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.

Mersey Valley

Dipper, River Mersey

Friday was a sleeping day after an exhausting Thursday which wasn't much about seawatching. Yesterday followed the trend of very wet early morning drifting into windy sunshine. I decided I needed a writing day, if only to remind myself I can write in daylight. There wasn't a lot doing in the garden that was visible, the feeders have been emptied and I've not got fresh supplies in.

The weather today followed the pattern. I had my dinner and set off for a walk through Cob Kiln Wood.

Old Eeas Brook, a bit different to this time last month

Cob Kiln Wood 

Cob Kiln Wood was full of wasps and singing robins. The wasps buzzed about aimlessly after disappointing lives and they had my sympathy. A red admiral somehow filled all the space in one of the clearings. I eventually managed to duck it and move on. Chiffchaffs fly-catched from hawthorn bushes, mixed tit flocks silently bustled through willows and elderberry bushes and I took photos of twigs where goldcrests had been.

The electricity pylon clearing 

A common darter sat on my shoulder for part of the ride as I walked into the electricity pylon clearing. After the recent rains the comfrey was knee-high.

Cob Kiln Lane 

I walked down Cob Kiln Lane to the river, bumping into a mixed tit flock by the bridge, a large family of long-tailed tits accompanied by chiffchaffs, great tits and blue tits. At first i couldn't see anything on the river, a pair of mallards turned the corner into view as they drifted upstream to the shoals.

River Mersey 

On a whim, and despite its being a sunny Sunday afternoon, I decided to walk upstream along the river. There wasn't a lot about besides people, dogs and bicycles. Long-tailed tits fidgeted in the hedgerows, jackdaws and woodpigeons flew by, wrens, robins and great tits tutted from hawthorns, a buzzard called from the fields and a ring-necked parakeet flew over into Ashton-on-Mersey.

Grey wagtail

As I reached the bend of the river by the coffee shop I could hear but not see a grey wagtail. Eventually I found it, a juvenile almost matching the rocks it was fossicking about on.

Dipper 

I noticed a movement on the bank a couple of yards to the left. I expected to find another grey wagtail and found instead a dipper investigating the sides of the shoals here. A cormorant flew downstream as I watched the dipper.

Dipper 

Dipper 

Dipper 

Dipper 

There was a lot of noise from the Bradley Road rookery, mostly jackdaws and rooks gathering in the pre-roost but a couple of rooks were carrying sticks in. The walk through Kickety Brook local nature reserve was fairly quiet, the mixed tit flock working the pathside waa silent, as were the robins and woodpigeons.

Kickety Brook local nature reserve 

Stretford Meadows 

Over the bridge and onto Stretford Meadows and into the wind. Chiffchaffs squeaked and robins sang from hawthorn bushes. Lesser black-backs, woodpigeons and carrion crows passed overhead, parakeets screeched in the treetops and I bumped into my last mixed tit flock of the day.

I walked home and completed the circuit. It wasn't spectacular birdwatching in any way but there had been a variety of habitats with a corresponding change in the birdlife along the way.

Wirral again

Redshanks, turnstones and little egrets, Meols groyne

The Leach's petrel passage had kicked up a few gears along the Wirral coast and there was a strong Westerly wind for them to be flying into, so they'd be more likely to fly close to shore and slow enough to give this old man a chance to get his eye in and identify one before it disappears into the distance. I decided I'd do a bit of seawatching from one of the seats above the revetment by Leasowe Lighthouse.

Leasowe Lighthouse 

I walked over from Moreton Station. The wind didn't feel so bad as I walked down the road and along the path past Kerr's Field. It hit like a brick as I stepped into the open area by the lighthouse and was bracing up on the sea wall. It was coming on high tide, the wind was blowing from the West, the birds were following the coast round the estuary and heading into it. Just right for seawatching. At first there wasn't much about: a few black-headed gulls nearby and a few herring gulls and lesser black-blacks tacking into the wind. A couple of great black-backs stood on a tiny foothold of mudbank. About a hundred oystercatchers were stubbornly hanging onto their mudbank until it sank beneath the waves. 

Looking over to Wallasey 

Soon after the oystercatchers gave up and flew off things started happening. More herring gulls and lesser black-backs passed through. Nearly all the distant brown birds tacking into the wind were herring gulls or lesser black-backs,  or unidentifiable one or others. I locked onto a distant bird ploughing its way through the wind in front of the wind turbines, a heavy, dark brown gull-like bird, only to lose track of it as a flock of pigeons careered across my line of view and blew away in the wind. It was probably a big juvenile herring gull. 

I noticed a couple of somethings streaking across the waves about fifty yards out. I latched onto them, thinking they'd both be waders. Dashing ahead was a Leach's petrel, black with a white rump and a grey band across  each wing. Miraculously it hardly seemed to move its wings as it shot headlong into the wind. Hot on its tail, wings working like billy-ho, was an almost white wader which it took me a few moments to recognise as a grey phalarope. Luckily that wind gave me those few moments and a bit to spare. 

Ten minutes later a razorbill shot in and I realised how the Leach's petrel did the trick. The birds were flying South down the Lancashire coast into the Mersey Estuary and into the mouth of the river right up to the Wirral Coast then turning on a wingtip almost and they used their momentum to power them headlong into the wind and beyond. Later on, a guillemot doing the same trick a hundred yards out was harder to recognise immediately as I was fighting distance, windshake and its skimming through a trough behind high white horses. Luckily I picked it up on its way out and I confirmed what I thought I'd seen go in.

A vantage point over the groyne

I gave it an hour then walked over to the groyne, partly to see what waders were roosting there, partly to see if any wheatears were about and mostly because I needed to stretch my legs. Redshanks, turnstones and a couple of knots shared the groyne with little egrets, an oystercatcher and a herring gull. There were no signs of wheatears either on the groyne or the grass, it must have been too windy for them. 

Redshanks, little egrets and herring gull

So far all the distant black birds flying low over the waves had been cormorants. A couple of dozen common scoters appeared and flew low over the waves. The birds at the back rose just that little too much over one wave and were caught by the wind. They towered up, over the waves and were deposited about fifty yards behind where they'd started from, which must have been hard work for them. 

I was keeping an eye out for more petrels and auks closer to hand and was seeing mostly herring gulls, a few black-headed gulls and a great black-back. Then I saw a small black bullet skimming the waves past the groyne and out to sea. A puffin. I couldn't be sure if the grey look to its face was shadow or its being a juvenile bird, it was away too quick for me to tell.

Heading for Park Lane 

By then I was feeling windswept and interesting. It hadn't been a bad haul for an hour and a half's effort with binoculars. Judging by the reports I checked later there was plenty more out there I hadn't been seeing including a lot more Leach's petrels, some Arctic skuas and Manx shearwaters but I was happy enough with what I had. I dropped down into Meols Dunes and took the bridleway through to Park Lane.

Juvenile wheatear. And a horse.

At Park Lane I turned left and headed past the paddocks back to Leasowe Common. I'd noticed there were plenty of pied wagtails skittering about with the horses when I had a look over from the sea wall, I wondered what else there might be. Plenty of woodpigeons and a couple of crows, of course. A flash of orange was a toffee paper blowing in the wind but that took my eye to a flock of linnets disconsolately sitting out the gusts of wind in a far corner and they took my eye to a juvenile wheatear hopping on and off a dividing fence. Further along I found a couple of juvenile white wagtails amongst the pied wagtails and starlings, and a couple more I couldn't decide one way or another. 

Probably a juvenile pied wagtail, with starlings

Curlew

A curlew was feeding in the field by the gate. As I approached we both pretended we each hadn't seen the other and walked our separate ways. 

I passed through the gate into the trees by the pond. A chiffchaff trialled a bit of song in one of the willows and goldfinches twittered in the hawthorn hedgerows along the path. Otherwise it was quiet. A couple of curlews rummaged about on Kerr's Field with the magpies and woodpigeons. As I'd walked in a Cetti's warbler sang from the Birkett as I passed by, it sang again as I passed on my way out and added a few jumbled bits of phrases which sounded like it was a young bird getting into practice for setting up a Winter territory.

The pond on Leasowe Common 

It had hardly been much of a walk, three and a bit miles, but I was jiggered. It was more than worth it for a good afternoon's bit of seawatching and some bonus passage passerines.

Salford Quays

Lesser black-backs and herring gulls

I didn't feel like doing anything today, my get up and go has been ghosting me all week. I'd read the same page of a book for the fifth time when I lost patience with myself and dragged myself out for a very dispiriting look around my local patch. 

Lostock Park 

The park was busy with people and quiet of birds. We've lost whitethroats as a breeding species after somebody tidied away the big bramble patches and drifts of thistles on the waste ground. There hasn't been the usual flocks of goldfinches and greenfinches either. The mass of goldenrod and willowherb that had taken over isn't anywhere near as productive and doesn't provide much cover. The brambles in the margins provide enough cover for dunnocks and wrens but not much else. I wasn't expecting any warblers today and didn't find any. And found precious little else.

• Black-headed gull 2 overhead
• Blackbird 2
• Blue tit 1
• Carrion crow 1
• Feral pigeon 1
• Goldfinch 1
• Herring gull 1 overhead
• Lesser black-back 3 overhead
• Magpie 3
• Woodpigeon 10
• Wren 1

I headed for Salford Quays to see what was about there. A flock of a dozen goldfinches fussed about in the trees by the bus stop as I waited for the 250 across to the other side of Trafford Park. (I could have walked it but it is a phenomenally dreary couple of miles of industrial estate road walking and the buses are every ten minutes.)

Clipper Quay
Coot, mallards, great crested grebe and moorhen

It was grey and cloudy and a keening wind blew straight down the Ship Canal. I walked over to Clipper Quay where black-headed gulls fussed about. A few coots, mallards and moorhens dozed and pottered about on the muddy bank. Rather to my surprise, they'd been joined by a great crested grebe dozing in their midst. I can't think when I last saw a great crested grebe hauling itself onto land except on a nest, I forget they can do it. 

Common gull

It was too early for the big roost of large gulls on Central Bay, there were just a couple of dozen or so loafing and preening, mostly lesser black-backs with a few herring gulls and a common gull. There were dozens of black-headed gulls and they were very active. When they weren't squabbling as they bathed they were squabbling over scraps of sticks they'd found on the water or they were a squabbling cloud hovering about mute swans and Canada geese mugging for scraps over in Ontario Bay, or they were chasing each other around the Lowry. In a turnaround from the usual state of affairs a black-headed gull chased a juvenile herring gull round the houses and forced it down onto the water.

Yellow-legged gull 

More herring gulls and lesser black-backs floated in, as did many more very noisy black-headed gulls. The usual adult yellow-legged gull took some finding as it was right out at the front of the raft of large gulls, and it was looking very spruce so I had no excuse. Yellow-legged gulls start and finish their moult earlier than the others. Over on the other side of the bay three house martins whizzed across the top of the water and towered up over the side railings.

Lesser black-backs and herring gulls 

Lesser black-backs 

The pied wagtails were gathering as I walked over to the War Museum, as were the United fans for the match. Luckily I was heading back in the wrong direction to get too embroiled in the traffic.

Leighton Moss

Painted lady 

It was a damp morning promising better and as the train headed North we left the heavy rain of Chorley for the fitful sunshine of Preston. I had me an old man's explorer ticket and was headed for Leighton Moss via Dalton as per usual for the usual reasons. 

A few times I complained to myself that the fields and tracksides of Lancashire were being as barren as any of Yorkshire and I concluded that either the jackdaw population of Galgate had plummeted or I'd lost my eye for jackdaws. A thin passage of swallows, just the odd one or two, moved through Northern Lancashire. 

Cumbria convinced me I hadn't lost my eye for jackdaws. Redshanks, starlings and black-headed gulls gathered on the banks of the Kent and curlews and little egrets stalked the mudbanks. Fields were busy with black-headed gulls lapwings and greylags, jackdaws and carrion crows fossicked about and mallards fussed about in pools. It had become warm enough for large whites to flutter about the trackside. The tide was riding high, too high for more than a couple of eiders to have loafing space on the banks of the Leven as the little egrets retreated to the back channels. It was very thin pickings further along, I was seeing more butterflies — large whites and speckled woods — than birds and I wasn't seeing so many of them, either. 

It was much the same on the way back to Silverdale. A flock of teal dabbled in a drain before Cark and small whites joined the flutterings by the trackside. Moorhens pottered across ponds, buzzards floated over fields, it was quiet early Autumn fare.

Blue tits and house sparrows fussed about Silverdale Station and a comma butterfly passed by as I crossed over the track to the exit. Robins tutted in the hedgerows and woodpigeons passed by. A painted lady fed on the verbenas in the garden by the visitor centre and marmalade hoverflies skittered about the herb garden. Great tits, blue tits and robins could be heard more often than be seen.

Reed cutting 

Reed cutting was being done at Lilian's Hide, which was unfortunate for my photography but is essential work to maintain the habitat and I can be unfortunate enough for my photography without any help. The mute swans and great white egrets were lurking in the far reeds while coots, mallards, gadwalls and dabchicks sat in a raft at one end of the pool away from the work as if making a point that it was their pool and they weren't going to be chased off it by people slipping about in waders.

Willows by the reedbed

It was a very quiet walk through the reedbeds through to the Tim Jackson Hide. Robins stole through willow roots like ninjas and a chiffchaff squeaked as I passed it by. A party of sand martins passing overhead made up the numbers. 

The gadwalls on the pools at the hide were paired up and the mallards were a-courting. A couple of ruffs feeding on the edge of the reeds kept a wide berth from a loafing heron. A few migrant hawkers zipped about as well as another dragonfly that wouldn't stay flying in one direction long enough for me to identify but might have been one of the chasers. 

At the Tim Jackson Hide 

All of a sudden the sky went dark and it poured down. Five minutes later it was sunny again. It was one of those afternoons.

Cormorant 

The walk round to the Griesdale Hide was just as quiet. There were hints of passing long-tailed tits in the willows. Cormorants and carrion crows sat in the dead trees by the hide. A mute swan drifted about the pool. Over in a corner a black-tailed godwit poked about in the mud. I'm always suspicious of any bird that should be in a flock turning up on its own so I had a good stare at it and it remained a black-tailed godwit. Mallards and gadwalls flew out to the estuary, woodpigeons flew in to the woods. I waited out another shower and made my way back. 

Mallards

At the Griesdale Hide 

Just to emphasise how quiet the visit had been, I heard my first wren of the day tutting by the Sky Tower and the only nuthatch I saw flew into a tree at the station as the Manchester train arrived. As the train passed the coastal hides I saw a flock of more than a hundred black-tailed godwits on the pool by the Eric Morecambe Hide and  a dozen greylags grazed by the bank. Marsh harriers had been notably absent at Leighton Moss. A female-type was putting up the meadow pipits on Carnforth Marsh and a kestrel hovered by the trackside.

Leighton Moss 

Autumn's a funny season in this corner of England. Anything can be anywhere, birds are on the move and a lot of them are doing it for the first time and don't know for sure where they're going. On the other side, the ones that aren't going anywhere haven't any big incentive to call attention to themselves and there's plenty enough cover to hide behind. It means that you have to work as hard as any time during the Summer but you never know what, if anything, might turn up. The other day I looked for a black redstart and found a spotted flycatcher in the same place first, today I have a quiet time at Leighton Moss. If it was predictable it would be boring.