Carsington Bird Club Events

Local Event – Carsington Water Walk – Sunday 19 April

The Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust is holding a fundraising walk around Carsington Water on Sunday 19 April, an event that may be of interest to the members of the Carsington Bird Club.

The route is 8.5 miles long and there will also be a shorter 1 mile walk which is suitable for wheelchairs, pushchairs and small children. The walk will start at 11am outside the visitors centre. Please arrive half an hour early for registration and to pick up the t-shirt and walker’s number.
The Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust is a national organisation which gives young people between the ages of 8-24 who are in recovery from cancer, the opportunity to take part in the new and exciting experience of sailing. The majority of the young people who sail for the first time have finished treatment and are in the very difficult process of putting their lives back together following treatment.
The Trust was launched by internationally renowned sailor Ellen MacArthur in 2003. As Ellen grew up in a small town called Whatstandwell only 20 mins away from Carsington, it seemed like the perfect location to hold a fundraising walk.
Tickets available from our website
* Entry fee is £5 for adults and £2 for children. Each participant will receive a free t-shit to wear on the day and keep as a souvenir.
For more details, click here…..
Carsington Bird Club Events News

Trip to Bempton Cliffs

CLUB TRIP: BEMPTON CLIFFS – SUNDAY, 1 JUNE 2014

In late spring, this RSPB site on the Yorkshire coast is one of the most exciting, busy, noisy – and smelly – birding sites imaginable.  It is particularly noted for up to 200,000 cliff-dwelling birds that call those precipitous ledges home for a few months each year.  Guillemots, Razorbills, Kittiwakes, Fulmars, Gannets and Puffins are virtually guaranteed, along with a range of gulls and other sea-going species such as Cormorant.

Raptors are sometimes in evidence, with Peregrine using the cliffs as a useful larder, Red Kite sightings on the increase, and a Short-eared Owl regularly seen patrolling the flat farmland back from the cliffs, where a range of summer visitors are also to be found.  On the club’s last trip to Bempton five years ago, Whitethroat, Linnet, Sedge Warbler and Corn Bunting joined resident Tree Sparrows, Reed Buntings, Meadow Pipits and Skylarks among the ploughed fields, scrub and hedgerows.

As well as several cliff-top viewpoints, there is a visitor centre with feeding stations that attract the usual seed and nut eaters including various tits, sparrows and finches.  While most visitors are content with these viewing stations, the more energetic souls may fancy walking down to Flamborough Head … and don’t worry, we won’t forget you!

Transport will leave from Carsington Water Visitor Centre at 7.45am.

The cost is expected to be around £15-20 (under-16s £10).  Please send a £10 deposit per person, along with the booking form, to secure your place.

I/we would like to attend this trip.  Please reserve the following number of seats:

Adults …………………                       Children ………………

Name ………………………………   Address .…………………………………………………………………………….

Tel No ………………………………   e-mail ……………………………………………………………………………… I enclose a cheque (payable to Carsington Bird Club) / postal order for £ ……………

Please return the slip/deposits by 30 April to: 

Peter Oldfield, Owslow Farm, Carsington, Matlock, Derbyshire DE4 4DD. 

If you have any further queries on this trip call Peter on 01629 540510 or e-mail him at peter.oldfield2011@gmail.com.

Carsington Bird Club Events

Buxton Festival – 5th – 21st July 2013

http://www.buxtonfestival.co.uk/literary-series/derek-niemann

DEREK NIEMANN – BIRD IN A CAGE

About the event

 

Soon after his arrival at Warburg PoW camp, British army officer John Buxton found an unexpected means of escape from the horrors of internment, passing his days covertly watching birds. Peter Conder, also a passionate ornithologist, had noticed Buxton gazing skywards and, along with two other prisoners, they founded a birdwatching society. In Birds in a Cage, Derek Niemann tells the remarkable story of how four PoWs were forged by their wartime experience into the giants of post-war wildlife conservation. Their legacy lives on in institutions such as the RSPB and the British Wildlife Trust. 

 

 

Click the above link for more information. 

 

 

 

Carsington Bird Club Events Member Reports

Frampton Marsh a Hit With CBC Group !

The twelve club members who clambered aboard the coach headed for Frampton Marsh anticipated a good day's birding – and so it turned out, with 57 species logged by the whole group during nearly seven hours at the Lincolnshire RSPB site.

 
Our driver did an excellent job of getting us there inside two hours (and returning us in the same timescale) which maximised our time in the open air – though a few took the opportunity for a quick coffee. An introduction from the assistant warden gave us a good feel for what was around; and he invited us to boost their list, which I suspect we just might have done.
 
Conditions were fair with high clouds for most of the day, but it was breezy and we felt particularly exposed with little vegetation to interrupt the wind's progress across this flat marshland site.
 
There was an excellent array of waders, ducks and geese on the wetland scrapes, including the increasingly widespread Little Egret, various sandpipers, 'shanks' and several smaller waders. There was much discussion and some confusion – even with the help of scopes which were put to liberal use in each of the three hides – as many of the species were changing from summer to winter plumage.
 
Migrants passing through en route to warmer locations to spend the winter included Wheatear and a few final hirundine stragglers, while other waders, ducks and the odd Brent Goose were arriving on their winter quarters. With the tide out, a few distant seals could be seen on the open sand at the edge of the Wash for those who walked the two miles to the mouth of the Witham River.
 
Raptors were few and far between (we had over-optimistically hoped for a Merlin, Hen Harrier or Short-eared Owl), but a few Kestrels were seen and the highlight was a pair of Marsh Harriers.
 
The total 'CBC' cast list, roughly in order of appearance, was as follows: Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Tree Sparrow, Rook, Collared Dove, Mallard, Teal, Little Egret, Greenshank, Lapwing, Little Grebe, Moorhen, Ruff, Black-tailed Godwit, Dunlin, Cormorant, Little Stint, Canada Goose, Pintail, Black-headed Gull, Shelduck, Wigeon, Mute Swan, Redshank, Meadow Pipit, Skylark, House Martin, Greylag Goose, Coot, Tufted Duck, Kestrel, Wood pigeon, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Starling, Reed Bunting, Wheatear, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Curlew, Swallow, Great-crested Grebe, Herring Gull, Brent Goose, Grey Plover, Oystercatcher, Ringed Plover, Greater Black-backed Gull, Wood Sandpiper, Carrion Crow, Gadwall, Shoveler, Knot, Snipe, Golden Plover, Curlew Sandpiper, Scaup and Marsh Harrier.
 
Gary Atkins
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