New Moss Wood

New Moss Wood 

It was another muggy day, I decided on a wander on the Salford mosses because I really couldn't be bothered with going further afield. 

The local mistle thrush hasn't been much in evidence lately so it was a surprise to have it in full song by the station. I got off the train at Irlam and walked through the allotments to Moss Road, accompanied by the songs of robins, blackbirds, wrens and dunnocks. The clouds were rolling in and as I got to the dry duck pond on the allotments it started to rain. And stopped almost immediately. The blackest cloud sped to the East, I was walking westward, I kept my fingers crossed that the dark grey clouds ahead would behave themselves. Which they did.

As the allotments met the railway line blackcaps and chiffchaffs started singing from the embankment. All the warblers have given up on the stretch of line back home. Allotments on one side of the line and a tree nursery on the other probably makes for an easier living.

It got warmer and muggier and my hayfever started kicking in as I crossed the railway bridge. A sneeze startled a song thrush into song. The robins, wrens and blackbirds were already busy singing and the screeching of swifts added to the background music. Swallows hawked low over the barley fields and skylarks rose and sang  I hadn't walked far when the first whitethroat sang from a bush by the roadside.

By Moss Lane

The hayfever was hitting me hard for the first time this year and I was completely unprepared for it. I'd only brought an orange drink with me — take the word of one who knows, you don't want to rinse out gummy eyes with orange juice. That lesson was learned many years ago. I decided that a walk around New Moss Wood might give me a bit of respite from the barley pollen and a chance to regroup and get my act together.

Walking into the wood

Walking through to the wood every bramble patch had its whitethroat and a couple of them had hungry mouths to feed judging by the beakfuls of caterpillars they were carting round. 

New Moss Wood 

Hogweed 

Blackbirds, blackcaps, chiffchaffs and wrens sang in the trees. Dunnocks sang along the rides, goldfinches twittered and sang in the birch scrub. The movements in the trees by the rides were mostly robins about to burst into song, every so often they would be a great tit silently gleaning from the leaves. Magpies and woodpigeons clattered about and there was a constant traffic of jackdaws overhead, each one sounding like a crowd scene. There was a sudden silence as a kestrel flew by at treetop height.

Red admiral

There weren't many butterflies about and they all red admirals and brimstones. A few common blue damselflies zipped about at ankle height, a couple of four-spotted chasers shot through nettle patches. As I passed a stand of alders with a thick hawthorn understory a garden warbler broke into song. A willow warbler singing was the cue for the path I was following to turn the corner to meet the boggy open patch near the road. The reeds and cotton grass were evidence that most of the time this is a boggy patch, there wasn't a lot of wet mud about.

Cotton grass

I sidestepped the passing swallows and walked back to the road. The skylarks were still singing over the barley and woodpigeons were doing their display flights. A passage of lesser black-backs heading for the Mersey at Woolston Eyes was just picking up. Way over the fields a kestrel was hovering over Astley Road.

Can't think why I'd be troubled with hayfever

Much to my disgust I gave up and walked into Cadishead to get the bus back. The first big hayfever attack of the year is always the worst. For the next month or so if you see me I'll be the one with the nostrils full of Vaseline.

Urban birdwatching: a canal walk

Herring gulls and yellow-legged gull, Salford Quays 

It was a teenage armpit of a day but I felt I needed to get some exercise after crashing into a full-night's sleep yesterday and only just waking up in time for the start of the one day match between England and the West Indies. I'd had so many plans for the day, too. I'd decided not to try and be ambitious today and in the end I decided to see what warblers were about on the waste ground prime development land behind the scrap metal merchants in Cornbrook. In the past I've struck lucky and found a couple of lesser whitethroats.

Bridgewater Canal by Hulme Hall Road 

I got the 255 to Chester Road and walked up to the tram station. Sadly, all the paths into the waste land were securely locked out. Ah well. So I walked down to Hulme Hall Road and dropped down onto the Bridgewater Canal towpath at the bridge 

Harlequin ladybird

A pair of Canada geese lounged at the canalside and a moorhen fussed about. A couple of large whites fluttered by. I think all the ladybirds making inroads on the aphids on the brambles were harlequins. Pigeons fluttered about the rooftops and bridges. Here and there amongst the grasses, hawkweeds, ox-eyed daisies and purple toadflax poking through the paving there were spikes of Southern marsh orchids. Blackbirds and wrens sang constantly from unlikely bits of industrial architecture as I walked along.

Southern marsh orchid

Tram bridge (closest) and railway bridge.
The tramline goes all points South and West of Castlefield, the rail is the Manchester to Liverpool line.

I carried on, under the bridges and out onto the stretch opposite the no man's land of this end of Pomona Strand. A couple of common spotted orchids poked through the canalside together with a few that looked enough like neither to probably be hybrids. Goldfinches and a chaffinch joined the blackbirds and wrens. A song thrush sang from the corner of the wrecker's yard. A whitethroat sang from an elder bush perched on the opposite bank. I stopped and watched a holly blue moving through the bushes — they've been surprisingly thin on the ground in my garden this year — and a chiffchaff told me to move on. So I did.

By Pomona Strand 

Pomona Lock with the tramway going over the bridge

The stretch along Pomona was relatively quiet, the blackbirds and wrens giving way to the occasional goldfinch and a willow warbler, of all things, singing by Pomona Lock.

Pomona

I switched canals at Pomona, walking round to the path by the Ship Canal. The walking became more comfortable as a breeze blew up the canal. Upstream there was nothing on the river save a black-headed gull flying about the canalside. Downstream looked considerably busier.

Herring gulls

A pair of mallards dabbled by as I approached the beach by Clipper Quay upstream of Gnome Island. Mute swans, Canada geese and pigeons littered the beach, a few herring gulls and black-headed gulls loafed with them and a grey heron hunted the shallows behind. The canal architecture was decorated with loafing gulls, mostly subadult herring gulls bleaching in the sun with a few young lesser black-backs. A handful of lesser black-backs bathed by the beach.

Canada geese, heron, mute swan and black-headed gull

There was a constant to-ing and fro-ing of large gulls. One passing overhead made me look twice. And a third time when it settled. Grey back… were they really yellow legs? It confounded me by almost immediately joining the lesser black-backs for a wash. I hadn't been convinced by the leg colour (or rather I hadn't been convinced by my identification of it) and now couldn't see them. After a few minutes it gave its wings a good old stretch and I wondered how I hadn't just ticked it off as a yellow-legged gull.

Yellow-legged gull and lesser black-backs 

Lesser black-backs and yellow-legged gull 

Lesser black-backs and yellow-legged gull 
The largely black primary flight feathers and that big white mirror near the end are features to look out for with a YLG.

It's odd, at the time I didn't think that this bird had the bulk and bill of a typical YLG but in the photos they're all there: the big, padded out chest; the long wings and the deep bill with the hook at the end. And the yellow legs, which at least I did notice.

The Lowry and MediaCityUK 

The loafing large gulls on the canalside were mostly herring gulls, the loafing large gulls on the open water of the quays were mostly lesser black-backs. A few of the pairs of Canada geese had goslings in tow. There was a bit of a commotion in the South Bay but I thought nothing of it until I saw a great black-back carrying a gosling into the middle of the water. The gosling tried to make a getaway when the gull landed, it would have been doomed anyway as herring gulls and lesser black-backs crowded in on the off-chance. They disappeared when it became clear the great black-back had the spoils, made all the surer by holding the gosling underwater and drowning it.

Great black-back and Canada gosling
(Cropped photo, it was well out in the water.)

Excitement over I carried on to the Imperial War Museum, getting a few photos of water a sand martin had passed by along the way. I passed the singing chiffchaffs in the tree and walked down to the bottom of Wharfside Way for the 250 to the Trafford Centre. It had turned out to be a more successful walk than I'd anticipated.

Martin Mere

Black-headed gull and heron

It was threatening to be a pleasant day, though there was still an abiding dampness and that wind had an edge, so I thought I'd get a day out at Martin Mere. I'm feeling a bit shy of waders at the moment, particularly not being able to pick up either green sandpiper nor wood sandpiper along the way, so I decided I'd concentrate on the reedbed hides there today.

The mute swans on the canal in Trafford Park had brought their cygnets to the bridge as the train passed over and there were more cygnets on the lake as we passed Pemberton Park. Wrens, blackbirds and woodpigeons sang at railway stations and the sunshine brought out the roe deer between Lostock Junction and Westhoughton. A sign that the seasons had moved on was the silence of the rookery when I got off the train at Burscough Bridge.

By Red Cat Lane 

It took a while to walk the stiffness out of joints still complaining about yesterday's weather. Luckily there was plenty of distraction about, whether it was the young starlings clamouring to be fed in the gardens of Burscough or the skylarks singing over the fields by Red Cat Lane. There was plenty about but none of it obvious to the eye. Blackbirds, chaffinches, dunnocks, great tits and robins sang in hedgerows, even one of the house sparrows bustling about between hedgerows and gardens joined in. The greenfinches and goldfinches I picked up by their calls, the silent corn buntings and song thrushes by sheer dumb luck.

I was worried that I hadn't seen any hirundines along the way. That all changed when I got to Curlew Lane. There weren't the usual crowds of swallows and house martins at the farm on the corner but they were a constant presence from there on in. I took a detour down Curlew Lane to look for yellow wagtails. They were all in the wheat field on the corner, striking poses on the tops of ears of wheat and disappearing whenever the camera got them into focus. It was striking how much the yellows and olives of the females' plumage matched the tones of the ripening wheat. The pied wagtails bouncing round the potato store at Brandeth Barn were no more cooperative for the camera.

On Fish Lane opposite Martin Mere 

The white storks by the pedestrian entrance to Martin Mere had youngsters in the nest.

Oystercatcher 

At Martin Mere I went straight to the Discovery Hide to see what was about. The first thing that I noticed was that the oystercatcher nesting on top of the hide had at least one chick. As did nearly all the black-headed gulls nesting on the mere. And those that hadn't were going the right way for the production of a fresh batch. Greylags had goslings, mallards had ducklings, there were a few shelducks about but I couldn't see that any of them had ducklings. All the avocets, oystercatchers and lapwings feeding on the far bank were adults.

Black-headed gulls and chicks

Mallard duckling 

I'd looked in vain for any Mediterranean gulls, despite there nearly always being at least one pair in the colony. I'd given up on them when a head popped up over the rise of a little island. A pair was nesting just out of sight. The head's partner flew in and disappeared behind the rise. About ten minutes later one or other of them decided to have a walk around the island, which gave me the opportunity to get a photo.

Mediterranean gull 

Wigeons 

A quick look at the mere from the viewpoints where the Swan Link used to be was worth the effort, if only for the unseasonal wigeons grazing on the bank. Blackbirds, blackcaps and chiffchaffs sang in the trees on the way to the Janet Kear Hide where reed buntings were making inroads on the seed feeders.

There had been reports of spoonbills on the pond by the United Utilities Hide, apparently I'd just missed the last one.

By now it was a warm, sunny afternoon though still very breezy. The red admirals and large whites kept to the cover of the tree-lined paths in the older parts of the reserve, I didn't see any butterflies out on the reedbeds. I thought I wasn't going to be seeing any dragons or damsels either until I noticed the rear end of a blue-tailed damselfly poking out of the bracken under the bridge over the drain by the Rees Hide. I was surprised by a burst of song and even more surprised to find it was a very brightly plumaged male stonechat doing the singing.

Stonechat

Stonechat 

The pool at the Rees Hide was more than half bone-dry. Over on the far side avocets and their small chicks paddled ankle-deep as they fed. Near by a couple of jackdaws fossicked about in the grass that would have been at the poolside edge. There was an insistent calling that wasn't coming from the avocets. Suddenly a little ringed plover ran up to the jackdaws. When they paid no attention the plover went into its distraction display, tail fanned, wing horribly crooked, an injured bird in obvious pain. The jackdaws' interest was piqued and they followed it as it limped away, flying after it as it fluttered off into the reeds. The plover returned to its nest, I had no idea where it was up to then. Once settled it became invisible, its back the same colour as the mud and from behind the white ring and black cap broke up the shape of the bird and looked like flat stones sitting on the mud. Ironically the jackdaws came back to their fossicking a couple of minutes later.

A field away a few cattle egrets accompanied the grazing longhorn cattle. Most of the time they were invisible, a couple of times they made it easier by riding on the back of one of the bigger animals, the nursing cows weren't happy with them taking any liberties with the calves. A long way in the distance a female marsh harrier was doing a very credible impersonation of a hovering buzzard in the wind with a lot more tail action than you'd see with either a kestrel or a buzzard on the hover.

Juvenile avocet

It was a bit damper at the Gordon Taylor Hide and the avocets a lot closer to the hide. There was a variety of avocet chicks ranging from one that would have been about a week old to a couple of three-quarter grown birds in black and white livery with pepper and salt on the back and wings. The parents were in feisty mode, as they always are. One chased a family of ducklings from one far corner of the pool to another, then returned a few minutes later to chase them back again. Their mother got fed up of the game and took her charges into the reeds to swim down the drain. A few black-headed gulls had nests. Every so often the avocets harassed the gulls returning to their nests. And every so often the gulls harassed the avocets for getting too close to their nest and chicks. 

Avocet and black-headed gulls 

Avocets

Avocets

They all joined in harassing a heron that strolled into the pool and it flew off pursued by black-headed gulls with avocets and lapwings joining in as it passed by.

Heron

Black-headed gull and heron 

A redshank flying in was the only Tringa sandpiper I saw all day.

At the Gordon Taylor Hide 

As I left the hide and crossed the drain I spotted a flash of blue. Male banded demoiselles were chasing each other up and down the drain, the black patches on their wings emphasising the fluttering of their flight. A couple of common blue damselflies were keeping out of the wind and away from the demoiselles in the cover of the bankside vegetation.

Banded demoiselle

A stroll about the reedbeds added singing reed warblers and Cetti's warblers and a passing four-spotted chaser to the day's tally. I hadn't added any waders to the year list but it was a day list in the sixties.

Reedbed Walk 

Walking to New Lane Station 

I did the long walk to New Lane Station, adding the whitethroats along the way to the tally. A flock of swifts swirled about a buzzard soaring overhead before drifting away over the reedbeds. Two pairs of stonechats escorted me through the field to the railway crossing. Whitethroats and Cetti's warblers sang along the trackside (a phrase I would have thought fanciful twenty years ago) and oystercatchers called from the water treatment works. I got to the station with three minutes to spare for the train back to Manchester. 

Merseyside

Little egret, Crosby Marine Lake 

It was a cool, wet and rainy day so I headed for the seaside. Along the way every third station had its singing blackbird, a sleeked-down dabchick made me look twice as we passed over the Glaze and instead of the expected coots there was a drake mandarin on Sankey Brook. I changed trains at Liverpool South Parkway and got myself an all areas Saveaway. If the weather wasn't too bad I could visit two or three sites along the Sefton coast. A pair of shelducks flying over the station shouldn't have been a surprise, it's only a short walk from the Mersey.

Crosby Marine Lake 

If anything the rain was heavier by the time I got to Waterloo. Before I left home I wondered if I should put my body warmer on. I'd told myself not to be so nesh. I wished I had, I'd felt warmer when I was sharing a sodden bankside with a kingfisher in January.

Swifts

The cold and wet didn't put off the gulls or the crowd of swifts swooping low over the grass and lower still over the lake. They were joined over the lake by half a dozen house martins, it's not often you get to see them hawking at head height.

Herring gulls, lesser black-backs, Canada geese and coots

There were a handful of black-headed gulls but the crowd scenes were provided by herring gulls and lesser black-backs, roughly five of the first for every one of the other. A few Canada geese grazed, a mute swan cruised around, mallards dozed, a tufted duck bobbed about and the coots were unusually well-behaved.

Lesser black-backs and herring gulls 

A cormorant fishing midwater was the only bird on the lake. A dozen little egrets were spaced out at regular intervals around the side, none of them much fussed by the thin traffic of walkers and small dogs.

Little egret

Crosby Beach

The tide was high on the beach, the limited amount of exposed sand the playground of dogs and carrion crows with black-headed gulls feeding at the water's edge. Further out a raft of herring gulls bobbed on the waves and common terns called as they flew in to Seaforth. Skylarks and meadow pipits sang low over the dunes and a swallow flew in from the sea and over the dunes keeping low for a wind assist in its flight. A dozen bar-tailed godwits left the nature reserve, circled low over the corner of the beach then flew North up the coast in readiness for the retreating tide.

This is the fence we look through at Seaforth Nature Reserve 

I wandered over to the fence for a nosy over Seaforth Nature Reserve. The terns were noisy and very active. More herring gulls and lesser black-backs loafed with cormorants, shelducks, Canada geese and a crowd of oystercatchers. There were a few more barwits, redshanks were conspicuously absent and the reason why I couldn't tell if that small group of waders were dunlins or ringed plovers was because they were both.

I usually struggle to see the big tern raft, today it was in plain sight, I don't know if the raft's been moved or there's been some bush-trimming. I was getting good views of the common terns fussing about the raft and swooping round that part of the pool. The regular roseate tern had been reported every day this past week but I told myself not to get my hopes up finding it at this range. Then a pale ghost of a tern with conspicuously long tail streamers wheeled low over the raft, standing out from the pale greys of the common terns. It came into view three more times while I was watching and each time I picked it up immediately, which was reassuring. 

About the same time another roseate tern appeared by Sandgrounders at Marshside for a couple of hours. It's very unusual to have two roseate terns on this coast at the same time. The bird at Seaforth is, apparently, ringed while the bird at Marshside hadn't been so there was no question of their being the same bird. Which came as a relief when I saw the reports and started second-guessing myself.

The boardwalk through the nature reserve 

I squelched round to the little nature reserve by the sailing club, tempted by the songs of Cetti's warblers and chiffchaffs. I don't know which of us was the more surprised when I turned a corner on the boardwalk and met a roebuck. We stared at each other long enough for me to take a photo then we both pretended we hadn't seen each other and I carried on my way. It's a pocket handkerchief of a nature reserve so I was quietly astonished by it.

Roebuck
The roseate tern wasn't the biggest surprise of the day.

I also wanted to see if there were any orchids about after such a dry Spring. I was rewarded by a spike of buds of an early purple orchid and a small group of Southern marsh orchids in the trees.

Southern marsh orchid

It was still only lunchtime and I thought about moving on to another site despite the cold and driving rain. The 133 was due in ten minutes, I could get that and if the weather improved on the way I could get off at Lunt Meadows for a wander round. My aching joints weren't convinced, by this stage I was lurching about like a trainee stilt walker but I'm not letting them be the boss of me.

The weather didn't improve much so I didn't get off at Lunt Meadows. Which turned out to be as well, we'd barely left the village when we encountered a road block. A car had ploughed through the hedge, hopefully nothing more than dignity was injured in the process, and the fire brigade were dealing with the accident. We weren't going anywhere quickly. In the end the driver successfully reversed back into the village with help from the passengers on the back seat acting as lookouts for oncoming cars, he did a three-point turn, went back down Long Lane and went through to Sefton and Maghull the long way round. They did a damned good job of the effort I must say. Had I got off at Lunt Meadows and had a wander round I'd have found myself stranded wondering where the buses had got to. A bus crawling painfully backwards up the road is an unusual occurrence, which might have explained why a grey partridge emerged from the field to watch it go by.

I got into Maghull and made tracks for getting back into Liverpool for the train home. It had been a cold and miserable but not unrewarding day and my joints had a date with some fiery embrocation cream.