Pennington Flash

Cormorant 

It was a crisp, bright, sunny morning and I was up with the lark, tra la! After running a couple of errands I decided to bob over to Pennington Flash to see if the juvenile black tern that's been hanging round the past couple of days was still about.

Walking in from Slag Lane 

I got the Plank Lane bus, got off at Slag Lane and walked through the woods to the flash. If anything the mixed tit flocks were even more loosely arranged than on my last visit. I was soon hearing the coots and great crested grebes on the flash and black-headed gulls were flying hither and thither. But mostly thither.

Great crested grebe

Surprisingly enough, the black tern was easy to spot, a grey sprite dwarfed by the black-headed gulls it was wheeling about. It kept its distance, though, never closer than a hundred yards. Just to rub my nose in it it settled on one of the buoys furthest from the shore.

The black tern wasn't being cooperative for the camera. It's on the buoy second-left.

A common scoter had also been reported on the flash so I had a scan round for that without any success. There were large rafts of coots and a dozen cormorants were cooperatively fishing, lined up like they were doing the conga. Way over the other side there was an even longer procession of mute swans by the bank. The coots were coots, the tufted ducks out there were obviously too small to be a scoter, I had to look twice at mallards silhouetted against the sunlight on the water but the shape's all wrong. I wasn't seeing a scoter. Never mind, I thought, I could try again from the car park on the way out.

Chiffchaffs were thinner in the trees than they had been last time. There were lots more common darters and migrant hawkers whizzing about, though. Red admirals, speckled woods and large whites fluttered about the wayside and hedgerows. Somewhere in one of the bits of scrubby hawthorns by the bankside a Cetti's warbler was running through its singing practice exercises. 

Pennington Flash 

The rucks

As I walked along the fringe of the rucks there was a commotion overhead, a black-headed gull screaming the odds at something. I looked up and found that the something it was mobbing was a kestrel. I couldn't see that the kestrel had anything the gull might want to try and steal, it just looked like the gull had had an attack of spite and chanced upon a target smaller than itself to vent on.

Cormorants and lapwings fringed this end of the spit and a raft of tufted ducks cruised about offshore. Further along shovelers, mallards and teal dabbled in the shallows and Canada geese cruised about without any apparent purpose.

Cormorants on the end of the spit

Walking round to the Charlie Owen Hide 

Rather than repeat the route of my last visit I decided I was due a look at the Charlie Owen Hide. The woodland walk round was fairly quiet, the mixed tit flocks were so diffuse they may not even have counted as flocks. Coal tits sidled over to make sure I wasn't anything they needed to worry about (it was like watching a cat finding a stranger in the living room) and male goldcrests chased each other around bushes. A great tit did a disturbingly accurate impersonation of the sneezing call of a marsh tit. A family of long-tailed tits paid no heed as two very vocal buzzards drifted over from the canal at treetop height. By the usual standards here this was fairly quiet.

Heron and shoveler

The pool at the Charlie Owen Hide was littered with teals, gadwalls and shovelers. An eclipse drake wigeon and a couple of dabchicks mingled with the crowds while a heron stood aloof to one side.

Shovelers and teals

Feeding looked to be still suspended at the Bunting Hide, a squirrel and a chaffinch checked the feeders on the off-chance.

At Pengy's Hide the pool was busy with gadwalls and mallards, most of them paired-up, with a mute swan and a lot of coot filling in the gaps on the water. There was a lot of whistling going on between the gadwalls while the mallards kept nipping behind the reeds for furtive liaisons.

I strolled over to the F.W.Horrocks Hide to see what was on the spit and to try and find that common scoter. Nearly all the action on the spit was at the end, herring gulls and cormorants loafing with mallards and lapwings. There was a handful of mallards closer to hand and a couple of cormorants were drying their wings on the fingerpost by the hide.

Cormorants 

I was having no luck finding anything that might be a common scoter as I looked out over the spit. I moved over and looked out of one of the side windows. The first bird I saw, about three hundred yards out on the water, was a drake common scoter, sideways on, dead obvious. Later on, looking from the car park, I picked up an all-black bird in the same position but couldn't be sure it was the scoter: the change of angle made it impossible to be sure whether I was looking at the foreshortened rear end of a coot or the foreshortened rear end of a scoter.

By the car park

I'd walked through the car park and had reached the picnic area when it occurred to me I hadn't seen or heard a car park oystercatcher. I said it out loud. An oystercatcher called out a reply. I wish these things worked all the time, it would save a lot of bad language in the field.

Adwick Washland

Lapwings

I've been very conscious that I've been neglecting Yorkshire this year and have a long list of places yet unvisited. It was going to be a wet day in Manchester but looked set fair on the wrong side of the Pennines so I decided to head over that way. And ended up returning to Adwick Washland because a pectoral sandpiper had settled there for a couple of days. 

Pectoral sandpiper is one of that couple of dozen birds that I see often enough to expect to get on my year list but irregularly enough for me to worry I'd just gone through a purple patch and I won't see them again for years. Night herons, long-billed dowitchers and American golden plovers have reminded me that they are scarce visitors and I just got lucky a few years. Ring ousels and wood warblers have reminded me again this year not to get too cocky with my birdwatching.

I'd hoped to do the full trip on a Delay Repay compo ticket but the trains in Manchester were being interesting so rather than fanny about I bought a ticket to Sheffield and got the express train there so I wasn't messing about with connections. I could use the complementary ticket for the rest of the journey and take a meandering way home. I had half an hour to wait for the train to Bolton-on-Dearne at Sheffield so I decided to move on to Meadowhall and wait for it there. Which turned out to be a good move because as well as getting some sunshine I also found a whitethroat rummaging about in the rose bushes on the platform.

Whitethroat 

When I arrived at Bolton-on-Dearne and walked down to the washland common darters zipped about the hedgerows, robins sang, house sparrows and collared doves fussed about in gardens and pied wagtails flitted across the road. Whether or not I managed to catch the pectoral sandpiper I was in for a nice walk.

Adwick Washland 

It was a quiet start to the walk as some work was being done on managing the drains and reedbeds but once I'd passed the first big pool, empty save an eclipse drake shoveler and a pair of mallards, things picked up a lot. Then the singing robins and squeaking chiffchaffs and great tits suddenly went quiet. I glanced round, thinking that the kestrel I'd noticed hovering over one of the fields had drifted this way. It hadn't, a male sparrowhawk had landed in a treetop. It gave me a long, hard look then set off over the reedbeds to the South.

Common darters and migrant hawkers zipped about the path. Large whites and speckled woods fluttered about the wayside. I was easily within arm's reach of a Cetti's warbler that was singing in a guelder rose bush — and guelder rose isn't the densest of bushes to look into — but I was blessed if I could actually see the bird. On my last visit I'd been falling over reed buntings and I was rather hoping to see a few today as they've been thin on the ground for me lately, but not a sausage. A flock of lapwings flew overhead in a panic and headed for the fields. I hoped nothing had scared off the pectoral sandpiper.

Adwick Washland 

There were plenty of mallards, coots, black-headed gulls and moorhens. Canada geese and greylags grazed or dozed by pools. Shovelers and gadwalls were thin on the ground and elusive, teals dabbled in small groups. The first wader I saw on the ground was a greenshank, of all things, piping by the reeds on the far side of the pool. There were lapwings with the geese and teals further along but I was seeing no small waders.

Adwick Washland 

I met a couple of birdwatchers and we compared notes. We'd all seen kestrels and a buzzard, I'd seen the sparrowhawk, they'd both seen a peregrine pass by and one had seen a merlin put up the waders. They'd seen some dunlins and a ringed plover fly off but they reckoned the pectoral sandpiper had gone to earth with some snipes. I kept my fingers crossed.

I walked down to the end of the pool but all I was seeing by the sides and on the mud were teals and pied wagtails. Ah well, it was a nice walk and the birdwatching had been otherwise good. I started the walk back. There's not a lot of hiding places on this pool, just a couple of tiny inlets, so I concentrated on them. I was in luck, a couple of snipe wandered out of the second one I looked at. Then it was four snipe. And something else fossicking about in the mud behind a couple of them. It took a bit of walking up and down to get a clear view of this bird and I lost it a couple of times. It definitely wasn't a snipe, and it became clear it wasn't a dunlin, then I got a proper view of the front end and it was obviously the pectoral sandpiper. Then the little bugger scuttled up the inlet out of sight. Hard luck, matey, I saw you and identified you.

Walking back 

Job done, I kept an eye out for reed buntings on the way back and found wrens, robins and chiffchaffs. A couple of little egrets joined the shoveler on his pool. 

I took a very meandering route home, having found that there's a train to York from Moorthorpe twice a day and the train I caught at Bolton-on-Dearne happened to connect with the last one. A red kite sparring with jackdaws near South Milford was a nice addition to the day's tally.

Marshside and Crossens Marsh

Pink-footed geese, Marshside 

It was going to be a warmish day so I decided I'd head out to Marshside. Unfortunately I overslept and missed the train that would give me a connection with the Southport train (the rest of the day they're timed so that one can't get into Oxford Road without the other pulling out first) so I got the train to Liverpool and went up the coast. (It's ten minutes quicker than making the connection at Salford Crescent.) 

Any road up, It was bright and warm when I left home but became cloudy beyond Warrington. The sun finally burnt the mist off as the train passed through Liverpool and it was a lovely Autumn day when I stepped off the 44 bus on Marshside Road.

Greylags 

The marshes were green and there was water in the drains, though the pools were still shallow and Junction Pool more mud than water. Greylags, Canada geese and my first pink-footed geese of Autumn grazed while small flocks of curlews and black-tailed godwits prodded the ground. A few skylarks and a lot of starlings skittered about, the house sparrows were for staying in the gardens and hedgerows up the road.

Black-tailed godwit and pink-footed geese 

The lagoon by Sandgrounders was remarkably quiet. Half a dozen tufted ducks dozed on the big island, a few coots, moorhens and mallards pottered about the banks. On the marsh beyond there were a handful of wigeons and dozens of teals and a thin scattering of lapwings.

Black-tailed godwit 

Black-tailed godwits rummaged about in the pool at Sandgrounders. Teals and mallards dozed and dabbled, a couple of shovelers and a couple of gadwalls cruised the channels. I looked in vain for any small waders. A Cetti's warbler sang in the brambles by the hide. It all felt remarkably quiet despite the fact there were hundreds of birds out there. A juvenile great black-back cruised by, making the lapwings and starlings on the marsh jittery. Small skeins of pink-feet, rarely more than a dozen birds, passed to and fro. As did herring gulls, lesser black-backs and woodpigeons. The black-headed gulls were sticking by the car park in the hopes of picking up crumbs.

Black-tailed godwit 
I wondered what the duck was.

Pink-footed geese 

Marshside Inner Marsh 

I walked on beside Marine Drive. Probably the same Cetti's warbler sang from the depths of a hawthorn bush on the bank and a couple of meadow pipits flew over to the outer marsh. I looked across the road and scanned round. A few dark brown heads poking above the tall grass were pink-footed geese on sentry duty. Skylarks and meadow pipits flitted to and fro. I checked every fence post just in case a merlin was sitting on one of them and found a couple of juvenile wheatears. 

A couple of juvenile wheatears

I carried on walking. The sunshine had brought out the butterflies and I was tiptoeing round small coppers, large whites and more wall browns than I've seen in years. Red admirals and painted ladies fluttered about the wayside brambles, common darters zipped about the rank vegetation on the bankside, migrant hawkers patrolled the pathways.

Small copper

A thick black band the length of Polly's Pool was a couple of hundred black-tailed godwits. Lapwings lined the bank. At least one ruff was scuttling about the crowd, a ghostly outlier turned out to be a greenshank. I'd walked a little further along when the waders suddenly took to flight. I looked too low for the cause, the culprit was a female-type marsh harrier flying above the mêlée. Most of the waders settled back down, a dozen lapwings mobbed the harrier until it floated off stage right.

Buzzard

There were more raptors over the road. A buzzard hovered over the roadside before drifting out to hover over the long grass. About a hundred yards further a hovering kestrel was putting the wind up a flock of meadow pipits. Turning back and heading on a robin ticked at me from a bramble patch and a pair of stonechats scolded before retreating into a hawthorn bush. Mallards, teals and Canada geese pottered about the inner marsh, more pink-feet flew in, a heron flew out. And I found myself tiptoeing my way through the complicated love lives of wall brown butterflies.

A male wall brown trying to muscle in on a mating pair

Wall browns

Wall browns

I'd just passed the boundary fence into Crossens Marsh when I noticed a shape shooting low over the outer marsh. I got my binoculars onto it expecting to see the kestrel and found a merlin skimming the tops of the grass. Whatever it was hoping to flush out into the open stayed resolutely under cover.

Walking by Crossens Inner Marsh 

For some reason the butterflies suddenly became very thin on the ground, just the occasional passing large white or wall brown. Teals, Canada geese, greylags, lapwings and starlings fed on the inner marsh. There wasn't a lot on the outer marsh, a few distant little egrets, which had been notably absent on Marshside, and even further distant small flocks of Canada geese and pink-feet. 

I was approaching McCarthy's watchpoint on the other side of the road when a small bird shot from a roadside bush into a small stand of willow scrub on the bank of the path. Luckily there's not a lot on the British List that's slim, beige at the front and foxy orange at the back so even that fleeting glance told me it was a redstart, and either a female or juvenile at that. I was looking for it when another birdwatcher toddled up, a chap I've met before from East Lancashire, and he risked life and limb to pick through the brambles on the bank to look from the other side of the willows but neither of us managed to find where it had gone.

Further along, pied wagtails skittered about and black-tailed godwits fed on the inner marsh. Over on the outer marsh small flocks of teal dabbled in the pools by the river and a couple of kestrels hovered over the marsh.

Crossens River
Teals, moorhens and heron

I crossed over and took the path by the Crossens. Teals, mallards and moorhens fussed about on the river and a heron lurked on the bank. Goldfinches and greenfinches passed by, house sparrows bustled about in the hedgerows. I got to Banks Road and walked down to get the 44 back into Southport. It had been one of those strange birdwatching walks where there was demonstrably a lot of birdlife about yet it still felt quiet. Perhaps it was just that the pink-footed geese were still only numbering in their hundreds, not their thousands.

Mosses

Common darter, Little Woolden Moss 

It was one of those days where I could have spent all day deciding where I was going out for a walk. The aches and pains after yesterday's fairly short wander round convinced me that i needed to get some exercise and it wasn't until I got off the train at Irlam and walked over to Astley Road that I was sure where I was going.

It was a grey day and cooler than advertised though the wind was a lot softer than it has been. It was a fairly quiet walk out of town. Robins sang but there were no more sign of house sparrows on Zinnia Close than there were in my back garden. 

The turf fields were busy with woodpigeons. Try as I may, none of the big clods of earth turned out to be partridges. Over on the other side of Roscoe Road some black-headed gulls accompanied the woodpigeons. A buzzard drifted off over towards Barton Moss. Another flew down Roscoe Road and joined a kestrel in a big tree near the farmstead. Buzzards and kestrels seem to tolerate each other reasonably well, neither have any time for sparrowhawks.

Astley Road 

The hedgerows along Astley Road were quietly busy with robins and titmice, the tops of the birch trees buzzing and twittering with goldfinches.  I spent a while making sure they were all goldfinches, just in case. Blackbirds rummaged in the undergrowth and somewhere a mistle thrush was taking exception to me. There was no question where the great spotted woodpecker objecting to me was, I looked up in the big conker tree, we saw each other and it was away. It provided noises off as I walked past the Jack Russell's gate.

Pied wagtail

Pied wagtail,the same bird as above looking remarkably pale now its black rump is hidden.

I'd been wondering where all the pied wagtails were. They were all around the Lawn Turf farmstead and the turf field across the road from there. At least a hundred of them and a large proportion juveniles, including a few birds which may have been white wagtails rather than just very pale pied wagtails. There was a handful of meadow pipits in the mix on the field as well as small flock of linnets and a juvenile wheatear. 

Pied wagtail 

Starlings
Sing along, you all know the tune.

Starlings congregated on the telegraph wires and paid no need as a male kestrel flew close by. Further along, a buzzard sat on a fence post watching jackdaws tiptoeing around a flock of sheep in a pen. A cormorant passed by, perhaps heading for the fishery.

Astley Road 

Approaching Four Lanes End 

The wind had ceased and the air got warm and heavy. Large whites, small whites and red admirals fluttered about the wayside, speckled woods along the hedgerows. A few common darters, all looking over-mature now in shades of iron reds and greys, zipped by. For once a migrant hawker settled on the ground to sun itself as best could but was off like a shot the moment the camera appeared. 

Lavender Lane

Another kestrel perched with woodpigeons on the telephone line across Lavender Lane. The first chiffchaff of the day squeaked from the hawthorn hedgerow. I stopped to scan round in the hopes of finding stonechats and accidentally flushed a dozen pheasants test had been feeding in the wayside. A big female sparrowhawk shot across the rough pasture at thistletop height before wheeling round and settling in the trees on the edge of Little Woolden Moss.

Little Woolden Moss 

Little Woolden Moss was phenomenally quiet. A chaffinch and a wren marked my entrance from the car park and a chiffchaff squeaked from the willow scrub. Out in the open there was me, some craneflies and common darters. The darters kept flying over to keep me company so I wouldn't be lonely.

I noticed someone way over on the other side on the path that's not available to the public, I'm pretty sure it was the chap who does the Carbon Footprint surveys. He flushed a small flock of linnets which flew over into the willow scrub. On the pools there wasn't so much as a duck or a moorhen. A passing female-type marsh harrier was some consolation.

Common darter 

At the site where the hide used to be before i started coming here I had a sit down in the company of some more common darters. As I was getting up to move on I was joined by another birdwatcher and we both commented on how quiet it was. I wished him luck and moved on, almost immediately bumping into a small copper feeding on the last of the heather flowers.

Small copper 

Bolete?

I hadn't realised I had decided to walk down Moss Road back into Irlam until I walked through the gate and joined the path leading to the road. There were lots of fungi at the base of the hedge, a giant puffball a little larger than a football being the only one I could identify with any confidence. Over the other side the fields had been ploughed and were being rummaged over by a few carrion crows and magpies and a pair of stock doves.

Giant puffball

These I'm not remotely sure of

It was a very quiet walk down Moss Road. Jackdaws and woodpigeons rummaged in fields, robins struck poses in hedgerow and lesser black-backs headed to the roost at Woolston Eyes.

Cadishead Moss 

New Moss Wood 

I didn't go into New Moss Wood, I didn't have the legs for it. The birds came out to me, a mixed tit flock flitting to and fro between the wood and a stand of conifers on the other side of the road. Blue tits chased each other about the branches. A couple of male goldcrests had a spat. Coal tits fed at the tree tops, chaffinches and great tits in the lower branches and chiffchaffs and long-tailed tits bounced through all points in between. Half a dozen pheasants fed under the conifers.

The first house sparrow of the day was chirping from a rose bush in the allotments on the way back to the station.