Bickershaw Country Park

Canada goslings

Unlike yesterday, this morning I only caught the woodpigeon solo in the dawn chorus and I overslept through the alarm, which was a nuisance as I had errands to run before doing anything else. Errands begat errands, which was another nuisance as the oversleeping made me feel like a sandbagged tortoise and every joint in my body had an unfavourable opinion about the change in the weather. I shelved all plans, got a pot of tea down me and wondered what I was going to do with the afternoon. 

I decided that gardening wasn't an option as the latest new arrival stepped onto the scene. One of the adult robins escorted a youngster into the rose bushes and left it there to wait to be fed. The young dunnock was deep in the gooseberry bush and there was a young blackbird around somewhere, the female was ferrying beakfuls of worms down into the holly bush. I thought I'd best leave them in peace.

Juvenile robin

I went over to the Trafford Centre and played bus station bingo with a view to going somewhere for half an hour or so's quiet potter about. The 126 came in first so I headed off to Leigh. I didn't want to revisit Pennington Flash so soon, so where to go? For a few giddy moments I thought I could get off in Astley and walk down through Astley Moss and Chat Moss into Irlam. For a few giddy moments. It's a fair old drag when I've got the energy to do it. Then I remembered I hadn't been to Bickershaw Country Park yet this year. It's surrounded on three sides by fairly frequent bus services so if the worst came to the worst I could nibble about a corner then retreat to a bus stop.

I got the 609 and got off at Garvin Jones Grove, the stop  next to the entrance on the North side of the country park by Diggle Flash. A chaffinch in a tree by the bus stop took exception even before I'd stepped off and it escorted me out of the car park, leaving me once I started down the steps to the flash.

Diggle Flash

The trees and bushes were filled with songbirds and I even managed to see some of the willow warblers and robins. As I approached Diggle Flash, more a big pond than a lake, whitethroats and a reed warbler joined the chorus. I peered over one of the anglers' gates to see what was on the water and the reed warbler came over to check me out before deciding I was nothing to see and resuming singing. A small raft of tufted ducks and two pairs of great crested grebes drifted over the flash, the mallards and coots were more active, though not to any obvious purpose.

Bickershaw Country Park 

A bit of hawthorn

I wandered on my way. I don't have an instinctive feel for Bickershaw Country Park and can rarely manage to go the same way twice or find particular spots I'm looking for. I need to visit far more often. The hedgerows were busy with singing blackcaps and willow warblers, blackbirds sang in the trees or fossicked about in the verges and titmice were in stealth ninja mode, breaking cover rarely to flit between trees and bushes. Goldfinches were in as close as they get to stealth mode, they can't resist twittering when they break cover. I was hoping to hear grasshopper warblers out in the open but had no luck today though there were more than plenty of whitethroats. Overhead there was a steady traffic of carrion crows, jackdaws and lesser black-backs, the gulls tending to wheel high in the air before going wherever they were off to.

Alder beetles
Some of the alder saplings had doilies rather than leaves.

Bickershaw Country Park 

As I approached Fir Tree Flash reed buntings joined the songscape.

Reed bunting

The sun started to poke through the clouds as I arrived at Fir Tree Flash. A mute swan sat on her nest and pairs of shovelers chugged about the drowned willows. Further along, pairs of mallards dozed on the bank and Canada geese made a fearful row over on the other side of the flash. As far as I could determine, the commotion was caused by passing geese getting too close to sitting geese and the partners rushing in to support and egg on the combatants. In contrast, the coots were being unusually well-behaved dutiful parents.

Fir Tree Flash 

I had a chat with a couple of ladies who'd been watching a pair of great crested grebes feeding their young. I caught up with the grebes later on, the youngsters were keeping to the cover of the reeds and coming out to be fed. Every so often the male would take exception to one or other passerby, bark like a small terrier and the youngsters disappeared into the reeds with barely a ripple. A pair of Canada geese paraded their goslings along the bankside.

Canada goslings

The sun came out and so did the large whites and orange tip butterflies. Half a dozen swifts chased round each other high overhead. I wandered round the rucks South of the flash, adding the Cetti's warbler singing in a waterside bramble to the day's tally and hearing lots more blackcaps, chiffchaffs and willow warblers along the way.

Bickershaw Country Park 

The intention was to drift over towards Plank Lane but I got distracted by possibly hearing a grasshopper warbler over a rise. When I got there I couldn't hear anything because the police helicopter was doing a circuit of the area and passed overhead a few times. I followed the path I was on into into Firs Park then I had a quick potter about the park and the lake before getting the bus into Hindley Green and thence the 132 back to the Trafford Centre.

Firs Park 

Urban birdwatching: Liverpool

Cormorant, Speke Hall

Lying awake, I'd noted the progression of the dawn chorus from the robin starting to sing at the darkest hour, soon joined by the blackbird, the magpie that chattered through as the first grey light was showing, the woodpigeon singing at daybreak as the carrion crows woke up, then the wren and the blackcap kicking in and the robin shortly joining them and the blackcap didn't stop for hours. At five past eight I was still wide awake and told myself I might as well get up, it was one of those nights without sleep and the next thing I knew it was half ten. I'll probably sleep through the dawn chorus come Dawn Chorus Day.

Given the circumstances I decided I'd have an easy day of it and try and avoid much Bank Holiday frivolity. The great-tailed grackle is still singing at Speke Hall and I'm still irritated at having such a fleeting look at it so I headed thataway.

Speke Hall 

I got the train to Liverpool South Parkway, got the 80a to Speke and walked down to Speke Hall. There were lots of small birds about in the parkland and precious few to be seen. Blackcaps, wrens and robins sang from the hedgerows, blackbirds and song thrushes sang from trees, whitethroats and greenfinches sang from hawthorn bushes, and I was seeing woodpigeons and magpies.

There was a Bank Holiday event going on at Speke Hall so I kept my distance. 

Walking round the pond

I took advantage of the results of the unusually dry and windy April weather to do a circuit of the pond, in ordinary circumstances one ten-yard stretch of the circumference would be impassible. Moorhens, mallards and a pair of coots pottered about. The coots were making such a production of their not nesting that I took it for granted they had a nest somewhere. I'd just completed the trickiest part of the circuit — limboing under a fallen tree then crossing a muddy rill by walking along a stick toe to heel — when I spotted the nest and the chicks under the tree I was leaning against to get my balance on a muddy slope.

Coot with nestlings

I left the pond and walked out onto the meadows. The grackle had been reported as singing from a copse in the corner of the meadow nearest the roads. This is all new territory for me, I wasn't sure whether or not the copse was part of the field margin. The best bet seemed to be to do a circuit of the meadow following the margin and see if I could hear or see anything unusual.

The meadows

There were plenty of singing blackbirds and whitethroats and the rattling of magpies. Every so often the soundscape would be punctuated by passing carrion crows, gulls or, a couple of times, ravens. Black figures flying across the treeline were jackdaws. As I approached one corner I realised that some of the trees in the next corner stood out like a little island in the meadow. I was also starting to hear noises that weren't quite magpie or blackbird. 

The copse in question 

As I got nearer to that corner, and that copse, something in the trees let out an oddly metallic whoop. This was followed by a sporadic squeaks, chatters, croaks and whoops. Some of the sounds were similar to the blackbirds and magpies in the background, some reminded me of starlings and mynah birds. It took a while to actually see the bird, it was sitting midway up a mostly bare tree surrounded by trees in full leaf. Irnoically, I got the best view of it as I was walking back and the bird jumped up near the top of the tree. I contemplated walking back then realised that even if the bird didn't take objection there'd be no point as the lay of the land meant that the closer I got the more the grackle would be hidden by leaves. I'd seen the bird and heard it, and for a lot longer than my last fleeting vision, so I was content.

Great-tailed grackle
The least-worst of a lot of bad photos.

Walking back past the pond a cormorant was sat by the bank drying its wings not really a lot fussed as I passed by. On the other side of the pond a couple of ravens were tormenting a couple of carrion crows in the treetops until they all got bored with it and flew off in separate directions.

Cormorant

It wasn't yet teatime and I'd bought a Saveaway ticket so I thought I'd drift around the outskirts of Liverpool visiting places I've not been in yonks. The 82a was the next bus to come along so I got that as far as Sefton Park and had a bit of a wander.

Sefton Park 

The soundscape of Liverpudlian municipal parks is nigh identical to those in Greater Manchester, including the background screech of ring-necked parakeets. Blackbirds, blackcaps, chiffchaffs, robins, wrens and song thrushes sang, titmice quietly fossicked about in the undergrowth while magpies and woodpigeons clattered about. Canada geese, mallards and coots cruised about on the pond, herring gulls and lesser black-backs elbowed the waterfowl out of the way and scrabbled for food thrown for the birds.

Sefton Park 

The plan was to walk through the park and get the 68 which goes to Bootle and get off at one of the train stations along the way. The plan was. There were no buses stopping round that end because of diversions so I ended up walking up Greenbank Road to get a bus into Liverpool from Smithdown Road. I popped into Greenbank Park along the way to have a look at more Canada geese, mallards, coots and moorhens and hear more blackbirds, blackcaps and robins.

Greenbank Park 

I struck lucky in Liverpool and only had to wait twenty minutes for the train straight back home, which saved on a lot of messing about. I'd had a nice trip out, I'd revisited a few places and the birdwatching was plenty good enough for a Bank Holiday Monday.

Home thoughts

We're at that peculiar time of year in the garden: I know things are going on out there but I have scant evidence for it. The bird feeders are being visited because I can see the whittling down of the last of the sunflower seeds and suet cones. The blackcap spends most of the day singing, the robin and wren sing intermittently, the blackbird at sunrise and sunset, and the collared dove and woodpigeons have no particular schedule and some days don't even bother. 

The titmice have gone dead quiet, even the male great tit isn't announcing his arrival as usual. Unlike the oldest cock sparrow who makes a particular fanfare of his arrival. He then parades himself between the boysenberries in the corner, each feeder in turn then surveys the garden from the top of the roses before disappearing into next door's ivy. If I haven't been noticed watching the performance the others come in for a quick scoff, arriving in twos and threes and never stopping more than a couple of minutes. I've never seen this behaviour before, I don't know if it's a novelty or I just haven't been noticing it until now.

I suspect there are young blackbirds coming into the garden. I know there are young dunnocks because I saw one of them today, fresh and downy and accompanied by an adult which left it deep in the gooseberry bushes while a cat needed to be chased out of the garden. Job done, the youngster was brought out into the open to be fed greenfly. And so life goes on.

Flixton

Black-headed gull and common tern, Irlam Locks

It was a grey and gloomy sort of day with the sun making occasional weak attempts at glowing through the cloud. The wind was gentler and warmer than it had been and it would have been good walking weather if I could have summoned up the energy to get my act together. I couldn't so I settled for a longer than usual potter about Wellacre Country Park.

I got the train into Flixton and walked down to Flixton Bridge where a pair of drake mallards dozed on the river and the songs of blackbirds, robins, great tits and chiffchaffs battled to be heard over a song thrush in a sycamore tree.

Starting up Green Hill 

There was more of the same songscape as I walked onto Green Hill with blackcaps and wrens adding to the mix. As I walked up the hill whitethroats contented themselves with churring from bramble patches. Partway up I looked over the fields towards Flixton Road which were littered with woodpigeons, jackdaws and carrion crows. A couple of lapwings looked to have set up a territory and a pair of pheasants strutted along one of the field margins. Overhead a buzzard got a carrion crow and jackdaws escort over into Carrington.

Green Hill 

For all that the weather was unpromising there were plenty of bees and butterflies about. Rather a lot to my surprise a painted lady was basking in the weak sun in the middle of the path. My efforts at tiptoeing past it didn't succeed and it flew onto some nearby brambles to resume its sunbathing.

Painted lady

Swallows and starlings dashed about overhead, the swallows new arrivals likely to be nesting in the stables below the hill, the starlings with mouths to feed in the nearby housing estate.

Dutton's Pond was very quiet indeed save for the mallards. The poor old duck had six drakes in attendance. There's always someone worse off than yourself.

The songscape resumed as I walked down to Jack Lane though actually seeing any of the singers in the trees on the railway embankment was a lot easier said than done. The absence of any blackbirds along this stretch was unusual.

Red campion

Jack Lane Nature Reserve 

There were plenty of blackbirds on Jack Lane Nature Reserve. And reed warblers, three singing on one side of the path and one on the other. And for a change I saw a couple of them. None of them were singing by the nest sites I clocked last year, which is probably sensible: if I knew where they were so would the local magpies. I thought I was going to miss out on the Cetti's warbler but it was singing from the brambles next to the field at the edge of the reserve. There was a minutes' worth of duet as a sedge warbler joined in from somewhere close to the Cetti's and I muttered under my breath as my trying to record them coincided with the passage of the police helicopter overhead and the Cleethorpes train to my left. Still, it was good to hear them.

The spadgers which usually bounce in and out of the hawthorns along Jack Lane were keeping a very low profile while goldfinches sang in the trees. The fields were busy with woodpigeons, magpies, carrion crows and starlings and I could still hear the Cetti's warbler singing from the nature reserve as I walked into Town Gate.

I walked down Irlam Road to the Locks. The spadgers in the hedgerows along here were as boisterous as ever. The sand martins and swallows were busy hawking overhead, rarely settling on the telegraph wires and never for very long. There was a mass of chattering as a mixed flock of hirundines chased a sparrowhawk over the Ship Canal, a performance repeated a few minutes later when they decided a woodpigeon looked a bit iffy.

Manchester Ship Canal 
Back in the day a ferry would shuttle from the pier I'm standing on to the one opposite.

Great crested grebes

A lone mute swan cruised on the canal, there weren't many mallards about and no coots, gadwalls or tufted ducks. There were a bunch of great crested grebes mostly asleep upstream of the locks, a very noisy male grebe drifted to one side of the group and made rude noises at old men passing by. The common terns were also very noisy, with one pair getting to know each other on the lockside. There weren't many black-headed gulls about and even fewer pigeons. For a while the pigeons were outnumbered by the pair of stock doves flying past the stables.

Common terns and mallards

Looking downstream from the locks I could see a handful of immature cormorants drying their wings at the side of one of the basins. Adults were flying over three at a time and all seemed headed for Woolston Eyes. A few mallards and grebes drifted on the water and a heron stalked the bank.

Irlam Locks 

As I walked back down Irlam Road the martins congregated on the telegraph wires after mobbing a passing herring gull, an oystercatcher made a racket as it flew up the canal and a whitethroat sang from one of the hawthorns. I got to the bus terminus as the 256 pulled in. I'd expected a bit of a gentle potter about but it turned out to be a very productive afternoon's birdwatching.

Sand martins savouring their victory over a herring gull

Pennington Flash

Canada goose and little ringed plover

It was a greyer sort of a day than it has been lately but still not unpleasant. I dawdled about all morning then got the buses over to Pennington Flash for an afternoon wander.

Jay

Robins, great tits and blackbirds dominated the songscape on the way in from St Helens Road. Blue tits, wrens, chaffinches and goldfinches quietly went about their business, magpies and woodpigeons made a lot of noise about it. A jay silently escorted me past its territory. 

Pennington Flash
We're early into the butterflies and landscape photography phase of the year.

Pennington Flash 

The car park was Summer quiet, small groups of mallards, Canada geese and black-headed gulls loafing about, coots chugging past like freight trains past a colliery. There were more coots out on the flash, together with a small raft of lesser black-backs and a few herring gulls and great crested grebes. A couple of common terns made a disproportionate amount of noise as they fished around the buoys. There were a lot of small, dark shapes almost skimming the top of the water, it took me a while to be sure they were all sand martins the light was so dull.

Ruff (left) and little ringed plover
The little ringed plover showing how suitable its plumage is on its preferred freshwater shingle. Luckily they are mostly insanely active and they catch the eye as they run about.

At the F.W.Horrocks Hide a chap put me onto the couple of distant black-necked grebes on the flash and four ruffs on the spit. All the ruffs looked like females (calling them reeves seems to be going out of fashion) and a couple of them were strikingly plumaged with wings and backs like a black and tawny checkerboard. Reeves' plumages aren't anywhere near as variable as their male counterparts but they can provide plenty enough confusion seen own their own in an unfamiliar context. They're not common at Pennington Flash but at least they're on the radar. A couple of little ringed plovers flew in and there were a couple of common sandpipers rummaging about in the shingle further back. At one point there were five ruffs and four little ringed plovers skittering about, which is very good to see here. None of them came very close.

Little ringed plover, ruff and Canada goose

A few lapwings, cormorants and lesser black-backs loafed at the end of the spit. Woodpigeons and mallards rummaged about in the vegetation on top. Looking over towards Ramsdales there was a lot of noise and activity from the black-headed gulls on the nesting raft. Shovelers and gadwalls took some finding, I didn't see a single teal all afternoon. This time of year that's strangely encouraging.

The chiffchaffs in the trees were mostly being as quiet and unobtrusive as the titmice. Unlike the reed warblers and Cetti's warbler singing by the Kidney Pool opposite the Tom Edmondson Hide.

The Kidney Pool

At first sight it was quiet on the pool in front of the Tom Edmondson Hide. Canada geese and coots dozed, a couple of gadwalls and shovelers drifted by and into the reeds and on to Pengy's Pool. An extremely dapper male dabchick, all polished mahogany with rusty highlights, made a brief appearance before disappearing into the reeds when a heron flew over. Then a pair of magpies found a moorhens' nest. Sound and fury there was much. The magpies were unsuccessful this time but I wouldn't lay odds on any eggs in the nest lasting very long.

From the Tom Edmondson Hide 

From Ramsdales Hide 

The scrape at Ramsdales looked even dozier at first. Canada geese and mallards slept on the banks. Lapwings wandered about apparently aimlessly, which usually means they have a working nest wherever it is they aren't walking and whichever bird isn't sitting is keeping vigil. I eventually spotted one sitting female on a nest. There will have been more I missed. A couple of little ringed plovers had been quietly dashing about on the mud. This all changed when a third flew in. For the next ten minutes two of them flew about chasing each other round the place, calling loudly all the while. I made no attempt whatever to get a photo, I knew when I was beaten and just settled back to watch the show.

Pennington Flash 

A little gull had been reported on the flash at lunchtime so I wandered back to try my luck. I sat on a bench by the F.W.Horrocks Hide and scanned around. If there was a little gull still about it was either over by the rucks or the sailing club, it certainly wasn't in sight from here. Black-headed gulls and common terns wheeled about catching midges and the distant cloud of sand martins had been joined by at least a dozen swifts. Then I had a bit of luck. One of the terns didn't look quite right. Usually, especially in flat grey light like today, that means I'm seeing it at a funny angle and if I keep tabs on it awhile it'll turn out to look exactly the same as the others. Except this time it didn't, it was uniform silver grey above and had bright white underwings. My first Arctic tern of the year. They're regular but uncommon visitors and I nearly always miss them as they pass through so I was quite chuffed to pick one up today.

Walking back to St Helens Road 

I wandered back for the bus into Leigh, the rain started as the 126 passed through Astley and fizzled out as we got to the Trafford Centre. It was obviously one of my luckier days.

Reddish Vale

Mandarin duck

The energy for plans A and B still eluded me. It was yet another splendid Spring day, the wind was warmer, I felt I really should make something of it. I got the train into town with a half-formed idea of getting a train to New Mills or Glossop and the bus into Hayfield for a dawdle along the Sett Valley, which is how I came to be on the Sheffield train. I didn't stay on to New Mills. As we passed along the viaduct over the Tame I looked down on Reddish Vale Country Park and decided that was today's walk. So I got off at Brinnington and walked round to the footpath entrance on Blackberry Lane.

Reddish Vale Country Park 

The reader has probably become weary of my listing what has become the standard Greater Manchester songscape of blackbirds, blackcaps, chiffchaffs, dunnocks, great tits, robins, wrens and woodpigeons. I never weary of hearing it and hope I never do. Hearing isn't seeing mind, and even with the oaks and ashes barely breaking bud I was seeing perhaps a tenth of what I was hearing. Invisible whitethroats churred from hawthorns smothered in may blossom, long-tailed tits tutted from ivy-decked branches and tree canopies hid chaffinches, goldfinches and greenfinches. I had the consolation that the butterflies weren't a bit shy and were numerous and showy, the orange tips, small whites and large whites fluttering about the open and the grassy verges, the red admirals about the woodland edges and already extensive nettle patches.

Brinnington Beach and the Manchester to Sheffield railway

Mallard and ducklings

I walked down to Brinnington Beach, where the Tame turns on two sixpences before going under the viaduct. A mandarin duck and a kingfisher shot upstream, mallards drifted downstream. A platoon of mallard ducklings were being marched along the opposite bank by their mother.

Grey wagtail

I'd kept hearing grey wagtails but didn't see them until after I'd passed under the viaduct. A male was fly-catching from the river, flying up and snatching insects in mid-air before settling back down by the banks.

Grey wagtail

I almost missed the young wagtail fossicking about on the far bank.

Juvenile grey wagtail

The pond

A wave of sand martins descended over the river, a few house martins joining the crowd by the bridge back into historical Lancashire. I crossed over and had a nosy round the pond.

Coot

Coots were on nests, mallards had duckling entourages and a heron lurking on the far bank had a youngster in tow. I wasn't sure whether or not a mandarin duck was on a nest or not and wasn't for disturbing her to find out one way or another. Her drake walked over my way and gave me a hard stare, just in case. More mandarins pottered about on the pond. For some reason one of the coots had an intense dislike of unpaired drake mandarins and would charge across the pond to have a go at any that caught its eye.

Mandarin drake

I walked down Reddish Vale Road into Reddish for the bus into Stockport and thence home (it was the approach to rush hour(s) and I wanted to avoid the city centre). Male woodpigeons had fights in the trees, barging and clattering into each other until one backed off and flew away. In one case it was a good five minutes before the fight was conceded and there was a carpet of leaves and twigs on the ground to commemorate the bout. The standard Greater Manchester songscape prevailed, decorated by the twitterings of swallows as they hawked over grazing horses. I got to the bus stop on Reddish Road and watched the holly blues fluttering about the hedges as I waited for the bus.

Woodpigeons squaring up for more fisticuffs