Wellacre Country Park

Redwing

It was a bright and cold and frosty morning. I was just checking the running of the trains to Burscough Bridge when the Met Office issued a yellow warning for ice in the area. I recalled how often I've fallen on my arse or my back on icy walks between Burscough Bridge and Martin Mere and decided I'd postpone the walk until the greyer, milder weather promised next week.

I havered far too long on what to do with the day, the problem being that if you don't get out early enough by the time you've made the connections for the journey there's not a right lot of time left for the walk before the light starts fading. I decided to head out for Pennington Flash, the gull roost making it worth sticking around into twilight. I got to the bus stop with five minutes to wait for the next 25 to the Trafford Centre. Twenty minutes later I double-checked the connections at the Trafford Centre, Eccles, Worsley and Mosley Common and couldn't make any combination work to get me to Pennington Flash more than half an hour before sunset, and that assuming the next 25 turned up at the time it was due. So I got the 256 into Flixton and had a wander round Wellacre Country Park.

Wellacre Wood 

As I squelched my way into Wellacre Wood I wondered if it was such a good idea. I soon changed my mind, it was one of those days when the landscape is green and gold and black. The parakeets were notable by their absence and this made it easier to hear the blackbirds, great tits, blue tits and dunnocks rummaging about in the undergrowth. 

Wellacre Wood 

A great spotted woodpecker saw the female sparrowhawk before I did, I only spotted it as it lurched from its perch low down in a maple tree and went crashing through a bramble hedge. There was a lot of chatter from blackbirds, great tits and house sparrows after her passing.

Business as usual 

The fields were green and largely empty, just a handful of horses were out and had a couple of magpies accompanying them. I heard myself asking the magpies why there weren't any fieldfares about in the trees on the field margins. I negotiated the extremely damp path to Jack Lane and was rewarded by a redwing flying into the tree at the end of the path and a mixed flock of meadow pipits and fieldfares flying by and heading towards the canal.

Jack Lane

Jack Lane Nature Reserve 

Jack Lane Nature Reserve was fairly quiet — a blackbird, a dunnock, a wren and a goldfinch in the trees, woodpigeons and jackdaws flying over. The moorhens and water rails in the reeds were vocal but elusive. Walking past the frozen pools it only felt like yesterday I was watching nesting reed warblers here.

The trees along the railway embankment were very quiet indeed. Not so much as a scolding wren.

Dutton's Pond 

Dutton's Pond looked lovely and had four moorhens and a pair of mallards cruising about. A few black-headed gulls flew over heading for roost. Woodpigeons flew around looking for the next lot of ivy to strip of berries. The squirrels seemed to be already raiding caches of nuts.

Grey squirrel 

Green Hill 

I walked through onto Green Hill where there were a few blue tits and great tits about but they were keeping very low profiles and didn't seem to be organised into mixed flocks. Magpies and woodpigeons were busy in the trees, their bouncing about causing leaves to drop accounted for most of the rustling noises in the background, the woodpigeons' noisily picking ivy berries accounting for the rest. Try as I might I couldn't see where the jays were screaming from.

Green Hill 

As the sun lowered into the clouds just above the horizon the passage of black-headed gulls overhead going to roost were joined by lesser black-backs and herring gulls. Jackdaws and rooks headed for the trees on Carrington Moss. I headed for the bus home.

It was nice to see a pair of dabchicks on the Mersey by Flixton Bridge, they've not been around the last few times I've been past.

Green Hill 

Gorton

Dabchick, Lower Gorton Reservoir 

Well… the snow came, as promised, and very nearly got a couple of millimetres thick where it drifted on the garden fence. With the snow, and both feeding stations getting a refill, came the birds. Sixteen spadgers sat in the boysenberries waiting their turns to barge each other off the fat feeder, the robin jumping in for a feed while they were squabbling. A burst of red in the rowan tree that wasn't the robin turned out to be the first male bullfinch of Winter.

Given the weather warnings and associated uncertainty of travel I didn't make any plans for today. Ironically all our local trains ran and ran roughly on time today, the first time since August. I bobbed over to the Trafford Centre and played bus station bingo which is how I ended up getting the 150 to Gorton.

I've had Debdale Park and the Gorton Reservoirs in my sights for a while, I've kept going by on the way back in from Tameside, it was time I paid a visit.

Debdale Park 

Next time I visit (because I will) I'll go into town and get the 7, 201, 202 or 205 and get off outside Debdale Park. The traipse down Hyde Road from the 150 bus stop's a pain. Debdale Park's one of those ones that at first just look and feel like a strip of landscaping running alongside the road until you turn down a path through the trees and suddenly it's enormous. Greater Manchester's full of them: big green patches on the map with a little bit of the green meeting a main road.

Lower Gorton Reservoir 

The path through the trees I walked down brought me alongside Lower Gorton Reservoir. The reservoir was screened by trees along this stretch of path. Peeking through I could see black-headed gulls, coots, tufted ducks, mallards and a couple of great crested grebes but could only hear and not see Canada geese. Walking along there were lots of magpies and blackbirds about and a couple of robins bobbed about by the path but there were hardly any other small birds. Perhaps they were put off by the incessant calling of ring-necked parakeets.

Dabchicks, Lower Gorton Reservoir 

I followed this path round and came to the one that goes across the wall dividing the upper and lower reservoirs. I hadn't walked far before I got to the reservoirs, each separated from the path by a fence and low hedge. There's a slope down to Lower Gorton Reservoir, I walked down and scanned round, adding a couple of juvenile dabchicks to the tally. The drake mallards were busy head bobbing and whistling at the ladies.

Upper Gorton Reservoir 

Upper Gorton Reservoir 

Back on the path I had a scan over the upper reservoir. This was significantly quieter, just a few coots and a couple of mallards. The banks are a bit more thickly wooded than the lower reservoir. It was still only mid-afternoon but the woodpigeons were clattering in to roost.

Lower Gorton Reservoir 

The low sun started its dress rehearsals for what promised to be a nice sunset and the air started getting cooler by the minute. I took the time to enjoy the scenery then carried on up the path into Abbey Hey. I stopped almost immediately and watched a bullfinch feeding on bramble pips by the path. I noted a few paths round the reservoir worth exploring another day.

Bullfinch, Gorton Reservoirs 

Bullfinch, Gorton Reservoirs 

I looked at the options for getting home. The nearest bus stops were for the number 7 going between Ashton-under-Lyne and Stockport, the buses going either way pass around here and I'd just missed them both. I was heading for the buses along Ashton Old Road when i came to the intersection with the Fallowfield Loop. This is the footpath between Fairfield, near the station, and Fallowfield, ending near Platt Fields, another of ye olde railway lines of England. I decided to walk down to Fairfield Station and wait then ten minutes for the train to Piccadilly. Thence I could get over to Oxford Road for the train home.

Fallowfield Loop, Fairfield 

The light faded as I walked down to Fairfield. Magpies chattered in the trees, three parakeets made a racket as they flew to roost, and the last lesser black-backs left the school yard. Blackbirds, robins and wrens fossicked in the hedgerows and a great spotted woodpecker called from the trees just beyond.

Magpies and blackbirds were working the twilight shift at Fairfield Station as I waited for the train. Unfortunately, this is a station that you walk down into, it wasn't until the train got to Ashburys that I could see the remains of what evidently had been a very picturesque sunset.

Hindley

Robin, Amberswood 

The early morning alarm call having been fed, I looked out at the weak sun on what promised to be the last day before snow and ice and decided that whatever else I was going to do with it I wasn't getting involved in yet another of Northern's Monday meltdowns. I had an early lunch and set out to the Trafford Centre for the 132 to Wigan.

Low Hall 

I got off in Hindley and walked down Liverpool Road. It had become a very gloomy grey day and even though it was still lunchtime it looked like bedtime. The jackdaws in the trees agreed. The woodpigeons were more active and a mistle thrush on sentry go rattled me off on my way.

Mute swan, Low Hall 

It was damp underfoot and quiet in the trees in Low Hall. A couple of wrens chaffed as I passed and robins, dunnocks and blackbirds rummaged about the path edges. The pair of mute swans were feeding by the near bank of the pond, a couple of coots and half a dozen mallards drifted midwater and half a dozen drake teals lurked by the reeds on the far side. 

Low Hall 

I watched a moorhen diving for water weed roots and it occurred to me how rarely I see them go underwater. Climbing trees, yes, diving no.

Mallards, Low Hall 

Literally the first birds I encountered at Amberswood were a pair of willow tits in a bush by the Crompton Street entrance. They were part of a mixed tit flock that was fussing about there because someone had put bird seed on top of a post. Oddly, the flock didn't include long-tailed tits, in fact I didn't see any of them here today. None of the birds were up for staying still for photographs, which is probably as well as the light was terrible and the results would have been disappointing.

Amberswood Lake

The lake was oddly quiet in this early twilight. A mute swan, a great crested grebe and a dozing tufted duck. A dozen black-headed gulls seemed ready to roost.

My bumping into a second mixed tit flock, this time with just the one willow tit and no long-tailed tits, coincided with my bumping into a couple of dog walkers ready for a chat and their well-behaved and friendly dogs, which spared my trying to get bad photos of the birds.

Amberswood 

Amberswood 

I walked into the woods and looped round back to Liverpool Road. I'd like to pretend this was the intention all along but I was aiming for Manchester Road and forgot that at the junction by the toppled tree it's left then right not right then left. As I walked through one of the clearings I encountered a giddy kipper of a puppy and as I stopped to brush the mud off my thighs I glanced up and noticed a male kestrel sitting at the top of the tree in front of me. Having satisfied its curiosity it went back to surveying the scrubby grass beyond us.

Kestrel, Amberswood 

More by luck than planning I got back to the bus stop in Hindley with five minutes to spare for the 132 back to the Trafford Centre. It's nice when it works like that.

Amberswood 

Dreich

The morning began deceptively sunny but decidedly cooler than it has been. The rain, when it came, was like stair rods. The great tits and spadgers on the feeders disappeared back into cover with the blue tits and long-tailed tits that had been bouncing round in the sycamores. The change in the weather has coincided with there being enough leaf fall for me to be able to see who's rattling the twigs.

The usual fourteen black-headed gulls were loafing on the school playing field. My working assumption is that they're the same birds every time. I can't prove this: they're all of them without rings and don't have any obvious distinguishing marks in their plumage. It's not an unreasonable assumption, though, most of the ringed black-headed gulls I've reported haven't moved very far from where they were first ringed. It's a novelty to find one that's come over from Russia or Latvia. Nearly all of the gulls I see were ringed as part of the Waterbird Colour Marking Project which has a nice easy online form for reporting sightings and finding out more about the individual concerned.

—

It occurred to me the other day as I was hanging about waiting for a late-running train that on the quiet I do a lot of my birdwatching this way. There are stations where, weather permitting, this is an absolute pleasure: watching waders on the Exe at Starcross; listening to a cirl bunting singing at Dawlish Warren; little egrets at Kent's Bank; skylarks and geese at New Lane; the rookery at Burscough Bridge; and the estuary birds at Foxfield, amongst very many others. Then there are the big city stations where you're grateful if you see a pigeon. Still, it set me thinking.

Carrion crow, Humphrey Park 

My local station's Humphrey Park so it's unsurprising I'll have recorded a lot of bird sightings there. More surprising is that I've seen fifty species of birds there over the years, something I wouldn't expect from a suburban halt. (Mind you, if you asked me to guess my garden list I'd say off the top of my head it would be around thirty, it's actually fifty-nine).

These are the tallies I've got from some of the stations I find myself loitering about. (I've excluded a lot I can't disentangle from the surrounding area.)

• Altrincham 21
• Appley Bridge 34
• Barrow 37
• Bidston 32
• Birkenhead North 34
• Blackpool North 6
• Blackpool South 9
• Bolton 21
• Carnforth 35
• Chelford 27
• Chester 21
• Foxfield 31
• Gathurst 32
• Kent's Bank 32
• Leeds 11
• Liverpool Lime Street 7
• Liverpool South Parkway 37
  (most of this is accounted for by the bird-rich embankments on the lower Northern Line platforms)
• Manchester Oxford Road 36
  (having the Castlefield canal basin with its trees and open water nearby makes a big difference here)
• Manchester Piccadilly 21
  (this came as a surprise!)
• Meadowhall 20
• Preston 22
• Radcliffe Tram Station 29
• Rochdale 25
• Sheffield 20
• Southport 27
• Starcross 21
• Stockport 19
• Warrington 25
• Wigan Northwestern/Wallgate 18
  (I was surprised this was so low, there's always something about, it turns out to be always roughly the same something)

I think the difference between Piccadilly and Lime Street is the open areas a few hundred yards away from Piccadilly with the Medlock and Rochdale Canal passing close by.

I guess it's worth not sitting around moping at the train timetables when you're left hanging about at the station.

Mersey Valley

Shovelers and teal (right), Broad Ees Dole 

I didn't feel like subjecting myself to Saturday buses so I wandered down to Urmston Lane and got the bus to the Stretford Metrolink Station and walked down to the cemetery. It was a mild, grey sort of a day and very damp underfoot. I thought I'd wander down to Sale Water Park then see where the light, my knee and my energy levels took me.

The cemetery had its usual assortment of robins, magpies and pigeons but no thrushes of any kind, not even a blackbird.

Hawthorn Lane 

I walked down Hawthorn Lane which was relatively quiet. A couple of blue tits bounced about in the trees, a song thrush flew up from the leaf litter and came over to make sure I wasn't anything to be scared of, decided I wasn't but stayed in it's tree until I'd walked past; and a bullfinch wheezed melancholically as it nibbled hawthorn buds.

Blue tit, Stretford Ees

I climbed up onto the bank and walked along the river beside Stretford Ees.. Ring-necked parakeets called in the trees, their calling would be a constant feature of the afternoon. Woodpigeons, jackdaws and carrion crows flew overhead with no general pattern of direction. I was looking at the pool, wondering where the moorhens were, when I noticed a gang of blue tits and great tits having a bath in a corner underneath a bramble patch.

The river was fairly low but running fast, a fair reflection of a couple of wet nights after a dry fortnight. There wasn't a bird on there, which is unusual: if there's not one or other wagtail there's generally a pair of mallards lurking by the bank on this stretch. 

Black-headed gulls and great crested grebe, Sale Water Park 

A few dozen black-headed gulls had already arrived to roost on the lake at Sale Water Park. There was the full complement of the usual gull species with them: one common gull, one lesser black-back, and one first-Winter herring gull. Those three sat on buoys away from the crowd. Unlike a great crested grebe which sat in the middle while it had a preen.

Shoveler and teal, Broad Ees Dole 

There were a dozen teal on the teal pond on Broad Ees Dole, appropriately enough. Most of them were drakes in pristine breeding plumage cruising the reedbed margins like a repertory company production of "West Side Story." A couple of pairs of mallards dabbled about and a couple of pairs of shovelers cruised midwater. Neither of the drake shovelers had lost much of their eclipse plumage yet.

The pool by the hide was high and remarkably empty, just two moorhens rummaging about in the water weeds.

Broad Ees Dole 

Sale Water Park 

I walked round the lake, the usual mob of mute swans and Canada geese mugging for scraps over by the water sports centre. The hedgerows on this side were busy with mixed tit flocks, their furtive passage through the depths of the hawthorns and elder bushes given away by the contact calls of long-tailed tits.

Barrow Brook

Blackbirds, wrens and robins rummaged about in the undergrowth along Barrow Brook while woodpigeons clattered about in the trees. There was a crescendo of parakeet calls as about fifty of them gathered in the pre-roost in the trees by Jackson Boat car park.

The sun had just set and the light was dimming. I decided I didn't have the legs to carry on the walk down the river to Kenworthy Woods so I crossed over and walked through Hardy Farm into Chorlton for the bus home. The hundred and fifty or so jackdaws in the roost at the bottom of Hardy Lane was out-shouted by about a hundred and twenty parakeets.

Hardy Farm 

Southport

Snow bunting

I'd been ignoring the shouting in my ear and the paw in my face for what seemed like many lifetimes and when I finally properly woke up I was convinced I'd slept through to lunchtime. I hadn't, so I got the early train into town to get a new monthly travel card and the train to Southport. 

The snow bunting was back on the pleasure beach at Southport. I don't know whether it, or its counterpart at Wallasey, is the same bird every Winter but I like to think so. I dipped repeatedly last Winter so I thought I'd renew my acquaintance. I could also have a look for twites on the nearby salt marsh while I was at it. After that, depending on the visibility on a grey and misty day, I'd either bob on to Crossens or head back for a nosey at Martin Mere.

A grey wagtail flitting about the roof of Deansgate Station I took to be a good omen. Similarly the field near Hoscar that was blanketed with a couple of hundred pink-footed geese, a hundred or so woodpigeons, scores of rooks and jackdaws but still had a bit of room left for a dozen black-headed gulls. There were another hundred or so pink-footed geese in a field near Woodmoss Lane just after Bescar Lane Station. All good omens.

Black-headed gull
Some birds travel thousands of miles. This gull was ringed at Southport Marine Lake six years ago and has only ever been seen here.

Arriving at Southport I walked down to the marine lake which, by its lights, was rather quiet: a herd of mute swans cruised by the Venetian Bridge; a few coots, mallards and black-headed gulls; a handful of herring gulls and a crowd of pigeons. Carrion crows and a couple of oystercatchers fed on the grass just beyond.

Herring gull

Southport pier 

As I walked down onto the Pleasure Beach the sun poked through the clouds a couple of times, more to tease than anything much else. The tide was lowish and the wet beach was dotted with redshanks, shelducks dabbled with the little egrets at the salt marsh edges and a small group of dunlins scrabbled about between redshanks.

Redshank 

I'd dropped down to the beach but decided to get back on the revetment. I could see all the beach from there and it would have been just my luck for the snow bunting to be fossicking about in the storm debris littering the tops. As it happens, the bunting was on the beach, almost perfectly camouflaged against the shell debris. A few people spotted that I'd spotted it; luckily by the time they came over it had moved into a patch of open sand by a square puddle so I could give coherent directions for seeing it. I do like snow buntings, they're bonny birds.

Snow bunting
First sight of it.

Snow bunting 

Snow bunting 

Snow bunting 

Passing under the pier I thought I'd try to find any twites in the salt marsh by Marine Drive. Plenty of redshanks, shelducks and starlings, a couple of skylarks… Technically I suppose I didn't see any twites in the salt marsh. A couple flew up and briefly  joined the starlings perched on the telephone lines by The Guelder Rose. Another one flew by a hundred yards further down.

Carrion crow 

I crossed the road and tried my luck by the sailing club. When the twites disappear into the salt marsh they do a proper vanishing act, if any are about the sailing club they show very well. But not today. There were plenty of pied wagtails and black-headed gulls but no twites. Out on the lake there were more mute swans and coots, a dozen dabchicks bobbed about and half a dozen gadwall were getting very amorous. 

I had a walk round the lake. Small charms of goldfinches posed picturesquely as they fed on the seedheads, right up to the moment the camera got them in focus. A young male stonechat followed their example. For a change, and in the light of the recent visit to Hoylake, I took the path going through the stand of sea buckthorn bushes. It provided plenty of cover for the passage migrant (and also felt significantly warmer than the open country) but all I could find were goldfinches, wrens, greenfinches and chaffinches, which I really shouldn't sniff at, I miss them when they're not around.

Goldfinch 

Goldfinch 

Goldfinches

It was apparent that I wasn't up for a visit to either Crossens or Martin Mere. The steep hill climb and descent followed by a long and cramped train journey home the other day wasn't enjoyed by my knee. Yesterday's walk got a lot of the movement back and took a lot of the ache out but today I seemed to be walking more ache in, it might be the change in the weather. 

Hesketh Park 

I contented myself with a walk down to Hesketh Park where the scaup that was on the pool earlier in the week hadn't made a reappearance. There was no shortage of tufted ducks, though, including a couple of females with white blazes about their beaks which made me look twice. They were undeniably tufted ducks once they stuck their heads in their back feathers for a doze. 

Tufted ducks 

Tufted ducks 

Tufted ducks and black-headed gulls
Tufties are not big ducks.

Tufted ducks 

There was a wide variety in the first-Winter drakes ranging from almost indistinguishable from the females save for the greater contrast between the dark back and wings and the underside, through various shades of dark browns and sandy greys to individuals that looked like adult drakes but with grey sides. I wasn't finding myself a scaup so I thought I'd better double-check all the tufties just in case there was a ring-necked duck in the crowd. There wasn't but if you don't look you don't find. A grey wagtail feeding by the path was a nice consolation prize.

Grey wagtail 

Calling it a day I walked back to the station. I didn't feel so bad about being so lazy when I realised I'd done four and a half miles' worth of dawdling about and somehow clocked up fifty-two species of birds for the day. On the way home I added a grey heron, a pair of teal and a flock of stock doves to the tally.