Dreich

The Met Office had promised biblical rain and lo! it was produced overnight. Things quietened down during the day, the rain having settled into that heavy drizzle that's like walking through a continuous sequence of saturated eiderdowns. It was so wet a juvenile grey wagtail spent quarter of an hour rummaging about on the washhouse roof.

I had had thoughts of letting the train take the strain but an extremely bad night's sleep put paid to ambition. Eyes like peepholes in the snow are not the best tools for keen observation. 

There were errands to be run in Manchester that I'd been putting off, today seemed a good day to get them out of the way. Looking out of the rain-streaked window into the daunting murk it occurred to me it had been no bad idea to postpone any train-based birdwatching.

Lincoln Square 

The pigeons were bustling about as I walked through St Peters Square but the usual flock of goldfinches weren't about any. The usual blue tits were in the trees in Lincoln Square, though. I kept an eye out on the rooftops for any signs of black redstarts (the consequent tilt of the head being good for keeping eyes out of the way of umbrella spokes). As expected I had no joy. You have to either have a job working in a top floor office or be phenomenally lucky to see one of the city centre black redstarts. These days I'm walking through the city centre so infrequently that I'm phenomenally lucky perhaps once every couple of years.

A Cheshire walk

Rabbit, Gorse Covert Mounds 

It was a dry but very grey day so I thought I'd go chasing yellow-browed warblers. One's been reported a couple of times in the past week in the Silver Lane area between the M62 and Culcheth, I don't know the area so it was an opportunity to do a bit of exploring.

The quickest way for me to get there was to get the train to Birchwood then get either the 28 to the Noggin Inn or the 25 to Hamsterly Close then have a mile and a bit walk to the place indicated on Birdguides. This involves waiting half an hour for the bus at Birchwood Station; I couldn't be doing with waiting that long for a two mile ride so I walked it. Rather than taking a straight line through Birchwood from the station to Gorse Covert thence over Pestfurlong Hill onto Silver Lane and over the motorway I walked along the stretch of Birch Forest Park by the railway, past Risley Moss, across Birch Park and thence into Gorse Covert, adding about a mile to the walk.

Arriving at Birchwood Station I had a quick look over the ploughed fields next to the Liverpool-bound platform where a couple of hundred black-headed gulls and a few dozen woodpigeons were busy feeding.

Long-tailed tit, Birchwood Forest Park

From the moment I stepped into Birch Forest Park the trees were noisy with great tits and I was getting some practice into finding small birds amongst the Autumn greenery. If the great tits hadn't been so noisy I'd have struggled to spot them. As it was, once I'd got them in my sights I could pick out the blue tits and long-tailed tits they were flocking with. In the mile and a half of this part of the walk I bumped into five mixed tit flocks and in two of those the most conspicuous birds were the goldcrests. A couple of robins sang, wrens scolded and blackbirds were acrobatically busy getting the last of the hawthorn berries.

Birchwood Forest Park 

Overhead there was a constant passage of woodpigeons flying North from the ploughed fields the other side of the railway. Every so often they'd be passing over in their dozens, at least a hundred and fifty went over while I was walking through. A couple of buzzards called loudly as they flew low over the trees, shadowed by carrion crows part of the way. I was struggling a bit with the weather: the air was cool but the wind was warm and I'd swapped the Winter jacket for the Summer one over the weekend.

I walked round Risley Moss rather than going in it, I didn't want to add a detour to the walk. The mixed flock I bumped into here was made up of great tits and goldcrests with a dunnock tagging along.

Birch Park

I cut across Birch Park to Gorse Covert. The hedgerows were noisy with great tits and robins, I bumped into more goldcrests and a bullfinch sighed mournfully in the trees by the car park.

Gorse Covert Mounds 

Gorse Covert's the housing estate on the Eastern side of Birchwood, separated from the M62 by a strip of parkway called Gorse Covert Mounds running up to Pestfurlong Hill. I hadn't gone far into Gorse Covert Mounds when I bumped into a large mixed tit flock which included a couple of dozen blue tits, none of which were up for having their photo taken. The goldcrests and long-tailed tits were relatively shy, unlike a coal tit which came up close to tease the amateur photographer. I've had the new camera a while now but I'm still not quite used to the camera"s reactions being slower than mine. There were half a dozen moorhens on the end of the pond by the path as I passed.

Winter Hill from Pestfurlong Hill 

I checked out the views from Pestfurlong Hill and wandered down onto Silver Lane and over the motorway. The wind was cooling and there was a hint of rain in the air as I stood at the beginning/end of the lane North of the motorway and wondered where to go.

Google Maps told me to follow a path though Pestfurlong Moss that would take an hour and a half to get to the point about fifty yards from where I was standing, which seemed odd. I had a scan over the moss while I was here and found a few woodpigeons in the fields and goldfinches in the hedgerows. The turn-off on the North of the motorway is a contractors' service road with a bit of parking and a locked gate. I decided to cross this road to see if the grey streak on the map was a footpath. It was, and it immediately dropped onto the stretch of Silver Lane on Culcheth Heights. I refreshed Google Maps to see which way to go along the lane. I then ignored the advice.

Occasionally Google Maps plays tricks on you.
The stretch of path I've coloured red took 2 minutes to walk.

A Southern hawker zipped by the trees along the path as I checked the map. The trees thinned out as I walked down the lane and soon I was in open country with a small pool on one side of the path and thin scrub on the other. I was seeing or hearing no sign of any tit flocks, or any small birds at all. 

Culcheth Heights 

Shrine to the Dog Shit Fairy 

The clouds rolled in and visibility dropped with a hint of drizzle in the air. I'd gone a good hundred yards when I disturbed a large finch which flew up and circled over me then disappeared into the scrub. The light was so bad I had to use a process of elimination to identify it as a greenfinch, anything else would have had some white in the plumage. The flock of linnets I bumped into a few minutes later were easier to identify, as was the flock of starlings rising from a field on Pestfurlong Moss.

Silver Lane Lakes 

I followed the lane round to the North then dropped down onto the path by the lakes. I was beginning to wonder why I shouldn't give up and take the quickest route to Warrington Road thence home when a chiffchaff squeaked in the scrub and reminded me why I was here. This felt more like tit flock country. I hadn't gone far when I started hearing blue tits, great tits and dunnocks. A couple of jays flew by, a couple of robins sang, long-tailed tits bounced through the trees.

All the pools so far had been empty water. The largest pool was busy with birds. A raft of a few dozen black-headed gulls bathed and preened, pairs of tufted ducks and wigeons drifted midwater and coots fussed about near the banks.

Silver Lane Country Park 

The hints of rain had passed though it was still grey and gloomy. I carried on along the small path heading East through more mature oak woodland. Blackbirds, wrens and robins fossicked about in the undergrowth, a few great tits called from the trees.

 If there was a yellow-browed warbler about I'd expect it to be in the woodlands round the lakes but I had me no luck today. This is part of Silver Lane Country Park, of which I was ignorant until today. If I were to come back I think I'd get the 28 to the Noggin Inn and walk down Silver Lane from there.

Looking back at Silver Lane Country Park 

I followed the path down to the end of the woods then followed the footpath that doglegs through the fields and through the farmyard onto Warrington Road. A buzzard called noisily from a telegraph pole at a couple of herons that flew low by over the field. One set of telephone lines had a dozen starlings and a couple of mistle thrushes, another had thirty-odd linnets and a couple of meadow pipits.

There's a long stretch of Warrington Road between the bus stops at Risley Prison and Newchurch at the edge of Culcheth and the footpath I was on meets the road halfway along. The 28 bus to Leigh passed me halfway to Newchurch. This is an hourly service, I decided to walk into Culcheth for the 19 to Leigh. I got to the bus stop by the library with quarter of an hour to spare, if the buses were running on time I'd have a similar wait for the 126 back to the Trafford Centre. The 19 arrived three-quarters of an hour later and crawled through Glazebury at such a glacial pace that not only did I not catch the 126 I was aiming for, I didn't catch the one leaving Leigh and hour and ten minutes later. I was just in time to get the 35 to Boothstown where I got the next 132 to the Trafford Centre and for once made the connection for the 25 home. 

It had taken almost as long to get home from Culcheth on the buses as it has to walk there from Birchwood. It had been a good walk, though, and pretty good birdwatching even though I didn't get a yellow-browed warbler.

Pennington Flash

Kingfisher 

The weather was looking good so I thought I'd start the week with a wander round Pennington Flash. I was tempted to go out chasing yellow-browed warblers but they're still in the fidgeting about stage of passage, better to get a productive day in after the weekend's hiatus just to keep morale up. And besides, you never know your luck and Pennington Flash is as likely to have a yellow-browed warbler hiding in it's tit flocks as anyplace else. [Spoiler alert: not for me today.]

Pennington Flash 

There's roadworks in Leigh so the 610 was diverted down Westleigh Way and when we joined St Helens Road it was very busy with lunchtime traffic so it took a while to get across to Pennington Flash. When I got over I decided to take a meandering walk through the woodland South of the flash to see what was about. It felt very quiet, save the calls of jackdaws overhead, but there were lots of faint rustlings that weren't falling leaves and contact calls so faint I'd be convincing myself they were hallucinatory illusions caused by ear wax then I'd spot the robin, dunnock or great tit that made them as it flitted through the undergrowth three or four trees away. Every so often I'd pass a patch of bramble or dogwood and be reassured by a scolding wren.

I got to a willow hedge by one of the paths and heard some more of those "am I really hearing anything noises." I had an excuse this time, the contact noises made by goldcrests and treecreepers are very quiet and quite high on the register. I saw the treecreeper first as it disappeared round a thick stick, the goldcrests took some finding and were very fidgety even by their standards. I was looking for the long-tailed tits I was hearing, and failing dismally, when a willow tit jumped out of the bush I was standing beside, made an extremely rude noise then disappeared when it came.

Pennington Flash 

I meandered round to the flash, the long-tailed tits in the third flock I encountered putting me out of my misery and making an appearance as they bounced through an ash tree. That flock had a bullfinch in tow which struck me as unusual. Even more unusually none of these flocks seemed to have any blue tits with them.

Pennington Flash 

The flash was as close to being a mill pond as it ever gets. A huge raft of close on a hundred coots drifted by the sailing club and there were more, smaller, rafts of them dotted about. None of the rafts of tufted ducks were more than a couple of dozen birds but there were plenty of them. Out in midwater a few lesser black-backs and herring gulls loafed about, cormorants and great crested grebes were busy fishing.

Tufted ducks 

I looked in vain for any pochards or goldeneyes, serves me right for being impatient for Winter. I couldn't find any common gulls either. I did find a yellow-legged gull, though, all beak and shoulders. I struggled to put an age to it, it looked too "clean" for a first-Winter bird but it didn't have a particularly clean grey saddle so I wasn't convinced it was a second-Winter bird. The coots and tufties near the bank were fishing for freshwater mussels. I was impressed by the way they dealt with them once they had them, it can't be easy to crack them open when you're floating on the water and can't hold them down into a hard surface to keep them steady. It was a lot like watching a chaffinch deal with the husk of a sunflower seed.

Tufted duck 

Pennington Brook 

I walked down towards the brook, a passing little egret disappearing into the trees at the mouth of Pennington Brook. The brook was busy with mallards and coots, a couple of mute swans were feeding near the bridge and a couple of redhead goosanders drifted upstream.

Black-headed gulls 

The car park was heaving with mallards, Canada geese, black-headed gulls and mute swans. Some of the swans have taken to hiding behind rubbish bins then stepping out suddenly to demand slices of bread with menaces. They took some persuading that I'd even forgotten to bring out anything for myself. There have been reports that the Egyptian geese are still around but I couldn't find them today. It also occurs to me that it's months since I last saw the car park oystercatcher.

From the F.W.Horrocks Hide

The water was lower than it has been lately, most of the spit at the Horrocks Hide was exposed though little enough was taking advantage of it. Way out at the end a dozen cormorants dried their wings in the company of a few lapwings, some coots and a few herring gulls. I keep being told to look out for great egrets but never have any joy with it. Just as I was about to leave a kingfisher flew in and sat on the post just in front of the hide.

Kingfisher 

The walk through the trees down to the Tom Edmondson Hide was unusually quiet. The pools by the paths, in contrast, were busy. Pengy's Pool, seen through the trees, was busy with gadwalls, the pool across from hide busy with shovelers.

From the Tom Edmondson Hide 

There were a few shovelers, gadwalls and mallards on the pool at the Tom Edmondson Hide. A couple of dabchicks fished in their usual corner and a heron lurked in the reeds.

Mandarin duck (centre) and teal

I was expecting to see teal and shovelers at the Ramsdales Hide, I wasn't expecting the trio of mandarin ducks. I couldn't turn any of the teal into a garganey and I looked in vain for any waders until a snipe that had been sitting in plain view stood up and walked into the long grass.

I took the looping walk round to the Charlie Owen Hide, bumping into the first blue tits and the only chiffchaff of the visit.

Shovelers 

The pool at the hide was carpeted with shovelers, the few coots and gadwalls staying on the margins. A couple of dabchicks showed their disregard of coots by bobbing up and nearly upending them a couple of times.

Great tit

The feeding station at the Bunting Hide was gratifyingly busy with small birds.

Coal tit

Willow tit

Dunnock

Nuthatch 

Bullfinch

Pengy's Pool 

I called in at Pengy's Hide where the gadwalls outnumbered the mallards three to one.

Herring gull 

I must have been walking back through the car park about the time somebody reported seeing a bittern flying across the reeds across from the end of the Horrocks spit.

On St Helens Road the Leigh-bound traffic was nose-to-tail and stationary so I went home via Wigan. Passing through Lowton I looked twice at the large gull flying by and realised it was a great egret.

Home thoughts

Goldfinch
Feeling the cold after coming out of the bath.

I was cursing myself for not getting round to renewing my monthly travel card yesterday when I remembered it would have been a waste because we have no public transport today — we don't have trains on Sundays and no buses are coming our way because the A56 is closed for the Manchester Half Marathon. (It's probably as well to explain here: like many English towns the roads aren't laid out in a grid, rather they're a sequence of tributary streams. In our case all roads lead to Chester Road so if that's closed none of our local buses get through.) Ordinarily, it being Sunday and me being bone idle, this wouldn't be an issue but having somebody high-handedly decide we don't deserve public transport irks me. I wouldn't cry if it was Chorlton or Didsbury that gets closed down for the day for the next Great Manchester Run or Half Marathon (pigs will fly first).

My mood wasn't enhanced by reports of a yellow-browed warbler at Irlam Locks this morning and not being able to get there.

Spadgers

The cooler weather's brought a bit more activity into the back garden, the chance of a bath and an easy meal is always attractive on a raw day. This has given me the opportunity to get to grips with one of the sparrow families, the relict of the old Team Silver. It's a looser grouping of about a dozen birds based in the brambles and ivies on the railway embankment on the other side. They fly into the garden clockwise, usually in twos and threes, today they flew in en masse, confirming my guess at the size of the flock. The old Team Tawny was based by the railway station and used to fly anticlockwise into the garden, I'm only ever seeing a couple of birds from that way, always a pair of old cock sparrows. I've a feeling that if that family's still around it's moved over to join the family on the other side of the station that's still settling down after the scrub clearance necessary for extending the platform the other year. I'm definitely not able to differentiate the families by eye anymore, the dozen that just flew in included a dark cock sparrow, one of the silver-cheeked cocks and a hen so dark that at first I mistook her for a dunnock.

Talking off dunnocks, one's just been chased out of the dog rose bush by a robin after it offered the robin a nice time dearie.

Blue tit

My delight at getting more than just the customary fleeting glances of the coal tits was tempered by watching the ferocious way the cock tore a rose bud apart to get at the insects hiding inside.

Across the road the usual dozen black-headed gulls are sharing the field with rooks, jackdaws and magpies, nearly all the woodpigeons having started their mid-Autumn holidays a couple of days ago. A loud ruckus as I was contemplating doing the washing up turned out to be a first-Winter black-headed gull that had somehow annoyed a rook. For the next five minutes the rook chased the gull around the field, the gull screaming all the while. A magpie that tried to join in the fun was reminded that a rook's quite a big crow really. Eventually the rook tired of the chase and settled down to feed with its mates. The gull made sure to land on the opposite side of the field.

Moore

Moore Nature Reserve 

It was a bright and sunny, and decidedly cool, day. I'd a few errands to do so it was early afternoon before I could take advantage of it. A yellow-browed warbler has been reported at Moore Nature Reserve so I decided to head over there for a change. It was vanishingly unlikely I'd see the warbler — imagine trying to find one specific sparrow in your back garden then make it the size of a coal tit then give it a bad case of the fidgets and then multiply the odds against you by several hundred — but it's a pleasant walk and don't look, don't see.

The sun had done its work and it felt quite mild when I got the train to Warrington. At the bus station I got the 12 to Gainsborough Road (the X30 stops there, too). I should explain that Google Maps is not your friend here, it insists that the only way into Moore Nature Reserve is through Moore Village. It isn't. This afternoon I walked down the stretch of the Transpennine Way running alongside a remnant of the Runcorn and Latchford Canal to the Mersey Viaducts then left the Transpennine Way, taking the path immediately to the left that runs parallel to the railway and into the reserve.

By the Runcorn and Latchford Canal
Taken from Chester Road.

I crossed Chester Road, walked over the bridge and took the steps down to the path running between the canal and the Mersey. This area is thickly wooded and was still damp underfoot after the recent rains. Robins sang, magpies and woodpigeons barged around. The canalside vegetation is so thick it's difficult to see it as a canal, and it wasn't easy to see many of the mallards and moorhens I kept hearing on it. I had no chance of seeing the Cetti's warbler singing by it. 

By the Runcorn and Latchford Canal 

I had a lot more chance with the jays flying about and, eventually, with the mixed tit flock bouncing through the willows. Ideally you want to stand where a tit flock is going to be and have them come to you so you get to see all the players but I had to play catch-up with this one. The long-tailed tits and blue tits were definitely working together, I'm not sure that the great tits and chiffchaff were part of the flock or just happened to meet. The blackbirds feeding on a guelder rose looked like new arrivals.

Mersey Viaducts 

The trees thin out a lot on the approach to the viaducts and I could see that although the river was running normally the banks were flattened and muddy and had definitely broken in places during the spate. If you're ever on a train going between Warrington Bank Quay and Runcorn East this is where you cross the Mersey. If you stand here and ask Google Maps how to get to Moore Nature Reserve it gives you an hour and a half's walk back to Chester Road, through Walton and Moore and over the river. It's five minutes from here.

Moore Nature Reserve 

I walked under the viaducts then took the path to the left, went through the gate and was onto Moore Nature Reserve. The path was mostly good, though wet, there were a few places where the mud had to be walked round. It was also very quiet of people, I met half a dozen: three joggers, three dog walkers and five dogs that were getting a bath when they got home. Magpies and robins fossicked by the path margins, chiffchaffs squeaked, great tits were integral parts of mixed tit flocks and jays shone golden in the sunlight as they ferried acorns about.

I could hear coots and moorhens on the pools in the East reedbeds. Every so often I caught a glimpse of water through the trees and the very occasional mallard. Although it was clear blue sky above there were thick clouds nearer the horizon and whenever the sun went in the sudden chill in the air was noticeable.

The Pumphouse Pool 

At the junction I took the path to the right and walked up to Colin's Hide to have a look at the Pumphouse Pool. 

Pochards and coot

Dozens of coots littered the pool. There were a couple of dozen pochards, too, together with a few gadwalls, teal and tufted ducks. A pair of mute swans cruised the far bank.

The path up to Colin's Hide was very wet, it gets muddier further along. I didn't fancy that so I walked back to the path by the railway. 

Moore Nature Reserve 

I was walking towards Birchwood Pool when I suddenly remembered I was in Cheshire and would do well to check the bus times. If I were getting the last bus back to Warrington from Moore I had twelve minutes to do the mile and a half walk which wasn't happening. I weighed up walking down to get the X30 which is the hourly bus from Chester to Warrington and decided the sensible thing would be to walk back whence I came and get the X30 at Taylor Street which would give me plenty of time to walk across the road from the bus station to the train station and get the direct train home. As it was, I was at the bottom of the steps leading up to the bus stop when the bus went by so I had to walk back to the train station. And managed to get there with twelve minutes to spare for my train. My knees will be reminding me of that all weekend.

As I waited for the train a few gulls flew low over the station rooftop. I assumed they were all black-headed gulls, and so four of them were. Luckily the Mediterranean gull decided to catch my attention by calling loudly and I took a proper look at it as it passed by.

Urban birdwatching

Juvenile moorhens, Alexandra Park 

I've held off putting out food for the birds in the back garden this past week because I didn't want to encourage the ring-necked parakeet that's been hanging round, and I've not been entirely gruntled with the squirrels either, but with the onset of colder weather I relented and filled up all the feeders. The magpies were there before I'd even finished and the robin wasn't far behind. It usually takes the sparrows a day or two to come back in after a hiatus, a couple of cock sparrows were in pretty quickly, sharing the sunflower feeders with a goldfinch. The cock sparrows are nearly always the explorers, they'll be letting the others know we're back in business. It'll be interesting this Winter to see if I can work out which flock's in at any time, the two family groups seem to have disintegrated and I've not worked out the new dynamics. Oddly enough, the blue tits and great tits have been in all week but I've not seen them today.

Wild cherry, Barton Clough

I had an excellent excuse for listening to the Test Match (records skittling left, right and centre) but end of play coincided with a long gap in the schedules for trains and buses. I went for a wander round the local patch to fill in a bit of time. No bonus little egrets today but there were more woodpigeons about this time, also a flock of half a dozen goldfinches. There was just the one chiffchaff tagging along with the mixed tit flock in the trees. There was just the one gull on the football pitch, a common gull which is a sign that the weather's changing.

Grey squirrel, Barton Clough 

I was going to go over to the Trafford Centre to play bus station bingo but the 150 to Gorton was due as I emerged onto Barton Dock Road so I got that. This bus goes through Stretford and Chorlton then goes through Fallowfield and Levenshulme before making a detour through Longsight and Belle Vue and ending up in Gorton. Broadly the choices along the way were Longford Park, Turn Moss and thence the Mersey Valley, Alexandra Park, Platt Fields or Debdale Park and the Gorton Reservoirs. Looking at the state of the traffic through Stretford and Chorlton it was likely I'd be seeing the sunset at Gorton so I got off at Withington Road and walked up to Alexandra Park.

Alexandra Park 

The ring-necked parakeets noisily flying about on Withington Road were a precursor of the racket they were making in the park. It was very difficult indeed to hear any small bird noises, even the robins and a nuthatch struggled to be heard. 

Juvenile moorhen, Alexandra Park 

The pond was modestly busy with ducks, the tufted ducks mostly loafing on the water or getting some sleep, the drake mallards jostling each other for the chance to start impressing the ladies. There didn't seem to be many coots, moorhens or Canada geese about and no mute swans. A flock of sixty-something pigeons crowded the bank by the play area with a similar number of black-headed gulls on the waterside.

Tufted duck, Alexandra Park 

Tufted duck, Alexandra Park 

Moorhen, Alexandra Park 

Tufted ducks, Alexandra Park 

Tufted ducks, Alexandra Park
Yes, I did look twice at the tuftie at the back.

Over on the football pitches a flock of six mistle thrushes shared a penalty box with a lesser black-back.

Mistle thrushes, Alexandra Park 

I'd intended to walk on from Alexandra Park into Old Trafford, taking a look at Merlin's Park, Hullard Park and Seymour Park along the way but I hit that period where the school run meets the rush hour and headed home while the going was good. I'd got a couple of short walks in while the weather was behaving itself.

Alexandra Park