Home thoughts

Blackbird

It was a bright and sunny morning and I was woken up by a bird singing in the sycamores on the railway embankment. That's not a blackcap, I told myself, nor a robin. Then it upped the tempo and got a minutes' worth of song done in ten seconds, a typical garden warbler trick. I hope it stays round. A couple of years ago one set up territory here and was a regular source of confusion in the dawn chorus. Last year it was passing strangers that didn't linger.

The robin sang a few minutes later and his warm up reminded me why I'm always wary of very short bursts of song, the first couple of seconds could just as easily have been blackcap as robin. It was good to hear him, he's a bit quiet lately limiting himself to a quick burst of song a couple of times a day just to remind any others that he's there. I think I've heard the robin at the station twice in a fortnight.

It's only half-past April and the mayflowers are nearly over and the runny nose and itchy eyes season has come early. The spadgers are flitting in and out of the garden in twos and threes, the females barely stopping before zipping back again. I usually have a bit of a lull on the feeders this time of year, just enough to tide the birds over while the aphid numbers build up, but I think I'll need to prepare for an early arrival of an explosion of baby spadgers.

By mid-morning the clouds had rolled in and the strong wind had a cold edge to it. I didn't feel inclined to have a day out and I was even more disinclined to go mudlarking so I decided to take a rest. Next door had someone in to trim the tops of the sycamores at the bottom of the garden, a couple of hours' work that looked hair-raising at times but they've done a good job of it. I should have had the ones at the end of my garden topped this Winter, and the conifer, too, but didn't get round to it. It'll have to wait until Autumn now, there's a blackbird nest and a wren's nest in the ivies at the base of the tree and I suspect something's got a nest in the conifer but I haven't been able to whittle down the suspects. I know it's not the squirrels though I've no idea where they're camping out this year. When I've seen them at all lately they've always been coming in stage left but I haven't spotted any likely dreys.

The back garden.
The roses are full of buds and may beat the rowan tree into flower.

By lunchtime I was fidgety and went to do the week's shopping. There was a midday chorus at the station: blackbird, blackcap, great tits and wren. One of the jackdaws checked its chimney nest, the spadgers were vocal under platform two and pairs of magpies were in and out of the conifers like fiddlers' elbows. Because the train was late I had to do the shop in eleven minutes flat (a new personal best) so I didn't register any of the birdlife at Urmston Station.

I got home in the rain. Not for the first time it occurred to me that the weather presenters on local television programmes would do better to provide a bit more information about the forecast and a bit less trying to convince us that they are a character.

Stretford

Orange tip, Stretford Meadows 

It was another bright and breezy day so I set off for Stretford Meadows to see what was about. I was hoping for whitethroats and to see if anything had dropped by on Spring passage, which meant I'd have to negotiate the adventure playground to get onto the meadows and have a damp and muddy walk over the open ground. The recent weather has been drying winds for sure but there are limits and the wind has often been accompanied by downpour. Still, don't look don't see so off I trotted.

Wrens and blackbirds, blackcaps and chiffchaffs sang in the trees at the Newcroft Road end. A couple of parakeets squawked in the trees by the motorway. The hedgerows were busy with dunnocks, spadgers and goldfinches and woodpigeons clattered about in the treetops. I took these as good omens and off I went over the palettes.

It would be rude not to.

The paths were every bit as awful as I'd expected and in many places worse. Squelching out into the open I could see plenty of magpies about and a couple of pairs of carrion crows were busy in the hawthorn thickets. Wrens, robins and great tits sang in the brambles and a buzzard soared very high overhead.

Stretford Meadows 

The going got wetter as I walked up the slope and I wasn't having much fun. I decided to drop down to the cricket pitch and take the path East from there which tends to be a lot drier. To be fair it was drier but that meant it was thick wet mud rather than an inch of water and it was a hard slog. Out of the wind it was warm enough for orange tip butterflies to have dogfights over bramble patches and speckled woods to flit about in the long grass in the oak scrub. Great tits and wrens came over to see what I was about and giggle under the cover of leaves. Blackcaps sang in the trees, blackbirds lurked to see if I'd unearth any worms in my progress, dunnocks and long-tailed tits very quietly went about their business in the oak scrub and a robin sneaked by to take a faecal sac a good distance from its nest. 

A raven chased a buzzard off one of the electricity pylons by the motorway. I wasn't sure if it was the same buzzard I'd seen soaring earlier, I'd been concentrating on where my feet were going for the previous quarter of an hour.

Green plastic tubes marking where a lesser whitethroat territory used to be.

I joined the metalled road used by the tip inspectors and banged the mud off my boots and trousers, in between passing the time of day with dogs and dog walkers. I had no luck finding any whitethroats, nor any passage migrants. I did find a few other birdwatchers on the same quest, though, and they'd had the same luck. We lamented the lack of skylarks these days and the bulldozing of healthy bramble patches to make space for planting nursery whips (it isn't just me). One of them told me that a tree pipit had been reported on the meadow first thing. I wished him luck and headed in the opposite direction so as not to put the jinx on his endeavours.

Stretford Meadows looking over into Stretford 

The clouds rolled in and a few spots of rain happened then stopped, much the same as yesterday afternoon but this time the clouds lingered. I dropped down to the peripheral path and headed along Kickety Brook for Stretford Ees. 

Stretford Meadows, back on steadier ground

The trees were busy with robins, blackcaps, great tits and wrens and a great spotted woodpecker called from somewhere over by the recycling centre. Approaching Hawthorn Road I had the opportunity to compare and contrast the slightly squeaky call of a chiffchaff with the slightly more metallic call of a willow warbler, one either side of the path, and for once got it right first time.

Kickety Brook passing under the Bridgewater Canal 

The pigeons under the aquaduct arches were being frisky which gave them something to do as the clouds glowered. More robins, blackcaps, goldfinches and great tits sang in the hedgerows by Stretford Ees and magpies fossicked about in the grass. 

Stretford Ees, this pool is the start of Kickety Brook 

I'd just got to the beginning of Kickety Brook when the hailstorm started. I walked round onto Hawthorn Lane and walked through the cemetery for the bus home in bright sunshine.

River Mersey by Stretford Ees

Southport

Avocets, Marshside

It was more than high time I had a proper wander round Marshside and Crossens. The weather forecast for Southport was sunny but at Wigan it was cool, gloomy and windy so our train was cancelled there and we had a three-quarter hour wait for the next Southport train. Any road up I got there in the end and it was well worth the effort.

Lapwing, Marshside

I got off the 44 and walked down Marshside Road. It was an almost cloudless lunchtime and the wind was very brisk and cool but nothing like as strong as yesterday. A couple of house martins whizzing round the chimney pots on Elswick Road were a nice herald of the Spring we keep on thinking has arrived. As I passed the houses and onto the marsh the hedgerows were busy with house sparrows and the marsh was busy. Lapwings, black-headed gulls, woodpigeons and starlings flew to and fro on the nearby grass. Further out there were yet more of the same interspersed between many dozens of pairs of Canada geese and small groups of pink-footed geese.

From Marshside Road 

Over the road the marsh was still flooded. Although the whole marsh looked like a pond most of the water was only knee-high to a coot. Half a dozen greylags on one of the islands were, oddly, the only ones I saw all day. There were plenty more Canada geese and pink-feet together with mallards, black-tailed godwits, redshanks, coots and tufted ducks and a hundred or so black-headed gulls. The wigeons looked to have all gone, the few teal took some finding and I only found the one pair of pintails.

Black-tailed godwit, Marshside 

Walking along I started to find little egrets in the creeks and gullies on my side of the road and a few black-tailed godwits fed on the bank of the drain. Skylarks sang overhead or skittered about in the long grass. There were a lot of wagtails and they were all white wagtails.

White wagtails, Marshside 

My first whitethroat of the year was singing lustily from the gorse bushes on the corner by the junction. Across the road a wheatear was posing for cameramen in the car park.

Black-headed gulls, Marshside 

The black-headed gulls were busy sorting out the remaining nesting territories by Sandgrounders. Further out the pairs all seemed to have settled into place. It looks like the nesting colony's going to be about a hundred pairs, it's a lot less densely packed than a few years ago when I first came here. I looked around but couldn't find any Mediterranean gulls in the crowd.

Redshank, Marshside 

There were more redshanks flitting about, a common sandpiper trotted about the banks of the pools and twos and threes of godwits stalked the pools as they fed in the shallows.

Common sandpiper, Marshside 

It was impossible not to be distracted by the avocets. They fed, they squabbled, and they billed and cooed when they weren't chasing off black-headed gulls, Canada geese or each other. A small group in front of the hide weren't sure if they were feeding or courting and their bubbling and piping drowned out the calls of gulls in the background. They were ridiculously photogenic.

Avocets, Marshside

Avocets, Marshside

Avocets, Marshside

Avocets, Marshside

Avocets, Marshside

Avocets, Marshside

Avocets, Marshside

Marine Drive
This is the rough track on the inside of the road that runs beside the inner marshes

I walked on beside Marine Drive. The inner marsh was busy with Canada geese and black-headed gulls, the outer with distant skylarks and pink-feet. Avocets and mallards lurked in the creeks and pools either side. The bushes by the side of the road were busy with goldfinches, greenfinches and wrens, green-veined white butterflies kept out of the wind as best they could by hugging the ground.

Third-calendar-year great black-back
A pair of lapwings had just mobbed this off Marshside Inner Marsh 

Large gulls flew about ominously. Herring gulls seemed to be almost tolerated by everything except the avocets. Lesser black-backs were chased off by lapwings and black-headed gulls. The occasional passing great black-back was an all-out alert. The buzzard sitting on one of the fenceposts at the boundary between Marshside and Crossens Inner Marsh seemed to be no concern to anybody.

Wheatear, Crossens Outer Marsh 

A wheatear and some more white wagtails foraged in the long grass and flood wreckage at the boundary fence to Crossens Outer. More skylarks sang and meadow pipits performed their parachuting song flight.

Wheatear, Crossens Outer Marsh

Spoonbills, Crossens Inner Marsh

I glanced over the road and noticed two white shapes that didn't look right for egrets. It was a couple of young-looking spoonbills being surprisingly active as they fed in the pools alongside avocets and godwits.

Spoonbills, Crossens Inner Marsh 

White wagtail, Crossens Outer Marsh 

I stopped for a scan round at McCarthy's, a look-out over Crossens Outer by the old wildfowlers' pull-in named after the author of "The Birds of Marshside." Yet more white wagtails skittered about. It came as a relief when the first pied wagtail of the day flew in. 

Crossens Outer Marsh 

As I walked along the pink-footed geese were closer to the road. Try as I may I couldn't wish any of them into white-fronted geese or barnacle geese let alone the Todd's Canada goose or red-breasted goose that have been around lately. There were a few pairs of Canada geese settling down together here and there and some of the younger pink-feet looked like they were starting to sort themselves into couples. Nearly all the pairs of shelducks were keeping themselves to themselves in the middle distance.

Pink-footed geese, Crossens Outer Marsh 

Crossens Outer Marsh 

I couldn't be doing with walking into Crossens for the bus back into Southport so I walked along the bund at the back of the marshes into Marshside. Part of the attraction was the chiffchaff and the willow warbler singing in the trees by the water treatment works. As I walked onto the bund three hares that had been grazing the base of it ran into cover.

Black-tailed godwits, Crossens Inner Marsh 

The shovelers and teals I hadn't been seeing elsewhere on the marshes were on the pool by the bund. There were also a great number of black-tailed godwits and avocets.

Avocets, Crossens Inner Marsh 

Avocets, Crossens Inner Marsh 

Black-tailed godwits and avocet, Crossens Inner Marsh 

I'd hoped for a closer look at the spoonbills as they'd been heading this way but they'd changed their minds and were but distant shapes.

Crossens Inner Marsh 

It had been a bright, if breezy, day but now the cloud rolled in and it started raining. For all of ten seconds. A couple of minutes later it was someone else's turn, the winds at high levels must have been blowing a hooley.

As I crossed over onto Marshside the bushes were busy with spadgers and a blackcap sang from a hawthorn bush. All the pink-feet on the marsh were pink-feet and all the starlings were starlings. Another couple of hares grazed the marsh.

I dropped down from the bund by the school and got the 44 back into Southport in time for the next train back to Manchester. Just as well, really, the next one was cancelled. It's telling that on the fields between Southport and Wigan I was seeing as many mallards and shelducks as woodpigeons.

Walking into the bund by Crossens Inner Marsh 

Shrewsbury

Welsh Bridge over the Severn 

Way back when I went and had a look at a night heron that was lurking on the Dingle at Quarry Park in Shrewsbury I told myself that I should come back and have a proper look round the town some time. A wild and windy night was succeeded by a wild and windy morning and I decided I wasn't to be tempted into going for a walk in the wilds so I got on the Cardiff train at Piccadilly and headed off for Shropshire.

Unsurprisingly most of the bird life along the line was woodpigeons and corvids though I was a bit surprised to be seeing jackdaws more often than woodpigeons as we passed through Cheshire. There were a lot of very wet fields out there waiting for a Spring sowing.

Getting off at Shrewsbury I decided to go the long way and walk along the river to the cathedral. A few mallards dozed by the riverbank, woodpigeons clattered about in the trees while great tits and wrens sang in the roadside shrubs. 

Quarry Park 

My walk took me into Quarry Park. Blue tits and goldfinches bounced about in the trees. Greenfinches, chiffchaffs, blackcaps and blackbirds sang in the trees either side of the river. A return visit to the Dingle — a small formal pond and garden — found a few ducklings with one of the mallards dabbling about the edges.

The Dingle 

The cathedral's quite small and very nice, there's an interesting mix of architecture in the town centre and it's definitely worth a visit.

Highlights on the way back included a close encounter with a red kite that was sitting in a trackside tree just North of Hadnall; a dog fox sunning himself in a field near Coton; and enough ducks, swans and black-headed gulls on the Sandbach flashes to remind me I need to be heading that way soon.

I'm hoping the wind calms down a lot overnight so I can get a walk in. The knees are very much out of condition.

Local patch

Lostock Park 

I didn't feel like taking any risks with the buses today, it being a Sunday and it being the Sunday our local services are disrupted by the Manchester Marathon, so I had a wander round the local patch to see how we're doing for warblers. It turned out it was too early for whitethroats — I'm not sure how many territories there are going to be this year anyway after somebody "tidied up" the brambles by the path last Winter. On the plus side it's all beginning to sound interestingly busy out there.

• Blackbird 7, 4 singing males
• Blackcap 1 singing
• Blue tits 7, 1 singing
• Carrion crow 4, 1 singing
• Chaffinch 3, 2 singing
• Chiffchaff 3, 2 singing 
• Dunnock 2, 1 singing
• Feral pigeon 5 overhead 
• Goldfinch 7, 1 singing
• Great tit 10, 4 singing
• Greenfinch 1
• House sparrow 2
• Lesser black-back 9 overhead
• Magpie 24
• Mistle thrush 1 singing
• Robin 7, 5 singing
• Song thrush 1 singing 
• Starling 1 singing 
• Woodpigeon 6
• Wren 4 singing

Barton Clough 

Damp Saturday

I felt weary today and the weather didn't do anything to persuade me to push myself any. Most of the birds in the garden were being heard and not seen and I couldn't blame them. It's getting harder to see the woodpigeons and magpies in the trees now the buds are bursting.

Over the road the school playing was hosting a crowd scene: sixty-four woodpigeons, twenty-five magpies and eleven starlings. There were just the two jackdaws on the field, all the rest were scattered round the local chimney tops.

Mosses

Short-eared owl 

I felt unconscionably tired and would have idled the day half-reading a book but decided that after all the miserable weather lately I should take advantage of a decent afternoon. I got the mid-afternoon train into Irlam and went for a walk on the mosses to blow away the cobwebs.

Pheasant, Irlam Moss 

The Zinnia Drive house sparrows were numerous and active in the privet hedges. Walking down Astley Road the trees and hedgerows were busy with goldfinches, greenfinches and blue tits; robins, chiffchaffs and blackcaps sang and I lost count of the number of blackbirds singing, fossicking about in the undergrowth or fighting with each other on the roadside. There were pheasants in the fields on either side of the road, skylarks sang and a pair of lesser black-backs loafed on the wet field by the Jack Russell's gate. A pair of jackdaws escorted an immature female kestrel out of their territory and into town.

Irlam Moss 

There was a crowd of woodpigeons on the fallow field by Prospect Grange and a couple of pairs of lapwings flew display flights whenever the mood took. There were chaffinches, goldfinches and greenfinches in the hedgerows but neither sight nor sound of any yellowhammers. 

Irlam Moss

I crossed over the motorway and walked on towards Four Lanes End. Swallows hawked over the turf fields by the motorway while flocks of starlings rummaged in the grass for leatherjackets. Further out lapwings sparred with carrion crows and mallards dabbled in the puddles. I kept hearing a buzzard over the noise of the traffic but couldn't pick out where it was. The hedgerows were heaving with starlings, goldfinches, blackbirds and chaffinches and the songs of chiffchaffs, wrens, blackcaps and robins.

The turf fields further along looked empty, and certainly were devoid of the usual pied wagtails, but far over on the other side I could see a big flock of woodpigeons feeding in the margins and more lapwings and carrion crows. A couple of curlews flew into Little Woolden Moss.

Chat Moss 

As I was passing one field I noticed a pale lump in the middle of it. Can there still be short-eared owls about I wondered. Yes, there could.

Short-eared owl, first sighting 

I watched the owl awhile getting perfectly good views from the road and wondering why on earth that bloke had gone into the field and walked round to the other side to get close and personal with it. With the gear he was carrying there's no reason why he couldn't have been able to get full frame photos from the road. The owl seemed to be fairly phlegmatic about it and rewarded him by flying in a bit closer to the road.

Short-eared owl 

Walking between Four Lanes End and Little Woolden Moss I kept an eye out for any wheatears or wagtails and saw neither. A kestrel sat on a telegraph pole and a pair of shovelers dabbled in one of the new ditches cut in the middle of one of the fields.

Little Woolden Moss 

It was teatime as I headed into Little Woolden Moss and the birch scrub was fizzing with willow warblers, chiffchaffs and blackcaps. The moss was in one of its generous moods though at first sight the open country looked quiet. A few black-headed gulls flew about and the usual gang of crows bounced about on the far bank of the pools. Canada geese lurked in the long grass over there. Willow warblers, robins and wrens sang in the scrub and meadow pipits flitted about. 

Suddenly there was a lot of movement going on in the distance. A crowd of jackdaws and lapwings rose from the fields beyond the nature reserve. I thought the cause might be the heron flying low over the fields then I caught sight of the marsh harrier cruising even lower over them.

Little Woolden Moss 

I checked bus times and decided I'd be pushing my luck walking into Glazebury for the bus into Warrington and didn't think I'd have the legs for the walk into Glazebrook so I headed for the path onto Moss Road for the walk into Cadishead. Along the way mallards drifted onto the pools, the gadwalls and teals took a bit of finding. Pairs of moorhens drifted about the pools, pairs of pied wagtails and oystercatchers loafed on the bunds. It's not often you see a pied wagtail loafing. The curlews called from somewhere beyond.

Moss Road 

I joined the path and negotiated the mud between hedgerows noisy with robins and blackcaps and onto Moss Road. The hedges along the road were busy with blackbirds, robins, goldfinches and house sparrows; the farmsteads busy with collared doves and pied wagtails; the fields busy with woodpigeons, stock doves, carrion crows and lapwings. Skylarks and robins sang, pheasants croaked and long-tailed tits bounced about in the elder bushes by the stables.

New Moss Wood 

It was getting late and my knees had noticed I'd gone for a walk so I didn't stay long in New Moss Wood. It was a full-on songscape; blackcaps, blackbirds, chiffchaffs and robins, chaffinches, greenfinches, wrens and dunnocks and a song thrush almost succeeding in drowning them all out. A few swallows flew overhead, it had become a very nice Spring evening.

Walking past the allotments to get the bus home the songscape was just as varied though the singers not as numerous. I was rather glad I'd dragged myself out for a walk.

Little Woolden Moss