Journey into mystery

What I'd thought were three parakeets in the trees behind the clinic turned out to be eighteen of the beggars. I'm not fond, and neither were the spadgers when they did a flying visit to the back garden.

I headed for Llandudno, hoping to connect with the dotterel that's been gracing the Great Orme.

It was a thin old time as the train trundled through Chat Moss and Cheshire. A flock of pigeons disturbed from the bridge over the Weaver at Frodsham and a few dozen rooks near Helsby were like oases in the desert. We were a long time at Chester Station waiting for the go-ahead into Wales. We then had to decamp an overcrowded Holyhead train to join another even more badly overcrowded Holyhead train. Luckily, I noticed that the next train straight to Llandudno was also stuck at the station so I walked over and got that. It, too, wasn't getting anywhere but had seats free to sit on. For a while. Otherwise I was for giving up. Fifteen minutes later we were told to decamp and get the train I came in on. Half an hour after that I gave up and got the train back to Manchester. It would have been teatime before I arrived anywhere. I hear there are places in the world where travel by public transport isn't an unpredictable adventure with no guarantee of success, how tiresome for them.

I could and should have waited for a train stopping at Frodsham so I could retrieve something of the day but as they were all stuck in Wales it wasn't really an option.

The clouds rolled in after a bright, sunny morning. It was thin pickings on the way home but a flock of black-headed gulls on a playing field in Dallam brought some light into the gloom.

All in all a crap start to the month. Still, what can we expect? After more than forty years of active disinvestment in national infrastructure so the bookies' runners in the city can extract the investment capital and cache it offshore the waterways will be full of shit and the trains won't run on time. Then we'll be told by the powers that be that it's all the fault of poor people trying to escape the wars and environmental disasters our governments have contributed so much towards, them poor devils will be to blame for the rich lads' asset-stripping and nothing working anymore. It makes me cross.

Summer drapery 2026

Looking down the Medlock Valley 

It would be nice to have an extended happy medium somewhere between Coo, What A Scorcher! and Britain Shivers! The prolonged dry spell and a succession of heatwaves had their impact on the landscapes. It also had an impact on which landscapes I explored: heat and wildfires knocked a lot of hillwalking on the head.

Whatever the weather, and the changing climate, the scenery is worth the effort of the visit, most of the time. Don't think I've never been tempted to put together a sewage works gallery.

New Cut, Woolston

River Irwell, Kersal Wetlands 

Crosby Marine Lake 

River Irwell, Kersal Dale 

River Mersey, Urmston

Chat Moss 

Welsh Coast Path approaching Foryd Bay 

Caernarfon 

Lower Strinesdale Reservoir 

River Mersey, Woolston 

Low Hall 

Bempton Cliffs

A Stretford Meadows sunset 

Grange-over-sands Station 

Duddon Estuary

Hodbarrow, Black Combe in the distance

Tarlscough Lane, Burscough 

Wellacre Country Park
No, it didn't rain.

Moses Gate Country Park 

Pennington Flash 

Buxton Pavilion Gardens 

Chat Moss

Rixton

Dee Estuary, West Kirby 

Partial solar eclipse, Banky Lane 

Cadishead Moss

Pennington Flash 

Cob Kiln Wood 

Lostock Park 

High Rid Reservoir 

Walkerwood Reservoir 

Woolston Eyes 

Manchester Ship Canal by Wharfside 

Martin Mere

Canada geese, mallards, black-headed gulls, ruff and lapwings

Short, heavy showers were forecast for the morning and short, heavy showers are what we got. I sat at Bolton Station waiting for the Southport train, sheets of water pouring onto the platform and I asked myself not for the first time, and certainly not the last, why I do this to myself. I was heading for Martin Mere and I hoped the production of a fine but cloudy afternoon was going to be as accurate as the morning's forecast.

Along Red Cat Lane 

As I got off the train at Burscough Bridge a cloud of jackdaws and rooks blew into town leaving the fields just beyond empty. Walking down Red Cat Lane in the rain there were plenty of woodpigeons about but little else until I got to the approach to Curlew Lane, starlings massing on the telegraph wires, and swallows and house martins hawking low overhead. The stubble fields were dotted with suddenly alert heads as I passed by. Most were woodpigeons, one was a cock grey partridge. I looked in vain for the rest of the covey, they'll have been there but crouching low and looking more like stubble than the stubble did. A couple of tree sparrows cheeped and disappeared into the hedgerow, a flock of house sparrows chivvied me on my way.

Martin Mere 

The rain stopped, I got to Martin Mere, sat down in the Discovery Hide and looked out at an almost empty mere. Six shovelers dabbled by one of the islands and a couple of moorhens pootled across the water. There were Canada geese on the far bank and swallows, sand martins and house martins hawked over the mere. The coots, mallards and teal took a lot of finding in the vegetation on the islands.

The Raines Observatory was empty and at first sight it looked like that end of the mere was, too. I found a few coots and a lapwing on an island but there seemed to be nothing on the bank. Then a green sandpiper flew out of the vegetation and a few yards further along, bobbing its tail as it landed on a rock before skittering back under cover.

From the Mere View Hide 

The Hale Hide was a bird-free zone, the Mere View Hide would also have been but for the distant view of Canada geese and greylags in the fields. Half a dozen migrant hawkers seemed to be hunting as a pack over the brambles in front of the hide.

At the Ron Barker Hide: two pools, one teal

There was literally nothing on either of the pools at the Ron Barker Hide, it was a relief when a teal flew in. Squadrons of woodpigeons set out across the fields to the distant woodlands. Way over to the right of the marsh, half a dozen whooper swans grazed in the long grass and beyond them a dozen or so cattle egrets fussed around the longhorn cattle. Whooper swans and cattle egrets, so typical of an August day in Lancashire.

Walking back from the Ron Barker Hide 

Longhorn cattle, cattle egrets and Canada geese 

I walked back and headed for the United Utilities Hide to have a better look at those geese. There was something white in the mix and I was curious as to what it was. What it was was uncooperative, a white farm goose keeping deep in a patch of tall grass and sedges so as to make it difficult to even work out its size, let alone any details. At one point I wondered if it was two of the cattle egrets that were with the cattle at the edge of the field. Frustrating though that was, the three pink-footed geese on the edge of the flock made themselves nicely conspicuous. A passing marsh harrier provoked raised heads and mutters amongst the geese. A buzzard flying in and joining them while it dug for worms didn't raise a feather.

Cuckoo pint berries

The United Utilities Hide had been deserted. The Harrier Hide was packed to capacity. And so was the pool in front of it. Mallards, gadwalls, lapwings, ruffs and black-headed gulls jostled for space amongst the Canada geese at the water's edge while great crested grebes, dabchicks and tufted ducks bobbed about on the water.

At the Gordon Taylor Hide 

The sun hinted at poking through the cloud. The reedbed walk would have been very quiet but for family groups of greylags flying low over to the fields and a Cetti's warbler singing by the Rees Hide. The pools by the hides were still just damp water meadows.

Winter Hill from Red Cat Lane 

I walked back to Burscough Bridge, stopping for a cup of tea at Brandeth Barn and feeling the better for it. The fields were busy with woodpigeons, rooks and jackdaws and the hedgerows busy with house sparrows. Every farmstead had its pair of collared doves. It had been an odd sort of a day's birdwatching but not unproductive.

Woolston Eyes

Teal, lapwing, green sandpiper and snipe

I evidently needed ten hours' sleep Thursday night and I'm not aware that I woke anytime along the way, both of which are unusual. The very late morning awakening rather put the kibosh on my plans for Friday. In contrast I didn't get to sleep this morning until some time after sunrise and woke just after eight, which I've been telling myself all day is two hours. The old body clock is a bit out of kilter at the moment. The dawn chorus was a robin, a magpie and a ring-necked parakeet, one of the group that is apparently colonising the trees between the school and the clinic this week.

The plan for yesterday was a walk round Woolston Eyes so a walk round Woolston Eyes it was today, even if it was raining. I was feeling lazy so I got the train to Warrington and the No.2 bus to Latchford and walked down Thelwall Lane. Along the way I noticed that all the lesser black-back nestlings have flown from the rooftops of Irlam.

Cormorants, pigeons, black-headed gulls and, remarkably, a pair of great black-backs loafed on Latchford Locks. The faded charcoal black of the secondaries of the first one I saw contrasted with its jet black primaries and had me almost second-guessing it as a lesser black-back but no lesser black-back has pinkish-grey legs and dwarfs the cormorant it's standing next to. The second had scarcely any contrast between the primaries and the rest of the wing and put paid to any of my nonsense.

I've been meaning to have another prolonged wander round No.4 Bed (left). It wasn't the weather for it today.

Thelwall Lane 

The walk down Thelwall Lane feels a lot shorter at the beginning of the walk than the end. It was that sort of weather where you find yourself reacting a lot to leaves bouncing in the rain and you know there are small birds about but have scant evidence for that conviction until a leaf or twig happens to bounce against the flow. Chiffchaffs squeaked in canalside willows, wrens scolded from nettle patches and robins sang their claims to their Winter territories. A mixed tit flock had blue tits flying out sorties into the willows on one side of the lane while the long-tailed tits and great tits stayed put on the other. 

Heron

As I got to the bridge over to No.3 Bed about fifty gadwalls took flight and flew upstream, leaving the scores of remaining gadwalls drawing lazy patterns in the duckweed on the river. They, and the heron loafing by the bank, watched me as I fiddled with the padlock. Once I'd negotiated that, closed the gate and set off over the bridge the gadwalls concluded that I wasn't anything to bother about and resumed their billing and cooing with a loud chorus of quacks and whistles.

Gadwalls 

River Mersey 

A migrant hawker patrolled the bracken on the other side. The sign warning about muddy paths, so irrelevant for most of this year, became worth bearing in mind as a thin sheet of slimy, muddy water slid over the baked clay of the slope up from the bridge. In its own way it's worse than mud, you can get some traction in mud. There'll be a lot of slippery hill-walking going on across the country.

Walking up to the hides

A quick dekko out from the hide with no name found me some teal, coots and mallards on replenished — just — pools and a passage of swallows and sand martins, some of the swallows stopping to feed youngsters in mid-air. The Sybil Hogg Hide provided more shelter from the rain but no more variety in what I was seeing.

From the hide with no name
The near side of the pool at the front was just about thigh-deep to a mallard.

The rain eased and settled into a thin mizzle as I walked towards the meadows. Red admirals, tough little buggers as they are, were the first butterflies to take flight and they were soon joined by green-veined whites. A Southern hawker zipped up and gave me the eyeball before resuming its patrol of the willows and hawthorns. The squeaking of chiffchaffs and songs of robins were drowned out by a couple of jays unsure whether to continue their squabble over the ownership of an oak tree heavy with acorns or give me a good telling off for passing by. I left them to it and they continued squabbling relatively more quietly.

Green-veined white

Sloes, a tad damp
I think I read somewhere that there are hairstreaks on Woolston Eyes. 

A mixed tit flock were in residence in a stand of elderberry bushes. A large family of long-tailed tits fidgeted about the twigs while chiffchaffs, blue tits and great tits rummaged about in the depths. There's been an excellent passage of warblers through Woolston Eyes this past week or so but it wasn't my lucky day save for chiffchaffs and a couple of willow warblers.

I walked straight to the Morgan Hide and gave the shipping container a wide berth. The breeze wafting through the floor can be welcome on a hot day but not today. The Morgan Hide was snug and I immediately felt smug as I sat down and a Mediterranean gull led a procession of lapwings across the bed and over the far reedbeds. Parties of lapwings kept flying over that way in a leisurely fashion so they weren't being chased by anything.

From the Morgan Hide 

There were more lapwings dotted about the banks, breeding rafts and islands on the pool. Teals, mallards and a handful of shovelers dabbled about. There was a crowd of gadwalls in the far corner. More teals bathed and preened in front of the hide with a handful of snipe. And a green sandpiper pottered about the water's edge.

Green sandpiper 

Green sandpiper 

Snipe, teals and shoveler

Lapwings

When I lived in the Midlands for a time I got quite blasé about green sandpipers, they were regular as clockwork towards the end of July, coinciding with the reappearance of teal on the open water. I struggle with them up here, this was my first of the year. Some years I see far more wood sandpipers than green, which goes against what the books will tell you. It's probably a reflection of my style of birdwatching, I'm not constantly plugging away at less than a handful of sites so I'm needing more luck to be in the right place at the right time. Come to that, there are a lot more suitable wetlands for a passing green sandpiper to drop into now than there were forty years ago.

Snipe and teals

Teals and green sandpiper

Teals, green sandpiper, lapwing and snipe

Lapwing, teals, snipes and grèen sandpiper

I looked in vain for black-necked grebes, all the small grebes were dabchicks. The black-necked grebes are on the move now but I'd hoped one or two might be lingering. Woolston Eyes has had a very good year for them, thirty-odd breeding pairs which is excellent news.

A movement in the scrubby reeds to my right caught my eye. I was conscious of a small bird with a bright chestnut brown back. It would have remained a mystery but on the fourth time of trying I found it giving a nice profile view from a bit of rank willowherb just along the way, showing the rich brown upperparts and lead grey underparts of a freshly-moulted Cetti's warbler. It's very unusual to see one without hearing one.

Immediately in front of the hide half a dozen young pheasants rummaged about on the bank in the company of a snipe. I didn't see the snipe until I stood up to close the window and the bird flew out from the crowd onto the mud.

Pheasant 

I made my way back. The rain threatened but never happened. The air was as thick and damp as a school football team's changing room in February. Goldfinches and greenfinches twittered over the meadows. A great spotted woodpecker called from the trees, song thrushes and blackbirds rummaged in the undergrowth, another mixed tit flock skipped through the bramble patches. Half a dozen stock doves mingled with the squadrons of woodpigeons passing overhead.

Heading for the bridge
I bet Tarzan has no problems with padlocks.

I reached the bridge, crossed over to the gate and realised my worst fears about this visit. I spent ten minutes trying to unlock the padlock. Despite themselves, the gadwalls drifted over to watch. I was on the verge of telephoning for help when I noticed that the key was showing a bit more wear than I was expecting. The padlock opened first time with the right key.

Rush veneer

I walked round to Woolston Weir, the quacks and whistles of gadwalls ringing in my ears. Chiffchaffs squeaked, robins sang, speckled woods and migrant hawkers bustled about the bracken. Some rush veneer moths fluttering about the wayside reminded me of my ignorance of micro-moths. As I approached the weir, and the sound of squabbling coots, a flock of a dozen jackdaws escorted a male marsh harrier over to No.3 Bed where it belonged.

Tufted ducks 

Canada geese, coots, mute swans and great crested grebes congregated at the fork of the river. A raft of a dozen tufted ducks kept well away from the young lads fishing from the bridge over the river. 

Walking to Woolston Weir 

Upstream from Woolston Weir

I crossed over and walked up the river a bit. Mallards outnumbered tufted ducks two to one which outnumbered gadwalls three to one, scarcely surprising given that all the gadwall action was going on round the corner. I checked the buses, I just had time to walk up to Manchester Road for the 100 to the Trafford Centre. So I did.