Events

Bird Watching Visit

Location: Meeting point in Standish please phone for details

An opportunity to visit bird sites with an experienced member of the Wigan Local Group who will help with finding and identifying the birds. No experience required. Non-members welcome. Use your own car or arrange a lift with leader and share petrol costs. Please phone the leader for more information.

Venue will be decided a few days before the event in the light of the latest bird reports - meeting point in Standish - please telephone for details.

Time: 9.15am

Price: Free. There may be admission charges to reserves for non-members

Booking essential

Telephone: Jimmy Meadows 01942 209304

Bird Watching Walk

Location: Meeting point in Wigan - please phone leader for details

An opportunity to visit bird sites with an experienced member of the Wigan Local Group who will help with finding and identifying the birds. No experience required. Non-members welcome. Use your own car or arrange a lift with leader and share petrol costs. Please phone the leader for more information.

A car trip to Harewood House, Yorkshire, a well-known site for red kites, which breed in the vicinity, and leader Harry Abbott will be hoping for good views of this most charismatic of raptors without too much physical effort.

Time: 8.30am

Price: Free

Booking essential

Telephone: Harry Abbott 0161 427 6194 (Evenings only)

RSPB Stall at Green Fayre

Location: Beacon Country Park, Upholland
WN8 7RU (Google map)

Country Fayre with arena events including working dogs, rare animal breeds, craft stalls, many wildlife stalls, children's attractions, country skills including coopers, weavers, charcoal makers and many more. RSPB stall. Come and find out more about the activities of the RSPB in the Wigan area - Activities for children will include making a bird feeder from a pine cone - all materials provided, a quiz and Bird Bingo with prizes for all

Time: 10.00am - 4.00pm

Price: Free admission and parking

Telephone: Roger Hayes 01257 423165

RSPB Stall at Green Fayre

Location: Beacon Country Park, Up holland
WN8 7RU (Google map)

Country Fayre with arena events including working dogs, rare animal breeds, craft stalls, many wildlife stalls, children's attractions, country skills including coopers, weavers, charcoal makers and many more. RSPB stall. Come and find out more about the activities of the RSPB in the Wigan area - Activities for children will include making a bird feeder from a pine cone - all materials provided, a quiz and Bird Bingo with prizes for all

Time: 10.00am - 4.00pm

Price: Free admission and parking

Telephone: Roger Hayes 01257 423165

Bird Watching Visit

Location: Venue will be decided a few days before the event in the light of the latest bird reports - meeting point in Standish - please telephone for details.

An opportunity to visit bird sites with an experienced member of the Wigan Local Group who will help with finding and identifying the birds. No experience required. Non-members welcome. Use your own car or arrange a lift with leader and share petrol costs. Please phone the leader for more information.

Time: 9.15 am

Price: Free. There may be admission charges to reserves for non-members

Telephone: Jimmy Meadows 01942 209304

Bird Watching Visit - Pot Luck!

Location: Meeting Point in Wigan - phone for details

An opportunity to visit bird sites with an experienced member of the Wigan Local Group who will help with finding and identifying the birds. No experience required. Non-members welcome. Use your own car or arrange a lift with leader and share petrol costs. Please phone the leader for more information.

August is always a difficult month for programme planners and Neil has decided to wait until the day before deciding on the venue. The coast is a possibility, with large numbers of waders already on their way back to their southern wintering grounds, but rarer migrants are always turning up at inland sites at this time of year, so Pot Luck is an apt description for this field trip.

Time: 8.00am

Price: Free

Booking essential

Telephone: Neil Martin 01695 624860 or 07950 137165

Wigan RSPB Local Group Indoor Meeting

Location: St Anne's Parish Hall, Church Lane Shevington Wigan WN6 8BD
WN6 8BD (Google map)

Illustrated talk, 'Birds of the Russian Tundra' by Former warden of Martin Mere RSPB Reserve, Charlie Liggett, who will be making his first visit to the Wigan Group.

Time: 7.45pm

Price: Free to Group members, £2.00 per person for non-members, refunded against membership if you join the Group

Telephone: Geoff Hampson 01942 724401

Mid Week Bird Watching Visit

Location: Venue will be decided a few days before the event in the light of the latest bird reports - meeting point in Standish - please telephone for details.

An opportunity to visit bird sites with an experienced member of the Wigan Local Group who will help with finding and identifying the birds. No experience required. Non-members welcome. Use your own car or arrange a lift with leader and share petrol costs. Please phone the leader for more information.

Time: 9.15am

Price: Free. There may be admission charges to reserves for non-members

Booking essential

Telephone: Jimmy Meadows 01942 209304

Family Walk

Location: Meet at the Cross in Market Place, Standish in time to start at 1.30pm

This will be a leisurely walk of about 2.5miles around the paths and tracks of Standish with an opportunity to learn something about the wildlife of the area. The event has been organised in conjunction with the Standish Churches Together's Hope 2008 programme and is suitable for all the family. There is a prize of a voucher for a meal at La Mama Restaurant to be won - details on the day.

Children under 14 must be supervised by a responsible adult. The walk will involve crossing several main roads and care will be needed. The paths are rough in places and suitable footwear is essential.

Information regarding the RSPB and its Local Group will be available on the day.

Time: 1.30pm

Price: Free

Telephone: For further information contact Eric Hill 01257 422556

Saturday Bird Watching Visit Fomby Point

Location: Formby Point

An opportunity to visit bird sites with an experienced member of the Wigan Local Group who will help with finding and identifying the birds. No experience required. Non-members welcome. Use your own car or arrange a lift with leader and share petrol costs. Please phone the leader for more information.

The venue is Formby Point, near Southport, where, via a short walk through the sand dunes, we can hope to see a good mix of seabirds and waders as the tide pushes in. Past visits here, at the same time of year, have produced good sightings of skuas, terns, gulls, and waders, all feeding in different ways as they prepare for the long journey south. We are hoping that the weather and tide conditions will combine to produce a visual ornithological feast, with, of course, the chance of some rarer migrant passerines in the pine trees and shrubs bordering the dunes.

Time: 8.30am

Price: Free

Booking essential

Telephone: Malcolm and Fiona Alderton 01257 267906

Wigan RSPB Local Group Indoor Meeting

Location: St Anne's Parish Hall, Church Lane Shevington Wigan WN6 8BD
WN6 8BD (Google map)

Illustrated talk 'A Walk on the Wild Side of South America' by Trevor Davenport who will give us a taste of a more exotic aspect of birding.

Time: 7.45pm

Price: Free to Group members, £2.00 per person for non-members, refunded against membership if you join the Group

Telephone: Geoff Hampson 01942 724401

Mid Week Bird Watching Visit

Location: Venue will be decided a few days before the event in the light of the latest bird reports - meeting point in Standish - please telephone for details.

An opportunity to visit bird sites with an experienced member of the Wigan Local Group who will help with finding and identifying the birds. No experience required. Non-members welcome. Use your own car or arrange a lift with leader and share petrol costs. Please phone the leader for more information.

Time: 9.15am

Price: Free. There may be admission charges to reserves for non-members

Booking essential

Telephone: Jimmy Meadows 01942 209304

Saturday Bird Watching Visit

Location: A visit to the ever-popular Point of Ayr, on the Dee Estuary. Saturday 18 November also coincides with a high, conveniently-timed tide, which will, in windy conditions, offer a good chance of species such as skuas, shearwaters, petrels, fulmars and gannets, but with more realistic hopes of waders such as sanderling, both godwits, plovers, knot and snipe, and the off-chance of an early merlin or short-eared owl patrolling the scrubland for smaller land migrants. Walks will be short but over some uneven ground at times, and windproof and waterproof clothing is highly recommended, even though an RSPB hide offers some shelter.

An opportunity to visit bird sites with an experienced member of the Wigan Local Group who will help with finding and identifying the birds. No experience required. Non-members welcome. Use your own car or arrange a lift with leader and share petrol costs. Please phone the leader for more information.

Time: 8.30am

Price: Free

Booking essential

Telephone: Malcolm and Fiona Alderton 01257 267906

Feed the Birds Day Event

Location: Somerfield Supermarket Car Park Standish, on A49 in the centre of Standish about 5 miles north of Wigan.
WN6 0HS (Google map)

The stall will give an opportunity to find out more about the RSPB in Wigan and Nationally and to join the world's largest conservation organisation. Information about birds and free leaflets available. Bird foods and feeders will be for sale.

Activities for children will include making a bird feeder from a pine cone and a quiz with prizes for all.

Time: 10.00am - 4.00pm

Price: Free admission and parking

Telephone: Roger Hayes 01257 423165

Wigan RSPB Local Group Indoor Meeting

Location: St Anne's Parish Hall, Church Lane Shevington Wigan WN6 8BD
WN6 8BD (Google map)

'Our Friendly Garden Robin' Illustrated talk by David Tideswell one of the country's leading authorities on our favourite garden bird.

Time: 7.45pm

Price: Free to Group members, £2.00 per person for non-members, refunded against membership if you join the Group

Telephone: Geoff Hampson 01942 724401

Mid Week Bird Watching Visit

Location: Venue will be decided a few days before the event in the light of the latest bird reports - meeting point in Standish - please telephone for details.

An opportunity to visit bird sites with an experienced member of the Wigan Local Group who will help with finding and identifying the birds. No experience required. Non-members welcome. Use your own car or arrange a lift with leader and share petrol costs. Please phone the leader for more information.

Time: 9.15am

Price: Free. There may be admission charges to reserves for non-members

Booking essential

Telephone: Jimmy Meadows 01942 209304

Saturday Bird Watching Visit

Location: A trip to a new venue for Wigan Local Group, Gresford Flash, near Wrexham which has gained an enviable reputation in recent years for the rare gulls which turn up in the flocks of commoner gulls settling here for their early afternoon bathe: yellow-legged, Mediterranean, glaucous, Iceland and ring-billed have all been seen in November. The Flash is ideal for combining with other North Wales sites which may be visited to complete the day.

An opportunity to visit bird sites with an experienced member of the Wigan Local Group who will help with finding and identifying the birds. No experience required. Non-members welcome. Use your own car or arrange a lift with leader and share petrol costs. Please phone the leader for more information.

Time: 8.30am

Price: Free. There may be admission charges to reserves for non-members

Booking essential

Telephone: Harry Abbott 0161 427 6194 (Evenings)

Mid Week Bird Watching Visit

Location: Venue will be decided a few days before the event in the light of the latest bird reports - meeting point in Standish - please telephone for details.

An opportunity to visit bird sites with an experienced member of the Wigan Local Group who will help with finding and identifying the birds. No experience required. Non-members welcome. Use your own car or arrange a lift with leader and share petrol costs. Please phone the leader for more information.

Time: 9.15am

Price: Free. There may be admission charges to reserves for non-members

Booking essential

Telephone: Jimmy Meadows 01942 209304

Half Day Saturday Bird Watching Visit

Location: Pennington Flash, Leigh Lancashire, Signposted from the A590 East Lancashire Road, meet at Pennington Flash main car park.

WN7 3PA (Google map)

An opportunity to visit bird sites with an experienced member of the Wigan Local Group who will help with finding and identifying the birds. No experience required. Non-members welcome. Please phone the leader for more information.

This is an ideal chance to escape from Christmas shopping and spend half a day enjoying the winter wildlife at Pennington. Expect to see lots of birds on the excellent feeding station and waders and water fowl on the flash. There may be a surprise - you never know what might turn-up at Pennington! This could be two or three hours well spent.

Time: 10.00am

Price: Free

Telephone: Jimmy Meadows 01942 209304