A toddle

It teemed down all night and morning, abating at lunchtime and leaving behind the sort of steam-filled day that takes all the creases out of your trousers. Not at all walking weather. I had the fidgets on me anyway so I got the train to Bolton and the buses up to Ramsbottom for a potter about. The train arrives a couple of minutes after the 480 straight to Ramsbottom has left so I had to get the bus to Bury and the 472 to Ramsbottom.

I had a bit of a potter about in Ramsbottom. It's only a little town and if you can ignore the cars and prices it is forever 1957. The bus was held up at the level crossing for a steam train to leave the station and head for Rawtenstall. Jackdaws and woodpigeons lumbered about on the rooftops. A bunch of mallards tidied up the picnic area by the Irwell. It was all very nice.

The mallards had noticed me

I had a look at the little pond on the corner of Kay Brow. I queried the wisdom of this when three dozen mallards took the the water and swam my way with "Feed me!" in their eyes. I hid behind some Canada geese and beat a hasty retreat.

On the way home my latest last swifts of the year wheeled over Langworthy as the 52 bus headed for the Trafford Centre.

Thwarted

One of the disadvantages of living by a railway line is that you know no train has gone down the line even though the departures board tells you you've missed it. Rebranding the 0949 as the late-running 10:23 did little to instil confidence in the day's travel. Not only was the connection with the Southport missed, so was the later connection with the Blackpool train to pick up the Victoria to Southport train at Salford Crescent. I didn't see any great point in trying to get to Martin Mere today: I'd lost at least an hour and if the trains are going to be that unreliable I'd best pass on the experience.

The day's plans so violently scrubbed I wondered what to do instead while fighting a strong urge to say stuff this for a game of soldiers. Instead I got the bus to Huddersfield, like you do, and had a bit of an explore. I've not travelled the train line direct from Huddersfield to Sheffield through Penistone and wondered what the country was like.

It turned out to be a pleasant journey, winding its way round the rolling hills and townships of South Yorkshire. It was unsurprisingly quiet, the large whites outnumbered the woodpigeons and there was a remarkable absence of magpies. The only large flock of birds was the few dozen herring gulls and lesser black-backs having a bath on the River Don just outside Sheffield City Centre in the company of a little egret. What is likely to be my last swift of the year whizzed over Sheffield Station while I waited for the Manchester train.

The Peak District was bathed in a soft light as we chugged past fields dotted with jackdaws, rooks and carrion crows. A nice end to a not very productive day. And I had a better mental map of the Western edges of South Yorkshire.

Greater Manchester bumper bundle

Guelder rose, Cutacre

A mild and sunny  start to the week. I decided I wasn't in the mood for testing my patience with trains today, despite the selection of plans available for a day out. I went over to the Trafford Centre and played bus station bingo. I seem to be riding the 132 a lot this month. Amberswood or Cutacre? I asked myself. In the end I opted for Cutacre and the possibility of waders on Swan Lake. And for a change I'd get off in Atherton and walk down Engine Lane and thence make my way down to Tyldesley.

Engine Lane

A migrant hawker patrolled Shakerley Lane as I walked towards Engine Lane. The hedgerows of Engine Lane were pretty quiet, speckled woods and large whites fluttered about, another migrant hawker zipped past, blue tits and dunnocks fidgeted through the hawthorn bushes and chiffchaffs squeaked from the trees, providing a nice compare and contrast with a willow warbler squeaking from the railway embankment. Half a dozen sand martins twittered on their way South while swallows hawked low over the meadows. A young buzzard was calling from somewhere on the other side of the railway. And there was a constant overhead traffic of gulls.

Black-headed gulls, herring gulls and Canada geese

For once nobody was sitting on the bench at Swan Lake so I settled down and had a scan round. I wasn't going to get any waders today, not even any lapwings or oystercatchers. On the other hand, there were plenty of gulls, equal numbers of herring gulls and black-headed gulls, about half as many lesser black-backs and a single adult great black-back standing on its own on a rock by the island. The black-headed gulls massed on the other side of the lake and were very fidgety. There was just the one mute swan cruising about, coots and moorhens fossicked around the island and a family of dabchicks made sure to be mixed in with mallards, coots and gadwalls well away from the large gulls. There were a few dozen each of mallards, Canada geese and gadwalls and the gadwalls were already feeling the effects of the fires in the blood after their return from their moulting grounds. 

Canada geese and mallards

More swallows passed overhead, a few did a couple of circuits of the lake before drifting off. I almost missed a passing sparrowhawk, it shot across the trees behind the lake and disappeared over the railway line. Half a dozen goldfinches flew in the opposite direction.

Cumbermere Lane 

I crossed the railway bridge and walked down Cumbermere Lane into Tyldesley. The hedgerows were considerably busier down here: house sparrows, goldfinches and greenfinches chipped and tweeted, chiffchaffs squeaked, a robin had a bit of a sing to itself and a family of bullfinches wheezed sadly in a stand of elderberry bushes. A solitary house martin flew by, it seems strange only seeing the one.

Common darter 

Yet another migrant hawker zipped by. As I was approaching the common another dragonfly darted about the hedgerow. I was puzzled by it until it stopped for a breather. While it was flying about I was very conscious of a pale blue abdomen like one of the skimmers but once it parked itself it was a female common darter with a pale blue rear end. Immature or over-mature? Dunno. One or the other.

I got the 132 back to the Trafford Centre from Tyldesley. Rather than going straight home I decided I'd have a look at Eccles Water Treatment Works for the glossy ibises that had turned up there. I will admit that I'd hoped I might have spotted them on the filtration pans as the bus passed by over Barton Bridge but dark against dark at that distance was too big an ask.

I could, arguably should, have walked straight from the bus station to the Barton Lift Bridge and looked over the filtration beds from the West Salford Greenway (God alone knows why the road's called that, Salford in the strict sense is miles to the East, the boundary of the Salford local government area is miles to the West, and it's a four-lane road). Instead I went into Barton-upon-Irwell, to give it its Sunday name, and walked Westward along the canal. It had occurred to me that I've never walked this bit and it was time I did.

Manchester Ship Canal 

Mallards and Canada loafed by the canalside in the hopes that some of the families on the grass might have food to spare. A few black-headed gulls had a bath. A mixed tit flock — long-tailed tits, blue tits and great tits — bounced through the trees and bushes along the way.

Walking by the water treatment works, Barton Bridge in the distance 

A dead end turned out to be a very tight metal kissing gate leading to a footpath beside the water treatment works. I had a wave of nostalgia. Back in the day sewage works were one of the rites of passage for birdwatchers. Cetti's warblers on Countess Weir, rare buntings on Bedminster, et cetera, et cetera. There was too much tree cover for much but passing views of the filtration pans. What I could see was littered with black-headed gulls, jackdaws and carrion crows.

Glossy ibis

At the end of the path I climbed up the steps to the Greenway and walked along until I got a view of the beds. A cyclist who was just packing his binoculars away put me on to where the ibises were. "They're a bit tricky to find," he said. He was dead right, I spotted one straight away but I was beggared if I could find the second. The one I found was straightforward as it was standing still preening at the front of the third pan down. A good view, albeit distant. I spent a while searching in vain for the second one and in the endI gave up and walked into Davyhulme for the bus home (it's only five stops but I was feeling lazy).

Glossy ibis

I wouldn't have given odds on glossy ibises within walking distance from home.

Wellacre Country Park

Swallow

It was a pleasant afternoon, and getting warmer, I didn't fancy travelling anywhere very far so I had a wander round Wellacre Country Park, which is getting to be a habit.

I bumped into the first mixed tit flock almost as soon as I'd got off the bus and walked towards Wellacre Wood. I noticed a goldcrest fidgeting through a hawthorn bush and a couple of blue tits noticed me. I was quickly told to move on my way by great tits and long-tailed tits. The goldcrest quietly went about its business.

Wellacre Wood 

The wood was littered with falling leaves. Ring-necked parakeets called in the treetops, blackbirds muttered in the undergrowth, robins squeaked and practiced their vocals. Deep in the wood I stood to one side to let a lady and her dogs past. She waved me on, her cat, which was also on the walk, was on a sit-down strike under a bush. 

House sparrows 

I left the wood and walked round to Jack Lane. A migrant hawker passed by. Besides being smaller and distinctly bluer they differ from Southern hawkers in not stopping to have a close look at you. The house sparrows I hadn't been seeing last time were out in force today, forty-odd of them dust bathing on the path. Swallows and sand martins zipped about low over the fields and hedgerows and groups of young swallows twittered about in the tops of hawthorn bushes.

Swallows

Swallows

Swallows

Swallows

Jack Lane Nature Reserve 

Large whites, speckled woods and common darters fidgeted about the brambles at the entrance to Jack Lane Nature Reserve. A mild, damp week had perked up the vegetation though the pools were just mostly only slightly muddier than last time. I could see where moorhens had been, and where a dog had chased a moorhen into the reeds, but didn't see any of them. A reed warbler had a bit of a sing to itself from the depths of the reeds. A loud cronking overhead made me look up and see two immature ravens flying over to Irlam. Do they commute between the Mersey Valley and Irlam or for ravens do all roads lead to Irlam, I wondered.

As I walked by the railway embankment chiffchaffs and blue tits bounced through the trees. High overhead a soaring kestrel did a very good impersonation of a sparrowhawk and had me fooled for a moment. Lesser black-backs headed for Woolston Eyes. Speckled woods and large whites fluttered about in the wayside. 

Heading for Dutton's Pond 

By chance I was watching a large white fluttering about the canopy of a willow tree when I spotted another butterfly which wasn't one of the regulars. It was a bit smaller than a gatekeeper and at first looked to have plain foxy brown underwings. It stayed high up and I was only getting fleeting, erratic sight of it. As it flew across the path I got the sense of an inner underwing and outer underwing but no conscious sense of a line between them. My guess, and it is only a guess, is that it was a brown hairstreak. Either that or something considerably rarer. There are plenty enough blackthorns locally to support a population of brown hairstreaks but I didn't think we got them round here. Way, way back when most of our roadside trees were elms, there used to be reports of white-letter hairstreaks but I can't see that happening these days, Dutch elm disease did for the lot of them.

A mallard, a moorhen and a coot pottered about on Dutton's Pond. I rather hoped there was more of the same on the other side of the island.

The blue tits made an appearance as I walked by Green Hill and they joined a wren in making disapproving noises as I passed by. Goldfinches twittered in the treetops and half a dozen pigeons courted on the roof of the abandoned barn at the end of Carrington Road. A mixed tit flock — blue tits, long-tailed tits, chiffchaffs and goldfinches — in the trees by Flixton Bridge were a nice coda to the walk.

Jack Lane 

Salford Quays

Black-headed gull 

I was feeling better by teatime and felt the need to go out for a walk to clear my head and get some exercise. I decided on a stroll up and down Wharfside to see if I could find the usual yellow-legged gull.

I got off the 30 bus at Imperial War Museum North. There were plenty of lesser black-backs and black-headed gulls and perhaps a handful of herring gulls flying overhead to the Ship Canal. A lot of pied wagtails were feeding on the grass prior to going to roost. As I turned the corner onto the path to the canal side a juvenile peregrine shot overhead at rooftop height. I know peregrines nest locally, it was about time I had some luck seeing one of them. This was a very young-looking bird, dark and rusty underneath with sooty brown upperparts.

Lesser black-backs and herring gulls 

There was a raft of dozens of large gulls having a wash and a brush-up on Central Bay. Lesser black-backs outnumbered herring gulls about three to one and the mixture of ages was made the more bewildering by most of them being in moult out of Summer plumage. The dozens of black-headed gulls were dotted about on the water or lined up on the railings by the Lowry, most of the youngsters now only being slightly browner than the first-Summer birds. On the way in I'd seen a report of a first-Summer kittiwake on Clipper Quay so I kept an eye out just in case it had drifted over this way. I found an adult common gull in the crowd and another flew overhead.

Black-headed gull 

Black-headed gulls 

Fishing cormorants snaked their way around the gulls. It's a sure bet that if they had caught anything they'd have surfaced well away from them. Mute swans, Canada geese and coots mugged for scraps over at the entrance to the Ontario Basin and pigeons littered the far quayside.

Black-headed gulls 

Passing South Bay

Canada geese, mallards and coots loafed on the bank at Clipper Quay while moorhens and pigeons pottered about. There were a few black-headed gulls and a young lesser black-back but nothing that might be a kittiwake. A chap on the far quayside was feeding a crowd of black-headed gulls, I'm told he does this so he can get close enough to read the numbers on the rings on their legs. I don't have much luck at that, on the few occasions I've managed to read the full number most have been ringed locally though a handful have come from further afield, one of them was ringed in Estonia. None of his excited throng turned out to be a kittiwake.

A birdwatcher searching for the kittiwake had told me the yellow-legged gull had been on the boat parked in South Bay when he'd walked up. I had a look over but the boat was now outlined in black-headed gulls standing shoulder-to-shoulder. I decided to walk up and have a look at Pomona and see if I have better luck on the way back.

Walking up to Pomona

Pomona was quiet even by its lights: three black-headed gulls, a couple of pigeons and a passing lesser black-back.

Black-headed gull 

I did have more luck on the way back, the yellow-legged gull was in the crowd bathing in Central Bay. A few more herring gulls flew in. I couldn't see anything that might be a candidate for a kittiwake. I wasn't too disappointed, it had been the walk I'd needed.

The Millennium Bridge over to Salford 

Spadgers

Some of the kids.

Waiting for the squirrel to get off the seed feeder

Some of the lads

A couple of the youngsters 

Cock sparrow, I nickname this one Silvercheeks

Silvercheeks. Whenever I see him appear in the garden I have to look twice to make sure it's not a great tit.

I think the cock sparrow on the left is the oldest in the flock now, he's five or six years old

Stalybridge

Walkerwood Reservoir 

It was a mizzly sort of day. I've not had much exercise this week so I thought I'd give the knees and wind a bit of an airing with a walk through Stalybridge Country Park and up to Brushes Reservoir. I told myself I wasn't going to carry on over Swineshaw and into Tintwistle. In the event the question didn't arise.

Stalybridge Country Park 

I got the 348 from Stalybridge Station, got off at Parkfields, walked up Grafton Street and then into the country park. At first it was very quiet indeed, just the sound of the jackdaws and woodpigeons on the rooftops behind me. Then I bumped into the first mixed tit flock, the squeak of a chiffchaff and the tutting of long-tailed tits putting me on the alert. There was a big family of long-tailed tits, a couple of chiffchaffs, at least half a dozen blue tits and a couple of pairs of great tits. This time of year I'd expect them to still be skulking undercover but like so many other things Autumn has come early for mixed tit flocks. I bumped into another up near Brushes Road, this one including a few goldfinches and a nuthatch in the mix. In between, a couple of jays were being surprisingly showy and a great spotted woodpecker called from the treetops.

A willow warbler called and nearly sang in the trees by Brushes Road. Swallows skimmed over the dam of Walkerwood Reservoir. Absolutely nothing was on the water or the edges of the reservoir.

Brushes Road 

Stalybridge Country Park 

Walkerwood Reservoir 

Chiffchaffs and robins squeaked and blue tits churred in the wayside along Brushes Road. Swallows hawked low over the hillside and its grazing rabbits. Lesser black-backs and black-headed gulls drifted up the valley and a kestrel hovered low over the crest of the hill.

Brushes Road 

Walkerwood Reservoir 

It was good walking but my wind was struggling. I've been like this a couple of days, it might be the sudden change in humidity, I may have caught my first Summer cold since lockdown, it might just be male pattern hypochondria. At the gate to Brushes Reservoir I stopped to catch my breath and have a good cough. There was no question of my being daft enough to trot blithely over Swineshaw. I decided I'd see the reservoir then make my way back.

Brushes Road 

A mixed tit flock — blue tits, great tits, chiffchaffs and chaffinches, worked its way through the hawthorns, heathers and bilberries on the wayside: woodpigeons clattered about in the trees; robins and dunnocks fossicked about the roadsides. I had a scan over the reservoir and couldn't see anything except swallows flying down the valley.

Brushes Reservoir 

At this point I got a 'phone call about a family emergency so I started back at a rush. At the top of Besom Lane my brother rang to say all was sorted and there was no need to rush back. I stopped to catch my breath and watched a crowd of carrion crows and jackdaws fussing about in the field by the lane. Another mixed tit flock bounced through the hedgerow, a large flock this time which incorporated a big flock of goldfinches. It may have been a big flock of goldfinches incorporating a mixed tit flock. A male blackcap gorging on haws was a nice surprise, right at that moment I was in the market for a boost to my morale. A jay flew up the hill and did its bit for the restoration of oak woodlands, caching at least three acorns in the grass. 

Besom Lane 

I walked down into Millbrook and waited for the bus to Stalybridge, watching the pigeons and jackdaws flocking prior to going to roost. I got a 'phone call telling me to hurry back, which I was doing anyway. When I got back I found there had been absolutely no need to hurry after all. Which wasn't the pleasant surprise it should have been.