D Day

The Waxwing invasion is now under way. Well, in some parts of Manchester it is but a daily search of the thirty Rowan trees that I monitor in the Rochdale, Oldham, Middleton area has produced no Waxwings. In fact there were only three trees with berries on and most of those have been eaten by Mistle Thrushes. I therefore decided to check some Rowans in Salford that were used by Waxwings in the 1996 invasion and I was not disappointed. Ninety Waxwings were feeding at 11am. With no other birders present it was ideal and I even had time to chat to a man walking a dog and tell him what they were. He was quite interested until I noticed his dog was lubricating my expensive photo trekker that was lying on the grass. End of conversation! On Hopwood during the week two more Woodcock were present together with the regular Green Woodpeckers. On two occasions a Dipper has been making territorial song flights along part of the stream. In the garden on the eleventh of November we had a near record twenty two different species feeding during the day. I promised the Macclesfield RSPB group that I would post on my blog page what I used to combat midges in Scotland . Since talking to two fishermen on Islay a few years ago I have been using a product from Avon. It is a dry oil body spray from their Skin So Soft range, it has nothing to do with midges but like the fishermen I find it very effective.