The Last 2021 Has to Offer!

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 The Last 2021 Has to Offer!

We arrived at around midday on the last day of 2021 (aka New Year's Eve). We first came to the Discovery Hide where we saw lots of winter waterfowl like Black-Tailed Godwits, Mallards, Common Pochards, Tufted Ducks, Eurasian Wigeons, Northern Lapwings, Northern Pintails and Whooper Swans. I talked to someone who said they'd seen a Smew on the mere ​earlier this morning. He said it was the first time he'd seen a Smew in this country. We then moved to the Janet Kea Hide and met someone along the way. He said that he'd just seen some Peregrine Falcons, a Merlin and lots of Western Marsh Harriers in the United Utilities Hide and he also said that he'd seen a Slavonian Grebe, around 30 minutes ago, from the screens that overlooked the mere. We took a look at the screens to try and spot the grebe but had no luck. We then came across somebody who pointed it out at the very back near some Northern Shovelers. I looked through my binoculars and, Lo and behold, there it was. It was very small compared to the other ducks. We then changed directions to head to the United Utilities Hide to try and spot the raptors the man named to us. When we arrived, we were told that the Peregrine Falcons had just flown down to the mere and the Merlin had just flown into the reedbed, but there was a lot of Western Marsh Harriers. We spotted around five but we were told that there had been up to ten spotted at once.



Location: WWT Martin Mere, Fish Ln, Burscough, Ormskirk L40 0TA, UK

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