West Kirby

Scaup

It was grey but slightly milder than yesterday. I decided I'd have a gentle potter about West Kirby Marine Lake to see if the scaup that's been reported there lately was still about.

There was a bit of a hiccup with trains on the West Kirby line so I arrived later than intended and walked over to the lake. It was high tide, the walkway on the outer rim of the lake indicated by the tops of a few stones. The windsurfers were out in numbers, it was that kind of weather.

Herring gull

Herring gulls hovered around the lake, occasionally settling down by the outer rim,  mostly content to check the place out then return to the nearby rooftops. A lesser black-back cruised out of the way of the windsurfers until one took a spill in its direction and it flew off. Waders were notably absent, the few that would be about would be roosting on the eyes and Hilbre this time of year. A pied wagtail fossicked about the base of the sea wall.

Pied wagtail

I wondered if I had much chance of seeing the scaup. It very obligingly came over to greet me.

Scaup

Scaup
I'm always surprised by how long a scaup's beak is.

Scaup

Scaup

Scaup

Scaup

Job done, just this once I went straight home. Just to show I can do it.

Etherow Country Park

Pied flycatcher, Keg Wood

I waited for the rain to be done and dusted before heading over to Etherow Country Park to see if I could get mandarin duck and dipper onto the tally for the month.

Coot

The Canada geese and one of the mute swans lurked by the car park hoping for goodies from passersby. There were only a couple of mallards and the only coot was sitting on its nest. The little canal was similarly quiet, the few ducks about lurked in the willow roots by the bank. A pair of mandarins skulked under the little bridge over the canal.

Blackbirds, dunnocks and robins rummaged about on the roadside. Blackbirds, robins, willow warblers and a chiffchaff sang in the trees and a green woodpecker yaffled from somewhere over in Ernocroft Wood.

Horse chestnuts by the canal

There was another pair of mandarin ducks on the river and a family of grey wagtails up by the weir bridge. I had no luck finding any dippers. Meanwhile, a pair of blue tits shuttled constantly between the wood and their nest by the bridge.

Keg Wood 

I had a walk around Keg Wood. It seemed quiet at first, just robins and blackbirds singing and a great spotted woodpecker barracking me as I passed by. As I walked in deeper chiffchaffs and blackcaps joined the songscape, blackcaps soon becoming the dominant feature. Woodpigeons, wrens, dunnocks and coal tits joined in and chaffinches sang from the woodland margins up the hill. 

At the bend by one of the sitting areas two blackcaps were having a singing duel with a blackbird singing in the background. A fourth bird piped up, at first I thought it was another blackcap warming up but the song stayed rushed and slightly scratchy and I had me a garden warbler on the tally.

Pied flycatcher

I had a sit down by Sunny Corner. Nuthatches, great tits and a grey squirrel came over to see if I was providing food and gave hard stares when it became apparent I wasn't. A pheasant called from somewhere and blue tits fidgeted about in the trees. A little further along a small pale something flitted through the trees like a butterfly with unusually direct flight. It remained a puzzle until I noticed it alight on a dead branch. Luckily for me it stayed put so I could identify it as a pied flycatcher. I stayed still and watched it catching flies for a few minutes then, as it hasn't been bothered when a couple walked by with a dog I got a few photos taken to make sure I hadn't fallen asleep at Sunny Corner and dreamt it. It was a bonny little bird.

Pied flycatcher

Pied flycatcher

Pied flycatcher

It was obviously a much-favoured perch, the flycatcher was back later on as I was on my way back. I retraced my steps because I knew the knees weren't going to be happy with the slope up from Keg Pool. I'll have to try and remember which bend the dead branch is on, just in case the bird's still around next time I visit.

Pied flycatcher

Pied flycatcher

Pied flycatcher

Treecreeper

A treecreeper on the next tree along was a nice bonus.

Treecreeper

No visit to Etherow Country Park should be without a few pictures of mandarin ducks. The pair on the canal were having a bath out in the open.

Mandarin duck

Mandarin duck

Mandarin duck

Mandarin duck

While I was waiting for the bus home at Stockport Interchange I had a look to see if anything was on the river. A grey wagtail flitted about the bankside and a family of goosanders slept under the bridge.

Goosanders, ducklings (front) and duck

New arrival

 Yay! The first spadgling of the season has arrived in the back garden.

House sparrow

Home thoughts

The female spadgers are out in groups in the back garden, which suggests the spadglings should be having their coming out parties this week. I'll have to replenish the fat feeders ready for them. 

Had the weather been warmer and less windy I'd have opened the windows so the spadgers and blue tits could have a go at the spiders webs they've been trying to peck at from outside. The blue tits are looking frazzled, the hens always look the worse for it as they do the bulk of the sitting and don't have much time for bathing or preening and almost always get bothered by mites. I actually caught the male coal tit slipping into the garden today, too.

The dawn chorus continues to be an attenuated process. The blackbird territories are a bit fuzzy, they seem to share the little park (an acre of mown grass) on the other side of the railway. The robins' boundaries are, inevitably, much firmer stuff. Literally, again, this year as the road is the boundary between "my" robin and the school's. Every so often they hurl songs at each other across the divide. The blackcap's singing less during the day now, which suggests he has more than his own mouth to feed.

The swifts are around but not showing much. Most evenings half a dozen of them wheel high above the shops on Barton Road but I've not seen them drift over this way yet. I've had no luck with the local bat-hunting, either. I'm hoping the warmer weather forecast at the end of the week might turn that round.

• Blackbird 2 singing
• Blackcap 1 singing
• Blue tit 2
• Coal tit 1
• Collared dove 1 singing
• Feral pigeon 2 overhead
• Goldfinch 1
• Great tit 2, 1 singing
• House sparrow 7
• Jackdaw 2
• Lesser black-back 2 overhead
• Long-tailed tit 2
• Robin 1 singing
• Starling 3
• Woodpigeon 3, 1 singing 
• Wren 1 singing

Irlam Moss

Lapwing

It was a thoroughly dreich day. So much so that I watched the cup final and though I was happy with the result I wasn't impressed by the football. I decided to go out for a walk in the rain.

Astley Road 
It doesn't look right, flat and level like a normal road.

I got the train the couple of stops to Irlam and had a walk up Astley Road and back down Roscoe Road just to see what was about. The songbirds were in full song, possibly in defiance of the vile weather. Blackbirds, robins and wrens did the heavy lifting supported by blackcaps, goldfinches, dunnocks, chaffinches and song thrushes. The local blackbird population is booming and those male blackbirds not busy getting beakfuls of worms from the fields were in full song atop the tall hawthorn bushes. There weren't enough large bushes to go round so some had to share. There weren't many chiffchaffs about until after I'd passed the Jack Russell's gate and a couple of whitethroats sang out in the field margins.

By Astley Road

The turf fields were littered with blackbirds, woodpigeons, starlings and song thrushes. Every field margin had at least one pair of pheasants and an unmown section of one field was a jostle of pheasants and woodpigeons.

It's a good year for butterburs with ginormous leaves

At the entrance to Prospect Grange I scanned the field by the motorway. A swarm of swallows hawked low over the treetops way over on the motorway embankment. I had the impression that there were some house martins in there but it took a while for a couple to fly in front of the trees and have the flash of white rumps confirm it.

Blackbird, goldfinch and greenfinch

I wandered back down Roscoe Road in the pouring rain. It was cold and wet but none of my joints ached, which didn't and doesn't make any sense to me but I'm not complaining about it. Overhead there was a steady passage of lesser black-backs heading to the roost on Woolston Eyes. Robins, dunnocks and blackbirds rummaged about on the roadside while more of them sang in the hedgerows. Lapwings stood about in the fields on their own or chased after jackdaws that had pushed their luck. Titmice and greenfinches flitted about, goldfinches twittered from treetops and telegraph poles, and a couple of meadow pipits called as they flew across the road between stubble fields.

Butterburs with even more ginormous leaves 

By Roscoe Road 

I'd been looking for grey partridges and finally found one, but not where I had been looking. I'd been scanning the fields margins and stubble fields. One of the turf fields had been stripped, leaving black, peaty soil behind it. And there out in the middle of it was a partridge. It was a juvenile bird, not quite full-sized, very streaky with straw yellow on brown and it stood out a mile against the black soil. Had it hunkered down the same way in the stubble field across the road I'd have struggled to see it.

Three oystercatchers flew low over the fields then skimmed the rooftops as they flew into the distance. I wondered where they'd been and where they were going.

Hawthorn 

I had a while to wait for the 100 to the Trafford Centre and the connection there with the bus home wasn't clever so I decided to do the weekly shop in Irlam and get the train home. Which turned out to be a mistake, timetables and cancellations being as they are. Luckily, thanks to the good offices of the guard on the train into Manchester and the platform manager at Oxford Road I only got home half an hour late. The timetable said it should have been three hours.

Mersey Valley

Canada geese and goslings. coot, mallards, goosanders and lapwing, Broad Ees Dole

The thing that's struck me this year is how drawn out the dawn chorus has become. It's almost as if after a cold night the singers are waiting to get warmed up before joining in. The blackbird and robin are always early doors, though they were later than usual this morning. There was more than an hour's gap between their finishing their overtures and the woodpigeons and collared doves starting their vocals and an age before the blackcap joined in. I fell asleep before the wren made an entrance, if it did.

It had been a busy night and I didn't have the energy for any of the day's plans, nor indeed anyone else's plans to waste my time. I watched the spadgers coming in to inspect the back garden before going back to feed the kids, the first spadglings must be due soon, the baby starlings are mostly out and pestering their parents in the treetops. It was good to see the male blackcap doing his bit against gooseberry sawfly, much appreciated mate. It was late afternoon before I could shake off the weltschmerz and later yet I finally got my boots on.

The path onto Stretford Meadows on the left, the Transpennine Trail around the meadows on the right

I wandered over to Stretford Meadows, just because. It was bright and sunny and yet still cool, especially when the sun passed behind a cloud. The house sparrows were very busy along Newcroft Road and blackbirds, blackcaps and robins sang in the trees around the garden centre and car park. Despite yesterday's rain there was only a small patch of mud at the entrance to the meadows and scarce any on my wander round the meadows, it really has been a dry Spring even if this month is a cold one.

Stretford Meadows 

There was enough warmth in the sun to coax the orange tip butterflies out into the open. Unlike the birds. There were plenty of those about but they were keeping a very low profile. Titmice, dunnocks, sparrows and greenfinches fidgeted about in the cover of bushes and brambles, the magpies and woodpigeons rummaged about in the long grass, robins, wrens and whitethroats sang from the depths of bramble patches and heaven alone knows where the pheasants were calling from. Even the goldfinches were twittering from well inside hawthorns and oak bushes.

Red campion 

Often I find that I'm walking these meadows and seeing and hearing very little on the ground while there's busy traffic overhead. Today the reverse was true: the sky was deserted save from a high-flying lesser black-back and half a dozen jackdaws commuting between the fields South of the Mersey and town.

Stretford Meadows 
Looking up the mound

I was keeping an ear out for any hints of lesser whitethroats, without any success, which wasn't surprising given the weather. They tend to be the last warblers arriving locally and I can't imagine they'd be in any hurry to arrive before the warm weather returned. I did pick up on a pair of reed buntings quietly fossicking about in a willow herb patch.

Joining the Transpennine Trail 

Chiffchaffs were a notable omission from the songscape on the meadows, there were a few of them singing along the Transpennine trail as I walked down beside Kickety Brook. They struggled to be heard, song thrushes sang along the motorway embankment and ring-necked parakeets screeched in the trees by the recycling point.  Blue tits and long-tailed tits bustled their way through the hedgerows with huge beakfuls full of insects. There were yet more of them in the willows along the brook on the other side of Chester Road. I was surprised that the greenfinches outnumbered the sparrows in the brambles along here.

Walking by Kickety Brook 

Willow warblers joined the chiffchaffs singing on Stretford Ees. Aside from the sparrows in the hedgerows by the cemetery it felt quiet despite the rich songscape, the birds were keeping well into cover. Except the inevitable carrion crows and jackdaws flying overhead and the raven cronking its way over the Mersey Valley. A grey wagtail rummaged about the riverbank and took great exception to a couple walking down to sit on the bank.

Grey wagtail

A Cetti's warbler sang at the lakeside by the entrance to Sale Water Park. I've not heard one here for a while, I think it's a newcomer as the previous territories were around the pylons and hide by Broad Ees Dole. For a couple of minutes I thought the great crested grebe preening on the lake had a couple of humbugs nestling in its back feathers but it was the bird with the injured wing jostling its injured wing about. It's a tough old bird, it must be flightless but it's survived for years nevertheless.

Great crested grebe

Mallards, lapwing, Canada geese and goslings, coot and goosanders

A reed warbler sang in a patch of reeds the size of a pillowcase by the entrance to Broad Ees Dole. The teal pool was quiet, just a pair of gadwalls cruising by the reeds. The pool in front of the hide was heaving. Three pairs of Canada geese had goslings and I'm not convinced the goslings knew who they belonged to, one pair seemed to have more tagging along behind them after they left the island than when they arrived. A pair of goosanders and some mallards dozed on the island and a couple of coots were asleep on their nests. A couple of magpies made a nuisance of themselves. After the geese had made it abundantly clear the goslings were off-limits they bounced over to pester a lapwing that had been minding its own business. When that paled they moved on to a pair of dozing gadwalls that foiled them by slipping off the island and sleeping just offshore. A moorhen shepherded its youngster well away, just to be careful. Any time it had to walk away from the chick it made sure it was near the goslings.

Closer by, a heron lurked by the near bank before deciding to try its luck over on the far side by the trees. I don't know what it was catching there, it didn't look like fish.

Heron
About a quarter of a second after the photo I was hoping to get!

Sale Water Park 

Moving on, a few lesser black-backs bathed in the lake and a herd of mute swans cruised about like they were on naval manoeuvres. The songscape had all the usual suspects with reed buntings joining in from the hawthorn bushes by the lake. The islands at the Eastern end of the lake seemed to have as many singing birds as all the rest of the lakeside margins combined.

The ring-necked parakeets out-shouted the magpies, woodpigeons and blackbirds as I headed off home for a chippie tea.

Leighton Moss

Oystercatchers

It was a day of sunshine and thundery showers but at least the wind had calmed down a lot. I decided I'd visit Leighton Moss, if the weather turned dodgy I could shelter in the hides or get a cup of tea in the visitor centre and it wasn't a long walk for the train home.

I got the Barrow train and stayed on to Ulverston to have a look at the Morecambe Bay estuaries. As the train passed the coastal hides at Leighton Moss I could see there were plenty of mute swans and little egrets on the outer pools and a small flock of black-tailed godwits near the Eric Morecambe Hide. The pool by the Allen Hide is largely hidden from the train by trees, I could see bits of white islands which I guess would be the nesting black-headed gulls and it's likely there'd be avocets in there, too, as I didn't see any on the outer pools.

Small gaggles of greylags grazed in fields between Silverdale and Arnside. This time of year I'd expect to see plenty of swallows around Arnside, I just saw the one today. The salt marsh on the other side of the Kent was bone dry, a few jackdaws and carrion crows pottered about amongst the sheep. The salt marshes by the Leven were slightly wetter, a few pools had water and little egrets and greylags were dotted around.

A few pairs of eiders cruised on the Leven as the train passed over the viaduct, the drakes looking very spruce indeed. I wonder why the start of the year was so barren of them. The train startled a grey wagtail which flew up then returned to the rocks below, a flash of lemon yellow and grey. A couple of pairs of shelducks pottered about on the mud on the other side.

I had a quarter of an hour's wait at Ulverston. The station songscape was rich: blackbirds, robins and a song thrush did most of the work with a couple of wren solos; a blackcap and a chiffchaff sang further down the line. The lesser black-backs outnumbered the herring gulls but it was herring gulls that seemed to be sitting on nests, I'd seen a couple of lesser black-backs on nests on the edge of town on the way in.

There were about a dozen eiders on the inland side of the Leven viaduct on the way back to Silverdale, and also a common sandpiper on the mud. The first red deer of the day watched the train pass by just outside Cark, another was browsing the marsh by the Kent.

I got off at Silverdale Station where the house sparrows were bustling about their business and walked round to Leighton Moss. The weather was fine but some of the clouds upwind looked ominous. I kept my fingers crossed.

Though the feeders have been taken down by the Hideout there was still plenty of activity in the trees and bushes nearby. Chiffchaffs, robins and blackcaps sang and the mallards seemed to be getting by tidying up after picnics.

Getting a record photo of one of the little gulls (the white blob in the middle of the picture) would have been a challenge beyond my capability even before the camera's autofocus locked on the photo-bombing black-headed gull 

There was a clamour from the black-headed gulls nesting at Lilian's Hide. I'd barely sat down before I noticed there was a little gull amongst the cloud of black-headed gulls and swifts wheeling about the other side of the pool . In fact, there were two, both first-calendar-year birds. A few pairs of gadwalls, mallards and pochards pottered about and a shoveler dozed in the reeds. I also noticed that the great black-backs were back to nesting on the osprey platform in the distance. A big vote of thanks to the chap who spotted a bittern flying over the reeds over towards the causeway. 

Black-headed gulls on their nests

The willow scrub on the way to the reedbeds was quietly busy. The chiffchaffs gave way to the willow warblers, with backing vocals from Reed warblers and just the one Cetti's warbler, and a sedge warbler sang in the willows behind the seat at the corner. Great tits and robins fossicked about the pathside, blue tits bounced about in the trees, all were quiet and too busy to be bothered with people.

Heading for the reedbeds

The weather's been so cool lately it's been dismal for dragonflies and butterflies. I'd only seen the one damselfly so far this year, a blue-tailed damselfly at Pennington Flash. I added a couple more to the tally today, and was as slow on the uptake at identifying what I was looking at as I had been then.

For all that the swifts were swarming over the pools and drains there weren't many hirundines about, just a couple of swallows and a house martin. Perhaps they were all over at the causeway pool. Looking at the train times and the big black cloud looming over the horizon I wasn't going to be going that way today. Reed buntings, reed warblers and greenfinches sang in the reedbeds. I was struck by how dry the ground was, the margins by the path were hard-baked mud despite the cool weather. I thought I could hear bearded tits but concluded it was wishful thinking and dried reed stems cracking in the breeze.

The main drain through Leighton Moss 

A chap walking back enthused about the good views he'd been having of bitterns at the Griesdale Hide so i headed that way first. It was heaving, standing room only, I didn't linger. A few red deer hinds grazing by the side of the hide were the highlight. A couple of rolls of thunder reminded me to watch the time for the last reliable train home of the afternoon.

Oystercatchers
The changing of the guard on the nest.

It was considerably calmer at the Tim Jackson Hide. Gadwalls dabbled and bathed, mallards and coots sat on nests and kept beady eyes on a heron stalking round. The oystercatchers were back on their usual nest stop the sand martin nest box, one feeding on the mud and one sitting, until the time came to swap places. My only marsh harrier of the day, a female, drifted over from the coastal hides and headed towards the Griesdale Hide.

Walking back through the reedbeds 

On the walk back I could definitely hear bearded tits. I wondered where they were then a female flew across the path right in front of me and disappeared into the reeds. A fleeting view but it's always gratifying to get a close encounter with them away from the grit trays.

The sparrows were still busy at Silverdale Station, as was a coal tit ferrying food to its nest. The wind suddenly blew up and the sky went black. It started heaving down a couple of minutes before the train arrived. I couldn't complain, I'd struck very lucky with the birdwatching.