This is a monthly summary, so if you want more recent nature sightings, please click on the recent sightings tag on the RSPB Middleton Lakes web page.
The month started with mild ice-free days, blue skies with temperatures over 10C. This brought the foggy mornings. Mild days were a forerunner for the week of snow and ice and then the floods that followed after the thaw. The month ended with mild, some sunshine and showery days.
Up to 8 herons were at the heronry in the warm early weeks. They were squawking and grunting – a friendly greeting or a keep-away command. When the snow and cold temperatures came, the birds found warmer nightly roosts. Just 1 or 2 seen in the icy week. By the end of the month there 12 herons on duty, guarding or building nests, feeding a mate or being fed.
A muntjac was heard barking in the heronry marshes, while the herons were rawking.
Blackbirds, goldfinch, nuthatch, reed bunting, water rail were at or around the feeders.
Bittern, long-tailed duck, great (white) egret, were our highlights (on the main site or at Dosthill)
A barn owl was seen eating on the play meadow at 3.10pm, one day.
A peacock butterfly was seen on one of the early mild days.
Our keen, all weather, hardy winter volunteer WeBS surveyors counted, mid-month, (including RSPB Dosthill): black-headed gull (22), Canada goose (9), coot (192), cormorant (11), gadwall (8), goldeneye (9), goosander (3), great crested grebe (7), grey heron (6), lesser black-backed gull (1), little egret (5), mallard (177), moorhen (16), mute swan (10), pochard (59), shelduck (2), shoveler (5), snipe (4), teal (5), tufted duck (190), water rail (1), whooper swan (9), wigeon (62).
Wetland trail also had bittern and common sandpiper (both at Dosthill), black-headed gull, blackcap, bullfinch, buzzard, Canada goose, Cetti's warbler, chiffchaff, common gull, cormorant, dunlin, fieldfare, golden plover, goldeneye, goosander, great black-backed gull, great crested grebe, great (white) egret (28th – 30th), green sandpiper, grey partridge, grey plover, grey wagtail, greylag goose, herring gull, jack snipe, kingfisher, lapwing, little egret, little grebe, long-tailed duck, meadow pipit, northern diver (Dosthill pools), oystercatcher, peregrine, pheasant, pied wagtail, pintail, raven, red kite, redshank, redwing, reed bunting, shelduck, shoveler, skylark, stock dove, stonechat (pair), water rail, woodcock, yellowhammer.
Meadow trail had goldcrest, jay, sparrowhawk, and tits and finches.
Play meadow, car park, woodland edge trail (and canal) had flocks of goldfinch, greenfinch, linnet, redpoll, siskin and waxwing. There was a song thrush and great tit (both calling), brambling (in the canal meadow), barn owl, buzzard, chaffinch, dunnock, great spotted woodpecker, green woodpecker, grey heron, jackdaw, jay, kestrel, little egret, lots of tits and finches, mistle thrush, treecreeper, nuthatch (on the feeder), robin ( a pair on the fencing along the bridleway or by the canal meadow bridge), rook, starling, water rail (under the feeder), wren.
Mammals: muntjac sightings with tracks along the bridleway and meadow trail. Grey squirrels were bounding about, and there were plenty of fresh mole hills about.
With a great thank you to everyone for your nature sightings – keep them coming in. You can use the car-park sightings board, phone or email. Contact details are on the maps – a copy of which can be downloaded from the RSPB Middleton Lakes internet page and also available in the car-park.
Compiled by Nigel Palmer