Wellacre Country Park

Walking up Green Hill 

We're in the between times of birdwatching where the Summer visitors have moved on, most of the Winter visitors have yet to arrive and the residents have no particular need to call attention to themselves. The spectacle of scarce and rare passage migrants popping up in odd places tends to distract from that everyday reality. Early Autumn is a time where you have to work hard to see familiar faces while you're on the q.v. for absolutely anything to turn up. A case in point: the only house sparrows I saw all day were a couple in the back garden first thing.

It was one of those days where you could see a change of seasons by turning your head, accompanied by a chilly Northwest wind. I decided I'd have that look around Wellacre Country Park I didn't do yesterday.

Parakeets screeched in the trees by the school while carrion crows, jackdaws and rooks called as they passed overhead. Magpies rummaged in the leaf litter and beech mast along Irlam Road and blackbirds rummaged in the undergrowth as I walked down the path into Wellacre Wood. I was sensing robins and great tits more often than I was hearing or seeing them and a singing wren was a comforting bit of solid reality.

Wellacre Country Park 

Swarms of sand martins and swallows were a half-remembered fantasy of another age a month ago. Carrion crows, magpies and woodpigeons thinly peppered the fields. Looking over towards Irlam Locks I could see a few black-headed gulls and pigeons, mallards called and a couple of pied wagtails flew in and joined the grazing horses.

Jack Lane Nature Reserve 

For the most part Jack Lane was tantalisingly quiet. Moorhens muttered softly in the reeds, great tits and robins quietly ticked in bushes, blackbirds and wrens slid silently into brambles. I relaxed and let myself be alert to the slightest noise and caught a couple of goldfinches moving through the treetops and a family of long-tailed tits bustling through hawthorn bushes. Then a Cetti's warbler erupted into song ten yards away in the reedbed. The long-tailed tits came over for a closer look at the jumping man.

A month ago this was a shallow pool

I was remarking to myself how dry the reedbeds were, just damp mud, when the clouds parted, the sun shone and it started raining. I have this gift.

Dutton's Pond 

Dutton's Pond looked picturesque, a moorhen and a pair of mallards pottered about.

As I walked up onto Green Hill and back down towards Carrington Road I was struck that nearly all the birdlife was passing by: carrion crows, jackdaws, magpies, woodpigeons and jays, even a chaffinch, were just passing by. Robins sang in the trees by the railway.

Green Hill 

A pair of mallards swam downstream on the Mersey as I walked into Flixton. I checked the time and struck lucky, I got the train home.

Mersey Valley

Black swan, Sale Water Park

After the giddying about of the past couple of days I thought I'd ground myself with a leisurely bit of local birdwatching. I decided to have a potter about Wellacre Country Park and got the 256 with every intention of doing so but the bus broke down at the next bus stop. The next bus in either direction was the 25 to Stockport so I got that, got off at the edge of Chorlton and walked down to Hawthorn Lane.

Hawthorn Lane 

It was a bright, sunny day and quite mild so long as you were in sheltered sunlight. The moment you stepped into the wind or shadow it was cold, I was dressed wrong for the weather at least every five minutes, I should have brought my raincoat for the extra layer. Magpies and ring-necked parakeets rattled and screeched in the trees. Robins sang in the undergrowth and though I was aware of a mixed tit flock somewhere close to hand I couldn't see any of them.

I had a bit more luck in Ivy Green, the great tits conspicuously objected to my walking past. Carrion crows, woodpigeons and jackdaws flew about the clearing.

Ivy Green 

Chorlton Ees 

Chorlton Ees was quiet save the magpies, parakeets and carrion crows. Dunnocks and wrens shuffled about in the brambles and a family of mistle thrushes were uncharacteristically quiet as they flew overhead. I walked through to the bend in the river where a young heron loafed by the bank with a couple of pairs of mallards.

More pairs of mallards drifted downstream as I walked up to Jackson's Boat. A flock of goldfinches flew into one of the big ash trees, woodpigeons clattered about in hawthorns and jays ferries acorns across the river. The parakeets were particularly noisy at Jackson's Boat, even the crows couldn't make themselves heard.

Barrow Brook 

It was very much quieter as I walked along Barrow Brook. Were it not for the occasional tick from a robin or the nuthatch calling from a willow tree I would have been ready to swear that me and the squirrels had the place to myself. Right at the end, just before the brook goes into the lake at Sale Water Park, an adult heron lurked in the reeds.

Black swan

A black swan had joined the herd of mute swans on the lake. There are at least two pairs of black swans kicking about the Northwest and I know one pair bred at Marshside the other year. It isn't often I see one on its own. Most of the mute swans just accepted it as one of the gang but one cob wasn't at all sure and drifted over that way in full fighting trim a few times just to let it know who was boss. In the process it demonstrated that the black swan is both a smaller and slimmer bird, the neck being particularly wiry.

Mute swan

Even taking into account this cob mute swan's aggressively fluffed up, he's a much bigger and less slender bird than the black swan

There was a canoeing class going on so the mallards and coots were crowded out and only a couple of Canada geese loafed on the slipway. The cormorants stayed in the water well out of the way, as did a great crested grebe and its full-grown youngster. There was a small crowd of black-headed gulls but for once not a single large gull. A mixed tit flock in the bushes by the electricity pylon included at least one chiffchaff.

Goosanders and mallards on Broad Ees Dole 

The hide pool on Broad Ees Dole was busy with ducks, mostly teal and mallard. They were accompanied by five redhead goosanders, four drake shovelers and two pairs of gadwalls. Moorhens pottered about the islands and it took me ages to spot the two juvenile dabchicks hiding in plain sight amongst the teals.

Teal Pool 

Appropriately enough, there were half a dozen teals on the Teal Pool.

River Mersey 
Stretford Ees, on the Lancashire side, on the left and Sale Water Park on the Cheshire side on the right.

I walked back to Stretford via a very quiet Stretford Ees. Dunnocks, wrens and great tits silently fidgeted through the brambles, robins sang, parakeets screeched and a family of carrion crows called to each other as they passed overhead.

Fairhaven Lake

Long-tailed duck

Long-tailed duck was one of the notable absentees from my year list at the beginning of the year so when a drake turned up at Fairhaven Lake I thought I'd best take the opportunity to have a look. The other attraction was that it was an adult drake, I've not seen one in Summer plumage before.

I got the Blackpool South train from Preston and got off at Andsell and Fairhaven. It's a short walk to the lake from the station. Along the way I bumped into the East Lancs birdwatcher I was chatting to the other week at Crossens Marsh and we exchanged tales of pallid harriers. He told me the long-tailed duck was showing well on the far side of the island on the lake.

Granny's Bay

It was a grey mizzly lunchtime. I got to the car park and had a quick scan over this side of the lake. There were a few coots and mallards on the water nearby and black-headed gulls fussed about. A few mute swans were over on the other side. Robins and great tits ticked in the bushes as people went by.

Shelducks 

It was lowish tide on what the map informs me to my delight is Granny's Bay. I walked along the path on the outside edge of the car park, scanning round to see what was about. There were hundreds of shelducks dabbling on the mud. There weren't many less redshanks and a lot of them were closer to hand, fidgeting their way through the pools and puddles with a couple of bar-tailed godwits. Way out, cormorants dried their wings on mudbanks and half a dozen wigeons flew in and settled on the mud. 

Pied wagtail 

Very much closer to hand, a couple of pied wagtails ran up and down the steps down from the car park working their way through the dancing clouds of midges.

Pied wagtail 

There were plenty of black-headed gulls about but just a handful of herring gulls and they were all passing by. I almost didn't notice a common gull in the gloom, luckily for me it decided it needed a good stretch and the fingerless mitt wingtips made me spot it.

Black-headed gulls 

I dropped down to the lakeside and started looking for the long-tailed duck. There were plenty of dozing mallards and squabbling moorhens on the bank of the island but I wasn't seeing the long-tailed duck. I actually walked past it and it was only when I looked back that I noticed it. It was fast asleep by a beached buoy looking very much like a small pile of stones.

Long-tailed duck 

The high contrast pattern of dark, chocolate brown and white broke up the shape of the duck, its having its head firmly tucked into its back feathers completed the illusion. And it was very different to any long-tailed duck plumage I'd seen before.

Long-tailed duck 

I lingered in the hopes it might wake up and I'd get a proper view of its head. The nearest I got was when there was a bit of excitement amongst the mallards. The head shifted, showing a flash of white behind a half-open eye. Then it went back to sleep again.

Long-tailed duck 
A commotion amongst the mallards almost woke him up.

Fairhaven Lake and the Fylde Spitfire Memorial 

It had started raining, that fine Autumn rain that wets your hands and races up your arm to your elbows. I decided I'd call it a day. I had my long-tailed duck on my year list and had a look at a very unfamiliar plumage. On my way back I had another scan around the bay without adding to the day's tally.

Shelducks 

I'd missed to train to Blackpool South and would have best part of an hour to wait for the next. I entertained thoughts of bussing across the Fylde and having a look at Fleetwood and the River Eyre but could already smell the wet sheep tang of my cap. The Preston train was due in ten minutes, I called it quits.

Belmont

Winter Hill

A pallid harrier turned up at Belmont Reservoir over the weekend, just the other side of Winter Hill. Amazingly, it might not have been the Marshside bird relocated as a second bird was seen at Hesketh Outer Marsh. Belmont Reservoir's on my local "Go and have a nosy" list so I decided to head thataway.

The buses to Belmont are infrequent and irregular. My train got held up at signals and got into Oxford Road as the Blackpool train was leaving so I missed the 535 bus from Bolton Interchange. There was a two hour wait for the next one so I got The 1 (the bus to Blackburn) to Egerton and walked over.

Winter Hill from Longworth Road 

I've never known it not raining in Egerton and today was no exception. Jackdaws bounced about on the wet chimney pots. I turned onto Longworth Road, by the time I reached the sailing club car park it had become sunny though there were still clouds rolling off the top of Winter Hill. Delph Reservoir isn't visible from the road, I decided not to make a detour to try to have a look as I was already behind schedule. Woodpigeons and carrion crows flew hither and thither. Meadow pipits flew about in pairs, goldfinches in flocks of a dozen or so, a couple of dozen linnets flew across the road and down the valley. It was very pleasant walking.

Along Longworth Road 

By Longworth Road 

At the crossroads I turned onto Egerton Road and into Belmont. After the wide open spaces of Longworth Road the confined cuttings and bends of Egerton Road were a bit more intimidating for the pedestrian though the drivers were very good. I reciprocated by cramming myself into the hedgerows when cars needed to pass or hanging back to give them room in the places where the road was one-and-a-half cars wide. Which is how I bumped into a siskin working its way through some hawthorns and a pair of bullfinches wheezing in an ash tree.

Belmont Reservoir 

Belmont Reservoir isn't far outside the village up Belmont Road and I soon had sight of it. As I approached the sailing club the robins and wrens that had been ticking in the bushes on my approach suddenly fell silent. A female sparrowhawk shot through a gap between bushes, veered and missed my head by inches, a testament to her reaction time and manoeuvrability! 

There was a group of a dozen birdwatchers on the pavement overlooking the reservoir. They had that "nothing doing" look about them. Inevitably, it turned out they'd had cracking views of the bird ten minutes earlier then it bobbed over the hill behind the farmhouses on the far bank. The good news was that it had done this a few times so all was not lost.

I had a scan round. Cormorants dried their wings in the company of immature herring gulls on the far bank. The promontory to our left was fringed with teal and lapwings. A golden plover loafed amongst some lapwings. Carrion crows, jackdaws and woodpigeons flew around. A kestrel flying over the hill and hanging in the air over a field of sheep caused a flurry of emotion. But no sign of the pallid harrier.

I mentioned that the buses were irregular. A feature of the bus service to Belmont is that the 535 will take you from Bolton to Belmont but there's no bus taking you back. I didn't fancy the walk back to Egerton, or worse yet a walk down to Astley Bridge, for a bus back. I'd noticed that there was a bus over to Blackburn via Tockholes, the M11, and that would be setting off from the Black Dog, quarter of an hour's walk, in about forty minutes. Or else I was doing a walk back. So I was on the clock.

I waited as long as I could then started back for the Black Dog, stopping at each gap in the trees to have a look over the reservoir, just in case. A family of carrion crows escorted a raven over a hill. Cormorants a-fishing. A flock of starlings joined the sheep. At the second to last gap in the trees a raptor swooped in over the hill from stage right and headed towards where the other birdwatchers were standing. A consolation buzzard, I told myself. Then I asked myself since when do buzzards have pale rumps, collars and a long, ringed, tail. I was getting a lot closer a look at a pallid harrier this time and could appreciate just how powerful a bird one really is. By the time I got the camera out of the bag, had a fight with it and taken a couple of shots where the bird had been it was gone out of my sight. Still, a cracking bird to have seen.

The M11 turned out to be a little white minibus and I turned out to be its only passenger, which seemed a shame. It was a picturesque run over to Blackburn, the landscape thinly populated with carrion crows, jackdaws and magpies. I got The 1 (honestly, it's not an affectation, that's what it's called) back to Bolton and thence home. It was bright and sunny all the way to Cadshaw. It was raining in Egerton.

Home thoughts

Long-tailed tit

The running round over the past week plus a couple of weeks' bad sleep caught up with me today, despite its being a gloriously sunny Autumn day I couldn't persuade myself to do anything with it. So I spent the day watching the long-tailed tits bouncing around the back garden. One of the cut beaches of rambling rose I've not yet been able to untangle from the rowan tree provides a useful prop for photography.

Long-tailed tit

St Aidan's

Heron, coots, greylags and Canada geese
The sign appears to be bait for photographers, it seemed churlish not to.

I spent a sunny Thursday running errands and reading, I should really have been catching up with writing and housework but it is as it is. Friday began with a spot of rain and the first blackcap of Autumn in the back garden, a male in pristine plumage helping a couple of blackbirds to strip berries off a Pyracantha branch.

St Aidan's is one of the unvisited sites I've been fretting about. Reports of a Baird's sandpiper there gave me a very good reason to give it a visit. Ordinarily it's a straightforward journey with a through train to Castleford from Piccadilly but track improvements are going on that line so I had to go via Sheffield and Wakefield. It was grey and gloomy as I left Manchester, Sheffield was bright but cloudy and the sun kept promising to show its face as I got off at Castleford and got the 140 bus to Ferry Lane. The latest report on the Baird's sandpiper was that after being on site for three days it had just done a runner and couldn't be relocated. I'd just be having a walk through a very pleasant nature reserve on a nice Autumn day. There are worse things in this life.

River Aire

A mixed tit flock bounced through the trees on the Methley side of the River Aire. Three goosanders flew downstream and out of sight as I reached the bridge and crossed over to St Aidan's. I was greeted by the first of very many migrant hawkers I'd be bumping into today.

St Aidan's 
I'm looking back here.

I tiptoed between common darters sunning themselves on the causeway. The large, open pool on my right was dotted about with coots, tufted ducks, great crested grebes and mute swans and a flock of black-headed gulls fussed about on the pool beyond. A small flock of swallows passed by. The tree-lined pool to my left was lined with small groups of mallards, coots, gadwalls, wigeons and tufted ducks. 

Gadwalls and wigeon
This time of year you can see they're closely related.

Looking over towards the Eastern reedbeds 

I encountered a group of people looking for an osprey that had been reported. I scanned round where they were looking and found a lot of carrion crows and a female-type marsh harrier but I had no luck finding the osprey. I moved on so I wouldn't be jinxing the others and split my time checking out the pools and looking out for passing raptors.

The pools by the path were busy with birds. Greylags, Canada geese, herons and little egrets loafed on the sides. Mallards, gadwalls, teal, shovelers and wigeons dabbled, tufted ducks, coots and great crested grebes cruised about, cormorants spent more time underwater than above and every little mudbank was peppered with waders, mostly lapwings. A dumpy sandy brown bird amongst one group of lapwings on the other side of one pool was a juvenile golden plover, it took far too long for the penny to drop that the dull grey counterpart asleep closer to hand was a grey plover. A few snipe pottered about and some dunlins loafed with lapwings.

Lapwings, snipes and dunlins

All of a sudden the waders, and a lot of the teals, were up. I looked round for the bird of prey and eventually found it, a red kite cruising low over the reserve over the Eastern reedbeds, drifting out towards the fields beyond.

Red kite
Not by any means a great photo but I was glad to finally get any sort of a record shot of one.

It took about five minutes after the kite had drifted away for the waders to come back. The snipes stuck with the lapwings but the dunlins split off on their own and settled on some mud with the grey plover. I had a good look at them with no great hopes of finding anything but dunlins. Given that Baird's sandpipers are long distance migrants between high Arctic Canada and Tierra del Fuego, "It won't have gone far," didn't seem applicable. One bird caught my eye, though, as it was smaller than the others, which doesn't mean a lot as dunlins come in mixed small, medium and large sizes. There was a chap with a telescope just nearby so I asked him what he made of it.

"I think they're all dunlins but you're welcome to have a look for yourself, I'm no good at small sandpipers."

I admitted I'm rubbish at peeps myself and that it probably was a small dunlin, and when I looked through the telescope so it was, toddling out of view stage right. Scuttling into view from that direction was something else again, a very different bird to the dunlins. "Stuff me!" I said when the penny dropped, which I think was a model of restraint, "I think we've got the Baird's!" 

A little later as I'd moved on, I started second-guessing myself. The report of the Baird's having flitted worried me so I sat down and made notes on what I'd seen, just in case I'd been mistaken and seen something else entirely. I knew what the bird wasn't but there's a cavalcade of small sandpipers I just don't know.

• A small "peep," the same length as the smallest of the dunlins but a smaller bird
• Low slung, attenuated, a very horizontal bird, possibly because it was on the rush, being lead by the beak
• Bit like a common tern amongst black-headed gulls; short-legged, slighter, a lot of length to the back half but not so much body that end
• Short but not dumpy legs — proportion something between snipe and dunlin — long wings projecting beyond tail, straight-backed incline from shoulder to wingtip, a bit small-headed
• Back and wings brighter, more contrasty than the dunlins, like a little stint but without the white braces over the shoulder
• Underparts white, abrupt cut-off from brown upper breast/lower throat similar to a pectoral sandpiper but higher up breast (too small, wrong shape for pec)
• Bill similar to shorter-billed individuals amongst the dunlins but perhaps finer
• A busier bird than the dunlins, in a hurry as it bustled past them, sanderling-like scurry

Hitting the reference books back home I could only make this bird either a Baird's sandpiper or a white-rumped sandpiper and I hadn't seen the prominent white eyebrow of the latter, so I can only think it a Baird's. I'll admit I was rattled when I saw a report of Baird's sandpiper at St Aidan's for about the time I was there then a correction saying it had been erroneous as a Baird's had turned up at Fairburn Ings down the road. I might be wrong, I don't know.

Once I'd made my notes I moved on and left them alone to worry over tonight. There were more ducks and coots and egrets. Cetti's warblers sang from unlikely patches of gorse and field bindweed, linnets and goldfinches twittered past, magpies rummaged about on the paths. Migrant hawkers zipped past, common darters danced about my ankles and bees and hoverflies flitted between Michaelmas daisies and knapweeds.

St Aidan's 

I checked out the map and train times and realised that I could walk to Woodlesford Station from here and get the train home from Leeds. So I followed the path that curved round then past Astley Lake and thence to the bridge over the river at the Aire Wave.

A small group were staring over a corner of Astley Lake. Apparently I'd missed the osprey flying over Swillington Ings. I joined them for a while then moved on, I reckoned I should be looking at the same stretch of trees as I walked up the Aire to the canal towpath that would take me into Woodlesford.

The Aire Wave

Another mixed tit flock bounced through the trees by the river as I crossed the bridge and robins sang at each other either side of the path. I was right, there was a good view of those trees from this side of the river even if I didn't avail myself of the hide on the bankside (I wasn't convinced my knees were up to the climb up). And yes, there were some raptors: three buzzards including one very vocal individual that almost certainly was a juvenile bird. Jackdaws and carrion crows flew hither and thither as I checked out the moorhens and mallards on the river. Then a couple of red kites drifted over the reserve. So no, I didn't get to see the osprey but I was seeing plenty of other birds of prey, which seemed to be the theme for the week.

The hide by the Aire, Astley Lake over the other side of the river

The Aire and Calder Navigation 

Goldfinches twittered and acorn-laden jays flew about Water Haigh Country Park. Mallards and gadwalls pottered about on the Aire and Calder Navigation. It was an extremely pleasant walk. I had ten minutes to wait for the train to Leeds, most of which I needed as I was baffled as to how to find platform one which was hidden in a corner beyond a maze of fences. At Leeds I was dead lucky, the train waiting just down the platform was the very crowded late-running train to Manchester. It started raining when we reached Todmorden.

Third-quarter review

Goldfinches, Marshside

A warm but windy June gave way to the driest July on record, an extended coo what a scorcher! with pulses of additional heatwaves extending into August, which at least managed a few nights of rain. The landscapes, the wildlife, and certainly this birdwatcher, felt the effects. 

Rixton

The lush greens of June were replaced by parched straw browns in July, a False Autumn in August then a cold, wet Bank Holiday weekend stretched into a cold, wet September and suddenly there was a lot of green about. Then the month closed with a succession of cold mornings and warm afternoons just to make sure we were inappropriately dressed at least twice before teatime.

Stonechat, Chat Moss

Even by traditional standards the dog days were excessively quiet. The advice not to feed the birds over Summer to try and control a couple of epidemic diseases meant that there wasn't the usual crowd in the back garden to tide things over. Elsewhere a lot of Summer visitors looked to have packed up their suitcases early, I made heavy weather of July and August, spending too much of my time hiding from the heat.

Despite that, I had a bumper Summer for butterflies and dragonflies, adding lifers of both to my lists. If I were rather a lot better at identifying Noctuid moths I dare say I'd have added some new ones of them to the tally I don't maintain properly. Bats kept a low profile, and hedgehogs one even lower though my excuse for that is they're not queueing at the front door waiting for me to feed the late cat.

Sand martin, Irlam Locks

Gannets, Bempton Cliffs

Ruff, Marshside

Marsh harrier, Leighton Moss

Woodpigeon punch-up, Chorlton Ees

Despite the weather, and myself, both the year list and the life list ticked over. I added the white-rumped sandpiper at Meols to the life list after years of dipping on this species along the same stretch of mud. An obliging nightjar sat on a branch in a clearing in Kenworthy Wood. And just yesterday I saw my first pallid harrier on Crossens Marsh only just over a year after seeing my first Montague's harrier in the same place.

Nightjar, Kenworthy Wood 

The year list to date is 207, my life list 395, and British list 316.  And I got around a bit. Annual totals to date for BTO recording areas:

• Caernarvonshire 47 species
• Cheshire & Wirral 135
• Cumbria 73
• Denbighshire 34
• Derbyshire 55
• Flintshire 31
• Greater Manchester 128
• Lancashire & North Merseyside 152
• Staffordshire 28
• Yorkshire 91

I'd have got about a bit more had the trains managed to get over the Welsh border the day I tried to get over to Llandudno.

The parakeets flying over the garden have lost their power to surprise. Glossy ibises on the sewage works by Barton Bridge managed to astonish.

Juvenile robin, Clifton Country Park

Grey wagtail, High Rid Reservoir

Little stint, Meols