Hi, my name is Daniel I’m the new official bird spotter for Knowsley Safari.
It was my first day
on Wednesday 26th August and it started with an interview with BBC North West Tonight. I was being filmed birdwatching, but the cameraman Elliot, was finding it very hard to spot and film a bird. He ended up filming a woodpigeon. When we were walking off, I spotted a blue tit as plain as day in a tree. Elliot was too far away to film it! There is plenty of birdlife at Knowsley Safari, for example on Mizzy Lake there were tufted ducks, mallards, coots, moorhens, black headed gulls and some little grebes. Tufted ducks are diving ducks, which go under the water to get food. Mallards are the classic ducks, which if you say to someone, think of a duck, most people will think of the mallard. They are dabbling ducks, which means they stick their bottoms in the air and get weed from underneath the water. The way to tell apart coots and moorhens is that the coot has a white beak, the moorhen has a red beak with a yellow tip. On the Safari drive I spotted 2 buzzards, 10 pied wagtails, 20 swallows, 5 pheasants and a moorhen. In the woodland area I saw or heard – nuthatch, robin, blue and great tits, goldfinches and a wren.
Cute Coot
Mallard & Coot
