Nature Watch, with Ron Freethy

Get to know our feathered friends during the festive break

FOR me there are two ways of enjoying a session of birdwatching between Christmas and New Year.

I can either be spoon-fed or I get out a map and lay out a route for myself.

Now that December has given us just a touch of cold bright weather, Martin Mere, near Southport, is seen at its best. Here are more than 15,000 pink-footed geese which roost on the 360 areas of marshland. Here also are upwards of 1,000 whooper swans which have come to winter with us from their breeding grounds in Eastern Europe and Russia. Martin Mere, run by the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust, is a delightful and informative place to enjoy a day with the wild birds. There is also the added attraction of more than 100 species of captive birds, some are very rare and are being bred in order to conserve the species.

If you fancy a day of "do it yourself" birdwatching then you could do worse than visit Twiston and follow the riverside footpath to Downham via Ings Beck.

This is the place to see kingfisher, heron and grey wagtail whilst the dipper is resident in this area. All these species are expected and are typical of a healthy stream but what is not expected is the little group of mandarin ducks.

The male mandarin is a delightful bird and, although he looks delicate, he is in fact a tough chap. A native of Asia, the mandarin escaped from captivity many years ago and is now happily living wild.

Ings Beck is one of my favourite strolls but because of the wet weather during the Autumn of 2000 it has been far too muddy to be enjoyable. I did, however, stroll in good conditions last Saturday and so the walking conditions are now improved.

The word Ings comes from the Old English for a water meadow and so it has always been something of a damp spot. Here, then, are two suggestions to help you fight the flab after you have enjoyed your festive food. Quilt or duvet, eider will do

ON a frosty morning it is cosy to cover up your head in a duvet and snuggle down for another hour's sleep.

I used to call them eiderdowns but the modern word is duvet.

They both mean the same thing because the eider duck is known in French as the duvet.

All the word duvet means is a diving duck.

The down of an eider duck has been proved to be the best insulator in the natural world.

Before we had modern artificially-produced insulation materials there were "eider farmers" in Iceland.

Their job was to wait until the female eider had raised her chicks and then remove the down feathers which lined the nest.

These eider farmers were good conservationists because they did not kill any birds. All they did was wait until the female eider and her ducklings had finished with the nest. The down was then washed and packed.

Next time you think of a duvet, even if it now has artificial stuffing in it, just remember the original eiderdown.