastic bird reserve owned by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust.I've mentioned in previous posts that sometimes the birds are just too far away to see or photograph. Well on Friday we finally did it - we purchased a fieldscope (small telescope) from the very helpful Andy at the In Focus shop, it really does make a huge difference being able to set up many 'scopes' onto the same subject at the same time so that you can compare them. We ended up with an Opticron GS665 with a 20 - 40x magnification eyepiece, a tripod and a clamp for using it within a hide. After using it until the light failed we are both very pleased so far with our purchase.The photo of the Great spotted woodpecker was taken as an experiment - I focussed the scope onto the bird then took a photo through the eyepiece of the scope using our digital camera. Not brilliant but not bad for a quick trial. After searching round the internet I've found this is called 'digiscoping' and there are brackets made for holding the camera in place so I might give that a go eventually.Tags: birding, digiscope, great spotted woodpecker, lancashire, martin mere, wildlife | | By: Sea Fishing and Walking in the UK | | |
| | A Riot of Swans at Martin Mere, Lancashire | | 2006-10-30 14:21:00 | | The tides were not suitable for sea fishing at any of our favorite marks last weekend so after a lazy Saturday we woke on Sunday to glorious sunshine. After having a quick look at the days weather forecast we decided to brave the crowds and go and give the Wildfowl & Wetland Trust reserve of Martin Mere a visit.This is where last months BBC programme, Autumn Watch was broadcast from and as it's only a short journey from our front door after packing a flask, some snacks, binoculars, new camera and a good bird book we set off and arrived at about 11am.Even though it is only a few miles away we've only been here a couple of times and pulling into the car park we remembered why, it was packed! We quickly entered and made our way as far from the crowds as possible.Martin Mere consists of 2 main areas; the ornamental wildfowl section which is all fenced off and contains many different birds from around the world and the 'meres' which is where the main action is.Every year tens of thousands of wildfowl use this area as their wintering grounds and the reserve is well know for the huge numbers of Pink-footed Geese and Whooper Swans that can be seen from the hides.Even though we are still in Autumn the numbers of wildfowl is still impressive and as the colder months approach these number will steadily increase.On our walk from hide to hide we managed to see all the usual suspects that are listed on the Martin Mere website but the most spectacular thing about this reserve is the sheer quantity of birds.They were everywhere. From the smallest wading birds such as Ruff, tiny Teal and Widgeon, massive flocks of Lapwing through to the hundred plus Whooper Swans and the thousands of Pink-footed geese. It's impossible not to be moved by such sights.We managed to coincide one of our hide visits to a feeding session where grain is put out for visiting Whooper Swans.It was hard to believe that these were completely wild birds that only a few days ago were in Iceland. As the gi | | By: Sea Fishing and Walking in the UK | | |
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