Thursday toddle

Bridgewater Canal, Worsley 

Perhaps it was the change in weather, perhaps it was the couple of nights' getting home late, perhaps I'm just getting old. In any case me and the knees wanted a bit of a rest today. The arrival of the year's first singing blackcap in the back garden and the spadgers' demolition of another bag of suet balls provided some distraction but I couldn't really settle. So I did a bit of reconnaissance for a walk into Botany Bay Wood.

I've been wondering for a while how to get to Greater Manchester's biggest woodland. I'd noticed that Grange Road in Winton heads that way once it crosses over the motorway and past Birchall. There's a busy bus stop near the Worsley Road end of Grange Road so if this did turn out to be a way into Botany Bay Wood it would be extremely convenient. It was worth a nosy.

It had been cold and wet when I got the 20 at the Trafford Centre. It was cool and cloudy when I got off and started walking down Grange Road. Dunnocks, wrens and blackbirds sang in the gardens as I walked down. Goldfinches, house sparrows, great tits and woodpigeons fidgeted about in trees and bushes and starlings hopped about the television aerials on the chimneys. As the road reached the motorway it took a sudden left turn. Straight ahead was the start of four minutes' worth of footpath into Worsley, the local bit of the Port Salford Trail which stretches intermittently from Barton Moss to Worsley. I turned left and followed the road over the motorway.

I've seen fewer Keep Out signs on Ministry of Defence research installations. I turned on my heel and walked back.

Port Salford Trail

I did the four minutes' walk into Worsley. The path runs beside the motorway the whole length, robins, blackbirds and a song thrush managing to compete with the traffic noise. At the end I walked down to Worsley Road. A buzzard floated past, it's one I see quite regularly from buses at the motorway interchange. I saw the bus to the Trafford Centre go by as I reached the main road. While I was waiting for the next one I had a mooch by the Bridgwater Canal.

It was still cool but the sun came out and clouds blew away so the canal by the Packet House and Worsley Delph was looking picturesque. Three mallards cruised past the narrowboats. Three Canada geese had a fight near the Delph. Blackbirds, robins and goldfinches sang in the trees. For a moment I was tempted to walk down the canal into Boothstown. The temptation passed and I got the next bus back to the Trafford Centre and thence home.

An hour's very gentle walking had got me some exercise, crossed a possible walk off the list and given the knee something to grumble about. I got home and inspected the boots: the soles were sound enough but the memory foam insoles I'd put in to soften the walking  were as flat as sheets of paper and functionally useless. Replacing them won't stop the knee from grumbling but the bugger will have less excuse for it.

Merseyside bumper bundle

Garganeys, gadwall, tufted ducks and shoveler, Ainsdale Sands Lake

When I first started year-listing seriously the temptation was to go haring round chasing reports of this, that and the other. That temptation still persists, particularly during exceptionally juicy bits of Spring and Autumn passage, but I've settled into the less stressful process of just getting out there, having a walk and see what I bump into. Which doesn't mean that I won't visit known migration hot spots or that I'm not going to make a detour if something turns up nearby. And so it was today: the plan was to have a walk along the Wirral coast between Hoylake and Leasowe, which is usually busy with Spring migrants, then head over to the Sefton coast, anywhere between Seaforth and Southport, to see what else might be about and in the end followed a report of a pair of garganeys at Ainsdale Sands Lake and got some very nice views of them.

A male white wagtail cavorting on the roof of Birkenhead North Station as the train stopped there was a reminder that migrating birds will be where they'll be regardless of human expectations.

Hoylake Beach 

I got off the train at Manor Road and walked down to the promenade. I was expecting to find pied wagtails in the salt marsh and hopefully a few white wagtails amongst them. It was low tide and to say the salt marsh was barren would be almost an understatement. It came as a relief to find a pair of mallards dozing in a puddle. Then a curlew wandered into the edge of the marsh to complete the crowd scene. There wasn't a great deal of cover on the marsh, there are ongoing efforts to stop it encroaching on the beach. The countless millions paid to Dutch engineers over the centuries to reclaim land from the sea and when Mother Nature does it for free people say: "Don't like."

Redshanks

The hordes of waders that are a feature of the coast here in Winter were but a memory. There were a few redshanks dotted about and an occasional curlew. Most of the herring gulls and lesser black-backs loafing sporadically on the mud were subadults. And aside from a great black-back and three pigeons, that was the full offer from the promenade to the groyne, and I thought it was quiet last time I visited a couple of weeks ago. I met a group of birdwatchers who told me the common was fizzing with Spring arrivals. I wished them better luck than I'd had along the prom.

Silver Y moth on dandelion

I gave up on the revetment and walked through Meols Dunes to Leasowe Common. Most of the time I was picking my way through swarms of mining bees buzzing about at ankle height. Bumblebees, butterflies and silver Y moths fussed about carpets of dandelions and red dead nettles and moved out of the way of clumsy old men.

Linnet

House sparrows, collared doves, starlings and woodpigeons fussed about the caravan site and a kestrel watched over them from a treetop. Out on the dunes the gorse bushes were in full flower, the air was thick with the scent of coconuts and the bustling about inside the bushes turned out to be linnets, sparrows or both. Stonechats preferred the bramble patches, fly-catching from the highest twigs.

Stonechat

I started hearing chiffchaffs on my approach to Leasowe Common. By the time I joined the path in, they were joined by robins, greenfinches, blackbirds and blackcaps. Over in the paddocks there were a handful of wheatears and a couple of white wagtails flitting about between the horses.

Walking by the pond 

Dunnocks, great tits, goldfinches and wrens joined the songscape as I took the rough path into the woodland around the pond. Such was the noise I could barely hear the reed warbler singing deep in the reeds. And then the Cetti's warbler exploded into song. The water rail squealing as it disappeared into cover might as well as saved its breath in trying to compete with the others.

A very fidgety chiffchaff landed in the small bush by my side and started singing

The same chiffchaff, this was his more usual pose

Chiffchaff 

I looked in vain for redstarts and ring ousels in the paddocks, finding blackbirds, woodpigeons, greenfinches and house sparrows. There was more of the same behind Leasowe Lighthouse together with some chaffinches and magpies. My first whitethroat of the year sang from an elder bush by the car park. A few swallows flew in and one perched on the telephone wires above my head and posed nicely for a photograph.

Swallow

At first glance Kerr's Field looked quiet, a few woodpigeons and blackbirds, a curlew and a quartet of sleeping little egrets that would have made a nice picture if a gate wasn't in the way. I let on to a couple of birdwatchers I've met here before and we compared notes. We were all a bit disappointed at the lack of wheatears and wagtails on here. We went out different ways, they to look round the common and me for Moreton Station. I had one last look back and saw a pied wagtail pop up from a rut in the field by the land drain. A white wagtail scampered up a rise and started rummaging about the margin. Then I noticed there were five wheatears in the far corner. All had been invisible before, it was only because the path rises to meet the road I got the necessary point of view. That last look back over a landscape is so often productive.

The wheatears on Kerr's Field kept their distance

I was thinking of moving on to Crosby Marine Lake but felt a bit lukewarm about crowds on a sunny Easter school holiday afternoon so I checked on Bird guides to see whether anyone had seen anything interesting elsewhere. A pair of garganeys had been seen on Ainsdale Sands Lake, which was also on my to-visit list, so off I went.

The walk from Ainsdale Station to Ainsdale Sands Lake feels longer than it really is. It's less than a mile but the road's dead straight with houses each side so it seems to go on forever. I got to the lake, sat down on a bench to give the knees a break, looked up and a pair of garganey swam past. In snooker they apologise for a fluke.

Garganeys and gadwall 

Garganey

Gadwall, garganey and shoveler

Garganey and tufted duck

Gadwall and tufted duck

Shoveler

Tufted duck

Garganeys, drake below

Garganey 

Garganey and gadwall

Pairs of mallards, gadwalls, shovelers and coots pottered about. The tufted ducks seemed to be making an effort not to look like being in pairs. A pair of great crested grebes were nest-building. As I walked round the songs of willow warblers, chiffchaffs, blackcaps, great tits and coal tits almost drowned out the sound of skylarks singing overhead the dunes beyond. Wrens and blue tits and a pair of long-tailed tits bounced through the willow scrub. Only as I came to write this did I realise there were no robins until I went back to the road. I finished my walk round, had one last appreciative look at the garganeys as they headed for cover and walked back to the station. It isn't often I get to see a garganey close to and out in the open and still more rarely do I get to see a pair.

Ainsdale Sands Lake 

Checking the trains it turned out that I'd get home quicker via Southport than Liverpool so I headed that way, getting the 49 bus to Southport to save my walking all the way to Ainsdale Station. I can only think the weather's on the turn giving the complaints from the knees. From the train back to Manchester through the West Lancashire Plain I added a pair of red-legged partridges, a grey partridge and a female marsh harrier to the day's birdwatching tally. And I'd added three more to the year list with reed warbler,  whitethroat and garganey.

Meols Dunes 

Chelford

Tree sparrow

I've been neglecting Cheshire South of the Mersey so I thought I'd take advantage of a warm, sunny day for a trip down to Chelford to walk round the quarry pools.

Walking down Knutsford Road from the station, dunnocks sang in the hedgerows, blue tits and robins from trees and goldfinches twittered about. Out in the fields there were a few carrion crows and jackdaws, and a pair of stock doves, but oddly enough no woodpigeons.

By Holmes Chapel Road 

There was a cacophony of birdsong from the trees lining Holmes Chapel Road. Robins, blackbirds, chiffchaffs, wrens and great tits were joined by chaffinches, blackcaps, a song thrush, a goldcrest and a coal tit. Blue tits, goldfinches, jackdaws and woodpigeons bounced through the trees, the flimsier the twigs the larger the birds. The sun brought out the butterflies: speckled woods and brimstones fluttered through the trees and one brimstone chased a small white in and out and around a clearing by one of the brooks. As the landscape opened out into the parkland of Lower Withington the jackdaws outnumbered the sheep. On my side of the road a dozen Canada geese loafed by a little pond on the far side of the field. As I walked a few paces ahead and started seeing the pond properly I released there were half a dozen teal in there having a bath.

Holmes Chapel Road 

Lapwing Lane 

Turning onto Lapwing Lane I looked through the trees onto the edge of Acre Nook Quarry. I could pick out a few distant tufted ducks and coots and there was a lot of gulls over the way but I couldn't get a sense of scale of them, I could only identify them as "not lesser black-backs." Which was odd as there was a steady stream of lesser black-backs flying overhead.

Goldfinch 

I walked the length of Lapwing Lane. The mixed songscape in the trees subsided into the songs of robins and goldfinches in the gardens and of tree sparrows in the hedgerows. Much to my delight, as I was taking photos of tree sparrows singing from hedge tops my first couple of swallows for the year twittered over the rooftops.

Tree sparrow

There's a path off Lapwing Lane I've been ignoring for years, assuming it was just a short cut to Holmes Chapel Road. How wrong I've been! There's been some tree clearing and I could see a clear stretch of Acre Nook Quarry showing through. So I walked down and lo and behold! there was the quarry in full open sight from a grassy bank. (Note to self: this isn't the first time I've had to tell you about making assumptions.)

Acre Nook Quarry 

There wasn't a huge lot about on the quarry pool, most of the wildfowl have moved on or are starting their breeding season furtiveness. I could see single figures of coots, tufted ducks, shovelers and Canada geese and a couple of great crested grebes. A dozen or so herring gulls loafed and bathed in the company of a couple of lesser black-backs. A couple of dozen black-headed gulls were very active, snatching emerging midges from just above the water. They were so active I almost missed the adult little gull in the background, looking half the size in comparison and jinking and bobbing in the air like a tern. Actually, no. More like a short-eared owl, that same sort of impression of a butterfly hanging from a length of elastic. One had been reported earlier in the week but I'd assumed it had moved on. It's nice to be wrong occasionally.

Hoof fungus 

The full-on songscape resumed when I walked through The Mosses to Lapwing Hall Pool, with backing vocals from nuthatches and pheasants, a drumming great spotted woodpecker and a calling buzzard. It barely went quiet as a male sparrowhawk shot through the woods.

The Mosses

Passing through the gate and onto the path around Lapwing Hall Pool, willow warblers and reed buntings joined the chorus and a Cetti's warbler sang from the reeds down by the lakeside. A pair of siskins bounced through a stand of pine trees by the path, I'm bumping into them in unexpected places this Spring. The pair of jays was more predictable, as was their silent retreat when they noticed me, almost as sure a sign of spring as singing warblers.

There wasn't much on the pool, a few coots and tufted ducks out in the open and at least one pair of dabchicks lurking by the bankside.

Lapwing Hall Pool 

Oak

I took the cut through the hedges and walked back via Congleton Road, conceding along the way that Cheshire does a fine line in really gnarly oak trees. I hadn't walked far but my knees were making themselves known so I decided against adding in a stroll round Mere Farm Quarry. Along the way back a bullfinch wheezed its way into the songscape and my first small tortoiseshell of the year fluttered about a patch of nettles.

Buxton Pavilion Gardens 

I got the train from Chelford Station and went home via Buxton, like you do. Chaffinches, blackbirds, robins and coal tits sang in the Pavilion Gardens where all the Canada geese were paired up and the only unpaired female mallard was having a very torrid time of it.

Mosses

New Moss Wood 

What to do on a sunny Bank Holiday Monday? A couple of ideas didn't survive bus schedules and a horror of city centre bank holiday rail mayhem. I got the first train to Irlam that wasn't affected by an incident in Liverpool and went for a walk on the Salford Mosses.

A medley of birdsong was the almost constant backing track for the day. As I walked to Moss Road, woodpigeons, robins, dunnocks and blackbirds sang in the gardens and street trees. At the allotment they were joined by great tits, goldfinches, chaffinches, a blackcap, a chiffchaff, a coal tit and a drumming great spotted woodpecker. 

The path to the old railway junction 

I crossed Moss Road for a nosy at the hedgerows along the path to the old Wigan to Altrincham line. Blue tits, wrens and a song thrush joined the songscape. Everything went quiet as a female sparrowhawk circled over, a chaffinch calling the alarm,  and then it drifted over to New Moss Wood. The all clear lasted a minute, she powered back and headed into Cadishead. The singers paid not a jot of notice of the buzzard that floated low overhead and into the wood.

New Moss Wood 

The songscape in New Moss Wood was the same but quieter, more spread out, and the singers that much harder to spot. Unlike the three buzzards spiralling round each other over the wood, calling all the while, before going their separate ways. Most of the green in the wood was provided by nettles and it didn't take long before I met the first of an army of peacock butterflies. There were plenty of nettles to go round, which didn't stop one of the peacocks attacking any small tortoiseshells that drifted into its territory. There were quite a few brimstone butterflies and my attempts to photograph them gave me a selection of out-of-focus photos of dandelions. Pheasants, carrion crows and jackdaws called from the fields, jays and magpies from the woodland canopy and a willow warbler sang in the birches by the car park.

Dryad's saddle

New Moss Wood 

Goldfinches and house sparrows sang in the hedgerows along Moss Road and lapwings were setting up territories on newly-sown fields. The flocks of rooks, jackdaws and carrion crows rummaging about the fields didn't help the lapwings' nerves any.

Little Woolden Moss 

Little Woolden Moss was quiet, in a Canada geese, mallards and black-headed gulls having a doze sort of way. The reserve was phenomenally busy with cyclists, which is a bit challenging on such narrow paths but we coexisted amiably enough. The chiffchaffs in the trees by the Moss Road entrance were replaced by the willow warblers of the birch and willow scrub.

Little Woolden Moss 

The Eastern pool on Little Woolden Moss 

A kestrel hovered over the field by Lavender Lane, ignored by a cock pheasant escorting his lady over the open ground. I didn't expect a male stonechat to bob up out of a bramble patch, it was a nice surprise. A pair of stock doves were more predictable but still very nice to see.

Astley Road 

The walk down Astley Road into Irlam was fairly quiet. Chiffchaffs sang broken calls as they wound down for the day while blackbirds, robins and a mistle thrush got their second wind and started singing ready for evening. A curlew called as it flew low overhead. Chaffinches, goldfinches and greenfinches quietly rummaged about in the hedgerows and treetops, linnets bustled about in the trees. A singing yellowhammer by the motorway came as a lot of a relief, they're very few and far between these days. 

I had a while to wait for my train home. While I was waiting I was serenaded by songbirds. A blackbird, robins and a wren were the key vocalists with contributions from chaffinches, goldfinches and great tits and a constant backing throb supplied by collared doves and woodpigeons. Which was nice.

Lazy day

I woke up feeling like the wreckage of a beached hulk. For the first time in a couple of weeks I'd missed the dawn chorus, I just bet they'd all decided to make a special effort and I'd missed an epic session. A woodpigeon sang down the chimney to remind me what I had been missing.

Definitely missing from the school playing field all day were any gulls. Thirty-odd woodpigeons took residence and quietly grazed while jackdaws and magpies bustled about. The rooks, when they're about at all, don't tend to linger lately as they don't like to stray too far from the rookery on Bradley Lane

I had to get a quick shop in this afternoon. The prize for the first fledgling of the year goes to the young magpie begging from its parent on the station platform. 

Leighton Moss

Dabchicks

I had slept the sleep of one who was finally dozing off at three in the morning when they got a 'phone call from somebody saying they couldn't sleep. I wanted to get some birdwatching done before Storm Dave came out to play so I got me an old man's explorer ticket and headed for Silverdale, the idea being to do a hit and run at Leighton Moss before the weather turned iffy and take a circuitous route home to see what I could see.

There seemed to be a lot of pheasants and roe deer about as the train went to Preston. At Preston we had an interesting interlude where everyone decamped from the Barrow train and got onto the York train which became the Barrow train and everyone decamped from the York train to get on the Barrow train which became the York train. No, me neither. Anyway, we were only a few minutes late getting to Silverdale and we'd passed through the belt of pouring rain and the weather had become mild and gloomy, grey and misty.

Chaffinch

The hideout was busy with mallards and chaffinches. I hung about for a bit just in case a marsh tit might want to make an appearance but it wasn't happening. So I wandered round to Lilian's Hide where a little gull had been reported first thing.

Dabchicks

The black-headed gulls had settled their nesting territories on the rafts and islands. Their cries were drowned out by the hinneying calls of dabchicks as two pairs squabbled in front of the hide.

Dabchicks

Dabchicks

Dabchick, one of the males charging at the other pair

Dabchicks, a riposte

Dabchicks, a victory yell

The black-headed gulls were positively sedate in comparison. A few mallards and fewer teal dozed by the water's edge. A pair of shovelers dozed by the hide and I nearly missed a couple of redshanks asleep in the grass. The coots and pochards swam about in pairs, the tufted ducks in small groups of a handful of birds, a couple of greylags might have been a pair, a mute swan slept on its own by the far reeds. A few sand martins zipped about over the pool, mostly at tree top height, seldom coming in lower.

Black-headed gulls

Three marsh harriers floated over the reedbed, all females, one immature and two adults. High above the misty hilltops a buzzard was being harassed by crows.

Moving on, I decided I'd head for the Causeway Hide. I've only given it a cursory look so far this year, I should do better, and if the little gull wasn't on Lilian's it might be on there.

The boardwalk to the causeway 

I kept an eye out for marsh tits as I walked over to the causeway but had no luck. There were plenty of chiffchaffs and Cetti's warblers and a water rail squealed from the reedbed as I reached the causeway.

Powdered ruffle lichen

The causeway

The weather was getting gloomier and more sand martins drifted in to hawk over the reedbeds and pools. I decided I wasn't going to push my luck with a walk down to the Lower Hide, I'd spend half an hour at the Causeway Hide then make tracks back to the station for the train.

Mute swan. cormorants and great black-backs

The water was high on the Causeway Pool but the great black-backs were determined they were loafing on the island come what may. A loose herd of mute swans drifted about, cormorants loafed and tufted ducks cruised about in lines. Black-headed gulls passed to and fro rarely bothering to stop. Coots were busy nest-building, chugging about the pool with lengths of reed. A great crested grebe fished just in front of the pool, one time it emerged from the water just in front of a coot which dropped its bit of reed in a panic and silently bustled away. Had it not been in nest-building mode it would have made a hell of a racket.

Coot

Cormorant

Great crested grebe

Great crested grebe

On the way back I noticed some little Potentillas flowering in the wall by the road. It felt early for them to be barren strawberries. A chap passing by as I was taking photos checked on Google Lens and got the answer barren strawberry. And so they proved to be when I got home and checked the photos with my reference books. And it turned out that they weren't all that early, I've just not been noticing them until late in their season.

Barren strawberry

I got back to the station as the train to Corkicle got in (there's rail track work going on so it doesn't get through to Carlisle). I got on and got off at Arnside to have five minutes' look at the Kent Estuary before the Manchester train came in. The tide was high and the bank just upstream was littered with curlews and jackdaws.

Kent Estuary at Arnside

On the way back there didn't look to be a lot on the pools by the coastal pools. A few shelducks were disturbed by the train, a great white egret stalked a drain, some little egrets loafed on islands by feeding mute swans and I spotted a couple of avocets. I'll have to make a visit for a proper look here this month.

The rain kept off until I got home. I made a pot of tea, drank half a cup and crashed out asleep. Still, it had been a very good day's birdwatching in very uncertain weather.