High Rid Reservoir

Greylags

It was a bone cold, wet and grey day. Gull-watching weather, I told myself. I've not had a look at the gull roost on Salford Quays yet this year but it felt like a bit of a glum sort of walk for a wet Wednesday. So I went over to High Rid Reservoir for a bit of gull-watching instead. Don't worry, it doesn't make any sense to me either.

I got the 576 from Bolton, got off at Ox Hey Lane and walked up Fall Birch Road. It was grey and wet and miserable and the robins and song thrushes were singing their hearts out.

Fall Birch Road 

Approaching the reservoir I started seeing black-headed gulls and lesser black-backs drifting by overhead, probably on their way to the roost at Rivington.

High Rid Reservoir 

Goldeneye

Mallards

Dabchick 

I was glad of the big coat on my walk around High Rid Reservoir. Grey wagtails skittered round the bank and a dozen mallards quacked and courted on the corner by the gate. A couple of pairs of goldeneyes drifted about with a pair of tufted ducks. I could only see the one dabchick and the one great crested grebe.

Greylag

A lone greylag was calling from the reservoir and getting answers from somewhere. It was only when I was halfway round the reservoir that I could pick out that they were calling from over the little hill in the field with the two trees in it. I was over on the far corner of the reservoir when the mixed flock of greylags and Canada geese flew over the brow of the hill, half of them settling in the field and the other half joining the bird on the reservoir for five minutes before they all flew over and joined the others.

Black-headed gulls 

There was a constant stream of gulls, both on the reservoir and flying overhead. The black-headed gulls loafed and preened, socialising in rafts and on the reservoir architecture. The lesser black-backs kept to a raft in midwater, most of them busily bathing and preening. A couple of the subadults were very dark indeed with sooty heads. A couple of the adults didn't have a lot of contrast between primaries and the rest of the wing but just enough to rule out intermedius. The herring gulls dropped in, bathed and moved on without lingering long. A couple of the adults looked to have relatively dark grey upperparts, I concluded it was a trick of the poor light as in every other respect they were textbook herring gulls. Similarly a couple of pale sandy first-Winter herring gulls were pale sandy first-Winter herring gulls.

Lesser black-backs 

Lesser black-backs, herring gulls and black-headed gulls 

By the time I finished the circuit all the herring gulls had flown. Overhead there was still a stream of black-headed gulls and lesser black-backs heading for Rivington. On the time-honoured basis that any lone bird that should be in a flock is worth a second look I took a quick glance at the juvenile herring gull passing high overhead. Luckily there were no small dogs about to hear my reaction when I noticed the bird had pale sandy coloured flight feathers. A first-Winter Iceland gull has been reported on an off all Winter on the reservoirs at Rivington, this was probably the same bird. I wonder where it was coming from.

High Rid Lane

I knocked on the head any ideas about carrying on down Old Hall Road into Doffcocker, it was too cold and damp to be much fun and the bird life would soon be shutting up shop for the day. I walked back down to Chorley Old Road, got the 575 back to Bolton and thence home. All the way back my knees reminded me they don't like cold, damp weather but the rest of me felt the better for a bit of exercise. And a bonus Iceland gull is no bad thing.

Wirral

Knots, Meols

It was scheduled to be the last day without rain for a while so I had a day at the seaside.

Kerr's Field: lapwings and black-headed gulls 

It was a cold, bright morning with a keening wind when I got off the train at Moreton. I walked down to Kerr's Field, which turned out to be heaving with birds. Pied wagtails and redshanks skittered about in the paddocks as I walked by. There was a crowd of oystercatchers, lapwings, black-headed gulls and herring gulls in the big field with small groups of teal dabbling about in the pools.

Teal, Kerr's Field 

The hedgerows behind Leasowe Lighthouse were busy with house sparrows, greenfinches and goldfinches. I got some practice in on spotting them in preparation for the Spring passage when these hedgerows are full of surprises.

Turnstone and common gull, Leasowe 

I'd guessed right on the wind direction when deciding to start from here, it was blowing into my back and when I dropped down onto the revetment the sea wall provided some welcome shelter. The tide had turned and was slowly engulfing the sand banks. Oystercatchers and herring gulls loafed on the shrinking sandbanks while curlews and redshanks were busy feeding up while they could. Closer by, carrion crows and common gulls dropped cockles onto the concrete slope to crack them open, each thud and crack punctuating the calls of the gulls and waders out on the beach. There was a notable absence of little egrets.

Brent geese, Leasowe

Brent geese, Leasowe

As I approached the groyne I bumped into a group of light-bellied brent geese as they browsed the seaweed at the base of the revetment.

Brent geese, Leasowe

Redshanks, Meols 

Curlew and redshank, Meols

Knots, Meols

As always, passing the groyne changes the birdscape. Knots joined the turnstones rummaging about in the seaweed and the redshanks feeding on the mud. The herring gulls were loafing nearer to shore along with a few lesser black-backs and a lot of fidgety black-headed gulls. As the tide rolled in the distant waders preceded it, waves of more redshanks and knots and, eventually, hordes of dunlins.

Stubborn oystercatchers 

Not-so-stubborn oystercatchers

By the time I reached Meols Promenade the waders had started to come in quite close though the majority of the dunlins were still for keeping their distance. A few pairs of shelducks dabbled in the wet mud and mallards rummaged about in the marsh grass. All the waders were frantically feeding while keeping one step ahead of the tide. Lowering my binoculars and looking at the moving mass of birds it was like watching a tide in front of the tide. I had a stroke of luck: suddenly all the birds far out from the shore rose like a cloud and flew in a lot closer. At first I thought the encroaching tide was the cause then a peregrine stormed over the beach and headed inland followed by an irate herring gull.

Knots, redshanks, dunlins and shelducks 

Shelducks 

A little stint had been reported a few times over the past week but I didn't hold out any chance of seeing it if it was still hanging about. It was probably somewhere in the distant mass of knots and dunlins paying chicken with the tide. Which didn't stop me looking twice a few times at some undersized dunlins in the nearby marsh. When I actually did see the little stint I made a good case for it being another undersized dunlin until one walked close by and dwarfed it. It was a fidgety little beggar, skittering about between clumps of grass so every time I got a good enough look to confirm it was a stint it disappeared stage left. I took a couple of photographs, the most successful of which managed to catch the end of the tail of the bird behind the grass at the edge of the picture.

It was still only mid-afternoon so I thought I'd move on. I'd have no joy walking on to Red Rocks now the tide was in so I walked up to Manor Road Station. I'd half a mind to head over to West Kirby then I remembered there'd been a report of white-fronted geese by the roadside in Brimstage, a quarter of a mile walk from Heswall Station so off I went.

I had quarter of an hour's wait at Bidston for the Wrexham train. Bidston Station's surrounded by reedbeds so the calls and songs of robins, greenfinches and reed buntings came as no surprise. Unlike the trackside Cetti's warbler.

Brimstage Road 

It really was just a quarter of an hour's walk from Heswall Station down Brimstage Road to the flooded fields in question. It was a bright afternoon but the wind was bitter cold and cutting. Pheasants prowled hedge bottoms, woodpigeons and carrion crows clattered about and a flock of a few dozen stock doves flew over the road and disappeared into a field of stubble. The first field had a line of Canada geese end to end and I thought I was going to be unlucky but the next field had a line of grazing greylags on the far side away from the road and I spent a while scanning the flock. 

I kept getting distracted by one greylag that had an orange collar on it, too far for me to see any letters or numbers which might tell me which study team had slipped it on it. I kept coming back to a pair of geese near a tree that didn't look quite right for greylags but had their backs to me and their heads down as they grazed. They looked browner and less broad in the beam but not convincingly white-fronted geese from this angle. Eventually one brought its head up and had a good stretch. A European white-front, thinner-necked than the greylags and with a less massive beak, salmon-pink in the low afternoon light though I could hardly see the white blaze behind the beak.

A flock of chaffinches flew into the trees by the roadside as I walked back to the station. I spent a while hoping to find a brambling but had to make do with a flock of a few dozen chaffinches which is something I'm not seeing often enough lately. While I was scanning the flock I saw the next Wrexham train go through the station which put paid to any ideas I had about adding a visit to Neston and Parkgate to an already full day's itinerary. I didn't have long to wait for the Bidston train and I wended my weary way back home, the year list now standing at 126.

Bidston Station

Mersey Valley

Ring-necked parakeets, Chorlton Water Park 

It was another cool, grey but dry day. The last time I'd checked the clock before finally getting to sleep it was half-six so I really didn't feel up to the planned expedition and tried to cadge an extra hour's sleep instead. (It had been my own fault: I'd wanted to get some writing done but had to wait until the cat had gone to bed before getting started — cats and keyboards and all that — and by the time I got to bed myself my mind was too active for sleep.)

Flood damage, Northenden

I went into town to renew my monthly travel card then got the 101 down Princess Road and got off at the river. I thought a walk might wake me up and clear my head a bit. The effects of the New Year flooding at Northenden were very noticeable, including a spectacular landslip on the Cheshire side of the bank. The river was back to normal levels now and quietly flowed along in all innocence. A couple of mallards dabbled by the bank and a pair of goosanders flew up and down stream for no apparent reason.

River Mersey 

I walked downstream on the Lancashire side of the bank under Princess Parkway and on to Chorlton Water Park. The litter of flood was everywhere, all the bankside saplings were festooned with rubbish. At its height the water was twelve feet above usual levels and was lapping over the higher of the two banks either side. The path on the lower bank felt substantially closer to the river than usual, in places it looked like it had been scalped and scoured. The combination of jetsam and fresh ground was keeping the carrion crows occupied on both sides of the river.

Over in Kenworthy Woods the parakeets and magpies were shouting in the trees, here on the Chorlton side great tits and robins called and sang from the hedgerows.

Gadwalls and coots

It's half term so Chorlton Water Park was busy, which was good news for the black-headed gulls, mute swans and mallards hanging round the banks for a feed. They were joined by a few coots, common gulls and a couple of young herring gulls. The Canada geese were a bit too preoccupied with their love lives for that sort of thing. The adult great crested grebes were sporting full breeding plumage, the first-Winter birds were still in blacks and greys. A raft of a couple of dozen gadwalls drifted about midwater, not something you see every day. Further out yet half a dozen goosanders cruised by the far island.

Chorlton Water Park 

I walked round the end of the lake and decided to pack it in. I was just too tired, a combination of brain fog, eye fog and aching joints. Even as I was walking down to the bus stop at Southern Cemetery, though, my mind was coming up with suggestions as to where I could move on to for another walk. I managed to be sensible and dismissed nearly all of them. Which is why when the bus got into Urmston I didn't stay on to the Nag's Head to make a connection with a bus home, I got off at Davyhulme Park and had half an hour's wander before walking the mile home, the sort of decision-making that goes on when the rational mind is asleep at the wheel. (Mind you, the rational mind has its moments.) 

I often wonder why I nearly always pass by without stopping here, the reason is that it's a very quiet park as far as birdwatching's concerned. I don't know why, there are plenty of trees and bushes and even a couple of water lily ponds but I get more birds in my back garden than I find here. Just one of them things I guess.

Davyhulme Park 

I went home, made a pot of tea and got twenty minutes' kip which made me feel almost human. I'd have got more sleep but I had the window open and the long-tailed tits and goldfinches were busy on the feeders and were being noisy eaters.

Local patch

Barton Clough 

The day started with the first blackcap of the year, finally, a neat female with a bright caramel cap, and the discovery that I'd left the camera switched on in the bag and the battery was flat.

At one point there were eight cock sparrows on the fat feeder at the same time, an opportunity to see the full range of colour variations from the silver-cheeked three-year old through the iron-grey one- and two-year olds, some with paler grey cheeks and one with cheeks darker than its belly, to the dark, bright tawny three-year old I thought had gone the way of all things. The females are all roughly the same oak brown background colour, the variation being in the paleness of their underparts and the occasional white tail feathers.

The female coal tit that's been coming in on her own looks as if she's been in the wars a bit with feathers missing and dislodged from the back of her neck. It was she who reminded me to get more sunflower seeds in yesterday, unlike all the other titmice the coal tits aren't interested in the fat feeders as they can't take the food away to a safe place to eat or cache.

Over the road a couple of dozen black-headed gulls loafed on the field with a couple of common gulls and half a dozen herring gulls. This Winter I've really noticed that the lesser black-backs are relatively infrequent visitors here despite the usual evening passage of them overhead.

Although it was still dark and grey it was dry and slightly milder than it has been so I had an afternoon wander around the park and "waste" ground. Despite the twenty-odd starlings in the trees by the entrance the park was fairly quiet, just a handful of magpies on the field, a couple of goldfinches in the trees and the usual chaffinch pinking from the bowling green. I took the rough path through the trees at the end and was surprised that the first bird I saw was a treecreeper. There were more goldfinches, a couple of great tits rummaged in the bushes and a great spotted woodpecker drummed at the top of one of the older sycamores.

Lostock Park 

I'd noticed that contractors were in because one of them had driven a mini-digger through a flower bed that last week had been full of hellebores coming into flower. It turns out they'd laid an asphalt path from the park to the old railway line, making it a much safer footpath but I'll still miss the cobbles and nettles. My foreboding at this development was allayed slightly by the "Exciting Development Plot For Sale" notice still being up on St Modwen's Road.

More than just the singing robins and song thrush hinted at a change of seasons. The Winter blackbirds had moved on and the flocks of greenfinches and goldfinches had moved in, and very welcome crowds they were, too.

• Blackbird 1
• Blue tit 2 
• Carrion crow 2
• Chaffinch 1
• Feral pigeon 3
• Goldfinch 19
• Great spotted woodpecker 1
• Great tit 3
• Greenfinch 9
• Herring gull 4 overhead
• House sparrow 2
• Lesser black-back 3 overhead 
• Magpie 11
• Robin 4
• Song thrush 1
• Starling 24
• Treecreeper 1
• Woodpigeon 4

I had some shopping to do on my way home. The pied wagtail at the Trafford Centre bus station was being all Greta Garbo, turning away every time it saw the camera. For some reason every male pied wagtail I see at the Trafford Centre has a limp (they're not all the same bird).

Pied wagtail 

Leighton Moss

Mallards, pintails, teal and wigeons 

After a couple of days' four-hour traipses I thought I'd give my poor old bones a rest and got an old man's explorer ticket, headed off for Leighton Moss and decided not to have another go at the jack snipe on the coastal pools that's been reported regularly since I dipped on it. (See also hawfinch and bittern at Marbury.) So blow me down when I got to the reserve and the lady at the entrance told me that one had been found amongst the snipe at Tim Jackson's Hide during the wader count. I promised not to go and look for it and jinx everyone else's chances.

The Hideout was very quiet. A squirrel and two blue tits were on the feeders, a moorhen and a couple of dunnocks were feeding on the ground and the robins and mallards were inside the Hideout demanding food with menaces. I was allowed to leave after turning all my pockets out.

Tufted ducks and coots

In contrast, the pool at Lilian's Hide was jam-packed. Pintails, mallards and teal dozed by the side, a raft of a couple of dozen each of tufted ducks and coots cruised around the pool gathering up pochards and gadwalls along the way. A herd of first-Winter mute swans were feeding in one corner, a very aggressive pair of mute swans were making territorial claims of the far corner and were making it clear that greylags were not allowed.

Heading for the reedbed hides

It was a very quiet walk through the reedbeds, a robin every fifty yards and every so often a blue tits or wren. It had become a bright, cold lunchtime and quite pleasant walking through the reedbeds out of the biting wind.

Snipe

Snipe and teal

Despite myself I went to Tim Jackson's Hide. It was almost as busy inside as out. Outside the pool was littered with shovelers and teal and what felt like hundreds but was really only a couple of dozen snipe bustled about in and out of the reeds and dead grass on the bank at the side of the hide. At first glance there were no snipe to be seen. A second glance found a couple out in the open. Subsequent glances proved that the grass was heaving with them. Every so often there'd be some furtive movement in the corner of the eye and a teal would helpfully trundle along and barge a snipe out into the open. I gave it half an hour but I couldn't turn any of them into jack snipe and nobody else was having any luck either. You really do have to be looking for something else to find one.

At the Griesdale Hide 

It was a bit quieter at the Griesdale Hide, a couple of dozen teal dabbling in the pool by the hide being the nearest thing to a crowd. The great black-backs were laying claim to the osprey nesting platform again and one of them shadowed a male marsh harrier as it flew over the pool. I can't imagine a marsh harrier being daft or desperate enough to take on a pair of great black-backs. A pair of buzzards soared over Griesdale Wood and a couple of ravens flew in and out of the reeds over by the farm fields.

Marsh harrier 

Marsh harrier 

Walking through the reedbeds 

On the way back I bumped into a small flock of redwings in the trees near the Sky Tower. The noise in the willow bushes next to Lilian's Hide turned out to be a very cross Cetti's warbler bouncing about the willow roots. The bullfinches higher up in the bushes were silently disbudding the ends of twigs.

I had another look in the Hideout in the hopes of seeing a marsh tit but had no joy so I headed for the station. Along the way I realised I hadn't seen any chaffinches which is very unusual here. It turned out they were all at the station. I had five minutes to wait for the train. While I was waiting a marsh tit flew into the hawthorn bush on the Barrow platform, sneezed and flew off into the car park.

The plan for a late afternoon bonus visit was scuppered because when I got to Preston the train I was aiming for was cancelled and I was damned if I was hanging round the station for an hour. I took a meandering route home instead. I've been noticing a few buzzards at train stations lately, today there was one in a tree by Earlstown Station as the train back to Manchester pulled in to stop there.

I'm getting into the habit of dipping on target birds but seeing as I'm seeing plenty else and getting some decent walks in I'm not unduly upset about it.

Martin Mere

Black-tailed godwits, Martin Mere

We were promised a slightly sunnier, if still cold, day. It didn't happen but I went for a walk round Martin Mere anyway.

As the train approached New Lane we passed a field of Brussels sprouts. Every stem had a woodpigeon sitting on it.

Skylarks, New Lane

I got off at New Lane where the hedgerows were busy with chaffinches, reed buntings and great tits. A grey partridge sitting behind the hedge as I walked past would have gone unnoticed had it not decided I needed a good talking at before it scuttled off down the field. The open field beyond the hedgerow was busy with skylarks that weren't sure if I was a problem or not, taking flight whenever I stopped to look over the railway line. Over on the water treatment works crowds of black-headed gulls and starlings fussed about the treatment pans.

Walking past the fennel field

Even on a cool, grey February day like this there was a pleasing tang of aniseed about the field of fennel. A flock of redwings and a few blackbirds rummaged about in its depths.

Pink-footed geese, Martin Mere 

Over the crossing and over the field on the other side I kept hearing but not seeing pink-footed geese. A couple of groups of whooper swans flew by but no geese. The elder bush by the wrecked shed that's usually occupied by a pair of stonechats was the singing point of a robin, the stonechats were busy in the marshy rough further along. Suddenly there was a lot of noise and a cloud of a few hundred pink-feet rose from the marsh and circled round.

The walk around the outside of the reedbeds was fairly quiet. There were birds about — mostly blackbirds, robins and goldfinches — but they spent their time quietly going about their business deep in the hedgerows. A Cetti's warbler sang from the reeds on the other side of the hedge and every so often there'd be a blood-curdling squeal from a water rail.

By the reedbed walk

I bobbed through to the edge of the water treatment works hoping to find some warblers feeding by the fence. It was too cold for the midges to be active, the pied wagtails and robins were having to hop down onto the treatment pans to catch them. Just as I was writing off my chances a very handsome little chiffchaff flew in and joined them, hopping down into the pan to feed then bobbing up onto the fence to let the spray bar pass by. I'd been hoping for a Siberian chiffchaff but a nice, neat common chiffchaff, bright olive brown above and rich tan below, was more than good enough, and a much-needed year tick. It's been a lean winter for chiffchaffs and blackcaps.

I hadn't really appreciated how dry it's been lately until I realised I hadn't got my feet wet on the walk round to Martin Mere. A little egret flew from the drain as I passed through the gate and walked down to the road.

Black-tailed godwits 

Pintails

The mere was very busy with birds gathering for the mid-afternoon feed. By volume most were whooper swans, by numbers it was a toss-up between mallards, wigeons and coots. There were plenty of shelducks about, also pochards, pintails and teal. The shovelers were all over the other side of the mere with the lapwings and oystercatchers.

The black-tailed godwits were in a scrappy mood, fights breaking out every couple of minutes

A crowd of very feisty godwits bustled about in front of the hide, driving away a flock of pigeons that had arrived early for the feast. A ruff picked its way through the crowd as best could. There was a lot of hooting and hollering from some groups of whoopers. There was no obvious aggression going on so I suspect it was about pair-bonding and group-bonding, the latter important when they set off on Spring migration.

Whooper swans 

Ruff

Looking out from the Hale Hide, beyond the feeding wigeons, teal, greylags and pintails, I saw a pale shape on a distant fencepost. At first I thought it was a kestrel's underparts conspicuous in the gloom then I looked at the gate a little way along and decided it was too big for a kestrel. But it wasn't right for a peregrine. Then it fidgeted and I realised the pale shape wasn't any part of a bird at all, it was a whole barn owl. If it had kept still I'd have ended up convincing myself someone had painted the top of the fencepost white.

It was a quiet walk down to the Kingfisher Hide as was, and even quieter there. It came as a relief when a song thrush popped its head out of cover.

Marsh harrier 

The pools at the Ron Barker Hide were liberally peppered with teals, wigeons, mallards and shovelers. A female-type marsh harrier made a cameo appearance.

Snowdrops 

I wandered back, enjoying the chaffinches and greenfinches on the feeders by the gate and the snowdrops under the trees.

Cattle egrets

On the way back I didn't see a cattle egret by the roadside this time. I saw two. Otherwise it was dead quiet.

Karmic balance and all that, after such a good day then train home was cancelled and I had forty minutes' wait for the next one. It was lovely to see another barn owl as the train chugged out of the station but it wasn't a consolation prize.