My Birdwatch Year

It's that time of year when the people at BirdTrack send me a summary of the records I've submitted the previous year. I submit nearly all my records to BirdTrack, I try to get them all submitted at the time but inevitably there's something I miss. Even so, I hope I'm providing useful data for people to work with.

The day I recorded the most species was June 28th when I visited Hodbarrow and Leighton Moss and found 73 species. I recorded at least 50 species in a day 78 times, which isn't bad going given the way I do my birdwatching. 

Unsurprisingly Martin Mere was the place where I recorded the most species last year (93). Checking my records the runners-up were Leighton Moss (83), Pennington Flash (82) and Marshside (81). These are the four front-runners for me every year. My garden list came to 40 species, I'd have guessed at the high twenties.

I was the only person providing records for one 10km² square, the Carlisle train crosses the tiny bit of land in the corner of that square as it goes between Silecroft and Bootle and I record what I'm seeing as we pass by. Whoever submitted data for that area in 2024 didn't last year. I hope they do this year.

It turns out I submitted breeding records for 12 species monitored by the Rare Breeding Birds Panel. I think I've worked out which they all were this year.

Like I say, fingers crossed the data's of some use to somebody. Collecting it gets me out of the house.

Mosses

Blackbird, Irlam Moss

It was a bright, sunny day, surprisingly mild after a bitingly cold night. I wondered what I was going to do with it and decided I was due another wander over Irlam Moss and Chat Moss, perhaps having a look at Little Woolden Moss, too.

As I stood waiting for the train to Irlam the clouds started rolling in. It didn't look like it was likely to rain, though, and nor did it even though it got progressively cloudier as the afternoon went on.

A coal tit sang at Irlam Station when I got off the train. Woodpigeons, blackbirds and goldfinches sang in gardens, I was nearly out of town when the first robins started singing.

Blackbird
The same bird as above. I was standing at the side of the road a while letting cars pass and she was happy to pose.

The hedgerows on Astley Road were fizzing with small birds. Robins and goldfinches sang; great tits, blue tits, chaffinches and greenfinches bounced about the treetops; blackbirds, robins, song thrushes and wrens rummaged about the undergrowth. These hedgerows haven't been that busy in months. 

Looking over towards Roscoe Road 

Out in the fields carrion crows chased each other about, or chased magpies, or were chased by gangs of magpies. Four cock pheasants held a beauty contest in a corner of a field over by Roscoe Road. The usual kestrels were notably absent. Unfortunately, for some reason the road was very busy with cars today so I didn't always give the birdwatching my fullest attention. I'd otherwise timed my visit right: Roscoe Road is closed for resurfacing next week and this stretch of Astley Road is closed the week after.

Astley Road 

As I stood on the verge to let a convoy of cars pass by at Prospect Grange I was joined by a party of long-tailed tits which spent the time tutting at me before moving on to investigate some hawthorn bushes. One of the drivers was a chap I bump into quite often who is very keen on owls. He told me he'd just visited Holly Bush Lane, just the other side of Rixton, and had seen lots of corn buntings and skylarks today. Which is encouraging, locally corn buntings are becoming in very short supply.

Astley Road 

Crossing the motorway the road got quieter, and so did the hedgerows. A goldcrest was the first small bird I saw in the trees, there weren't many titmice or robins about until the stable and paddocks further along. A few carrion crows and magpies rummaged about on the turf fields, there were only a couple of pied wagtails and they were staying on a farmhouse rooftop.

Jelly ear fungus

When I got to Four Lanes End the first thing I saw was a couple of woodpigeons perched on the telephone wires. The second thing I saw was a short-eared owl hunting over the ground below. The owl floated about at knee height before rising and powering across the field. It wheeled back and floated down whence it came, suddenly stopped, spun round on a wing tip and plunged into the long grass just below. The pounce was unsuccessful, it rose immediately and started quartering the field. 

Short-eared owl

Short-eared owl

As it approached the far corner, where there was a small crowd of spectators on the edge of Little Woolden Moss, another owl rose from the grass. There was no obvious direct communication between the two birds but they kept their distance from each other as they hunted over the field. At one point the second bird dropped down and was immediately joined by a kestrel. Kestrels often steal catches off short-eared owls, this time they both went away empty-handed.

I watched the owls a while from the corner by Astley Road, decided not to join the people in the other corner, turned and made my way along Twelve Yards Road.

Twelve Yards Road 

It was late afternoon and the jackdaws and woodpigeons were going to bed and the song thrushes were singing. A flock of skylarks rose from a field of rough and headed over towards Little Woolden Moss. A flight of mallards appeared from Heaven knows where and followed suit.

Chaffinches were gathering to roost in the hedgerows by the farmhouse while robins and great tits retired to the brambles in the land drains. I thought more chaffinches were coming in to roost in the willow plantations by the road and was surprised to find it was half a dozen redpolls. Overhead lesser black-backs headed for Woolston Ees, mallards headed for the pools on Croxden's Moss and magpies flew in to roost in a copse of oak trees.

False turkey tail fungus

Song thrushes, robins and woodpigeons were having one last song before bedtime as I turned into Cutnook Lane. A flock of chaffinches disappeared into the trees, blackbirds and titmice into the bracken. By the time I got to the bottom of the road there were just a few carrion crows and a mistle thrush in the fields. I crossed over the motorway and struck dead lucky getting the next 100 bus to the Trafford Centre. It's nice when things turn out.

Cutnook Lane 

Lightshaw Meadows

Russian white-fronted geese, greylags and Canada geese

It turned out that I didn't have to do a complicated logistics exercise to get Russian white-fronted geese onto the year list after all. A fellow birdwatcher's excellent deductive reasoning led to the report that there was a flock of them on Lightshaw Meadows, roughly halfway between Pennington Flash and Abram. Thanks Colin! 

Mallards

The geese were on the meadows near the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. As it happens the walk along this stretch of the canal between Plank Lane and Abram was already on this year's to-do list so I got it done today. I got the 588 from Leigh Bus Station to Plank Lane, joined the canal and walked westwards down the towpath.

It was a very pleasant walk, though a bit quiet birdwise. A few mallards puttered about in the canal or loafed on the far bank. Woodpigeons, magpies and robins were busy in the trees, a small flock of siskins bounced through a stand of alders. 

Leeds and Liverpool Canal 

I passed under Greggs Bridge, the first of two I had to pass to get to my destination. Blackbirds, great tits and blue tits joined the robins in the wayside. The second bridge was unnamed, Google Maps had told me to follow the road leading to it rather than walking down the towpath. I'm glad I chose my own way, the path from the bridge to the towpath was fenced off, I think it's a private road for the nearby farmhouse. It was a shame, though, as the rise to the bridge would have given the best views of the geese.

Russian white-fronted geese, greylags and Canada geese

I could see the Canada geese in the field and hear the greylags a long time before I could see the white-fronts. They were largely hidden by trees and I had to shuffle up and down the towpath to see them. There were at least twenty of them in total. Their most striking, and in some ways surprising, feature was their small size. I'm used to seeing white-fronted geese in the company of pink-footed geese, which aren't a lot bigger than mallards (though they're a lot chunkier). Consequently I think of white-fronts as being fairly big birds. They're not when they're in the company of greylags and Canada geese.

The white flashes on most of their faces and their pink bills provided easy confirmation that they really were white-fronted geese and that they were Russian white-fronts. I've never seen so many in one place before and it was nice to see them so close to hand.

Russian white-fronted geese and greylags

Russian white-fronted geese and greylags

Russian white-fronted geese and greylags

Having had a long look at the geese I carried on walking down the canal. It was good walking though there was a sharp edge to the wind. My eye was caught by the bright yellow patches of witch's butter on some of the alders by the wayside. This is an odd fungus that feeds on wood-rotting fungus.

Witch's butter

I was most of the way to Abram when I noticed a path dropping down from the towpath into the meadows. Checking the map I found it ran Southwest in a straight line to Wigan Road just North of Golborne, emerging close to a bus stop. I followed the path down out of curiosity and was immediately grateful to get out of the wind.

There was a big pond behind the trees here. Tufted ducks, coots and at least one pair of goosanders puttered about on the water. Titmice, robins and bullfinches bounced about in the trees in front of me. A pair of coal tits made rude noises as they bounced out of a willow thicket and nearly collided with me. I could hear moorhens in the brook running near the path but I was blessed if I could see them.

This one corner of the pond wasn't half-hidden behind layers of trees

Lightshaw Meadows 

Blackbirds and robins were busy in the path verges, not bothering to move very far out of my way as I passed by. There were still haws on some of the hawthorn bushes and they attracted more blackbirds and a couple of redwings. A pair of greylags on a pond a couple of fields away outshouted the birds closer to hand.

The path to Wigan Road 

I had ten minutes to wait for the 360 which goes from Wigan to Warrington. I reckoned to get that to Newton-le-Willows and get the trains home. I hadn't reckoned on its being twenty-five minutes late. Had the information online been any better I'd have walked into Golborne and got a bus to Wigan or Leigh. So it was that I was sat at Newton-le-Willows Station for forty minutes counting chaffinches and goldfinches in the trees. But for once the trains behaved impeccably and I was soon pouring a pot of hot tea down me after a good afternoon stroll. I think this is another of those walks that would do well in late Spring for warblers.

Southport

Lapwings and wigeons, Crossens Inner Marsh

It was another grey morning after another night's rain. As I watched the spadgers, goldfinches and titmice plundering sunflower seeds I pondered the day's options. There's been a huge influx of Russian white-fronted geese into the country with big flocks turning up all over the shop. The big flocks in the Northwest have all been found North of the Ribble in places that are logistically tricky, but mostly not impossible, to get to by public transport. I could give that a go. Alternatively, there have been smaller groups seen on and off on Crossens Outer Marsh… that seemed a more sensible place to try first.

Not even half-past February and the daffodils are in flower

Once the Southport train managed to escape the congestion at Oxford Road it behaved impeccably, I had two minutes' wait for the 44 bus and it was still morning, just, when I started walking down Marshside Road. There was more molehill than grass on the school's rugby pitch and instead of the crowd scenes I'd been seeing earlier in the Winter there was one woodpigeon and a pink-footed goose looking decidedly under the weather.

Sutton's Marsh 

Both Rimmer's Marsh to the left of the road and Sutton's Marsh to the right were awash. Wigeons, teal and lapwings littered the marshes in their hundreds; starlings, mallards and shovelers by the score. A few small groups of Canada geese loafed on Sutton's Marsh, as did mute swans, shelducks and a heron. Pintails and tufted ducks cruised about on Rimmer's. Every so often the lapwings on Sutton's Marsh would erupt. Most of the time it was one of the great black-backs passing by or the immature kestrel. One time the lapwings were up and stayed up a while while a female merlin tried — and failed — to knock one of them out of the sky. 

Tufted ducks blowing in the wind

A female scaup had been reported earlier amongst the tufted ducks on Junction Pool. I wasn't seeing it but as the pool was one big lake between Marshside Road and Hesketh Road it could have been anywhere by now. (I learned later that it had gone over to the pool by the Hesketh Road platform.) What I did see, though, was lots of Springtime friskiness amongst the ducks and coots, and even amongst a pair of great black-backs.

Shoveler, pintail and tufted duck

I walked down to Nels Hide, pausing to have a scan round at the refurbished Halfway Viewpoint. For most of the length of the path the vegetation on the bank has been chopped down so I could see most of the marsh as I went along. Shovelers, pintails, mallards and tufted ducks cruised about apparently aimlessly.

The Halfway viewpoint 

The view from Nels Hide 

I didn't linger at Nels. Long enough to find a redshank and a snipe in the nearby flooded vegetation and a lone black-tailed godwit wading by one of the islands across the way.

Across the road the salt marsh was quiet. A few black-headed gulls, herring gulls and woodpigeons flew about. Way out a female-type marsh harrier was floating low over the edge of the marsh. 

Sandgrounders was very quiet of both people and birds. A ruff, one of the white-headed males, rummaged about in the grass amongst some lapwings. A charm of goldfinches twittered in the hawthorns behind the hide as I left.

Pintails and mallards

The salt marsh North of the sand plant was livelier. Mallards and pintails clustered in the pools with a couple of little egrets. The pink-feet were numerous but distant, betrayed by sentinel heads poking up from the long grass. About a hundred of them suddenly exploded out of the marsh and flew over towards Banks, panicked by a buzzard that had emerged from the marsh and was slowly wheeling up on the thermals. A later panic was occasioned by a female-type marsh harrier floating over the distant marsh.

Snowdrops

On the inner marsh there were plenty of teal and wigeons crowding the little islands and shallows. The mallards, shovelers and gadwalls seemed to be mostly paired up. Another eruption of lapwings — a passing great black-back — brought up a flock of starlings as well as a single golden plover. A few goldfinches twittered about and a couple of robins fossicked about in the brambles but there weren't many small birds about. I had nearly reached the boundary fence with Crossens Marsh before the first skylarks started singing.

Pink-footed geese 

Marshside Inner Marsh 

Crossens Inner Marsh 

Crossens Inner Marsh was jam-packed with wigeons, teals and lapwings. Mallards, shelducks and black-headed gulls played supporting roles. I spotted another ruff skittering across a small puddle and that led me to a flock of a dozen dunlins fussing about between the wigeons on a larger puddle.

Crossens Outer Marsh 
There are thousands of geese out there

On Crossens Outer Marsh the geese were numerous but mostly very distant. There were less than a dozen near the road and all very skittish.

Pink-footed geese

I had a sit down at McCarthy's viewpoint and did my best to scan the distant geese. There wasn't a cat in Hell's chance of my identifying any bean geese or white-fronts, I had to assume that the thousand or more small grey geese were pink-feet. The small black, white and grey geese were two barnacle geese and I felt very pleased with myself for managing to pick them out.

A passing aeroplane brought up a lot of the geese on Banks Marsh and a few dozen of them flew over this way. Most of them didn't settle long and were soon back over with the distant crowds. It wasn't just the daffodils and frisky waterfowl that were giving off end-of-March vibes, the geese definitely had itchy feet.

Pink-footed geese

Curlews

Rather despite myself I found myself walking down the bund back to Marshside. Pintails and shovelers joined the wigeons and teal on this side of Crossens Inner Marsh. A few curlews passed over, a couple roamed the marsh. Black-tailed godwits were in ones and twos, a very different picture to the crowds earlier in the Winter. A few pied wagtails skittered about, displaced by from the water treatment works by a maintenance crew.

Wigeons and teals

Wigeons and teals

Wigeons

As I approached the point where I drop off the bund and go past the school for the bus back to Southport I debated carrying on down past the golf club to Hesketh Road to see if I couldn't get the scaup into the day's tally. I got the bus back and was grateful to get a seat on the train with enough leg room to do the knee and ankle stretch exercises.

Dreich

I worry that I've become a fair-weather birdwatcher. Today's plan was to have a toddle round the Chorlton stretch of the Mersey Valley, which I've not got round to yet this year. It was a murky morning after a very wet night and I wasn't feeling enthusiastic. I put my coat on, opened the front door and it started pouring down. I got a cup of tea.

Glancing over the road there were fewer gulls than normal on the playing field, which is odd when it's raining and just before the kids' lunch break. Half a dozen black-headed gulls with a couple of common gulls and a first-Winter herring gull. Most of the herring gulls the past couple of weeks have been first-Winters. Then there was another gull standing over on its own. A rather striking individual, the wings and body the dark browns of a first-Winter gull but with a predominantly white head and breast, as if it was wearing a hood. At first sight I thought it might be a first-Winter great black-back but it wasn't nearly big and massive enough. It was a first-Winter yellow-legged gull. Not for the first time I wished I could point a pair of binoculars and a big lens that way for a better look at a gull.

I was feeling scratchy so I got the train into town and played train station bingo at Piccadilly. The next train I didn't have to rush for that I wouldn't have to get off at Stockport was the Buxton train. My monthly travel card lets me ride this route as far as New Mills Newtown. I've been meaning for years to do a reconnaissance of the walk along the River Goyt here, for over forty years New Mills has been some place I've passed through and gaped as I've gone by the river gorge. I'd have a quick look to get my bearings then get the train back from New Mills Central. It's a fifteen minute walk between stations, passing both the Peak Forest Canal and the river along the way, and pairs of jackdaws chakking from every fourth chimney top.

Torr Vale Mill from Union Street 

From the bridge where Union Street crosses the river I could check out the riverside walks and see how the Millennium Path drops down from behind the bus stop near New Mills Central. Yes, there's definitely a good-looking walk there. As if to tempt me it stopped raining and the sun threatened to come out. Common sense prevailed and I went for the train.

A lollypop lady advised me the road was closed, even to pedestrians, and the best bet was to drop down to the river and take the bridge round to the station. As I was walking down the step path down I wondered if I hadn't been better stopping up top and getting the bus to Glossop. I'm glad I didn't, it was a bit of an unexpected effort but well worth it. The river was very fast and thundered over rapids by Torr Vale Mill. Great tits and robins sang in the trees. 

Union Street from the river

Torr Vale Mill, the River Goyt and the Millennium Walkway 

The bridge to the station turned out to be the Millennium Walkway, a curving shelf high over the sharp bend of the river. The views are smashing but it doesn't do to be the sort of person who's seen too many B-movie serials with cliffhangers including collapsing structures. But the views are brilliant.

River Goyt

This is the sort of environment where you'd hope to see dippers and grey wagtails. So I was glad to see a grey wagtail fossicking about on the gravel beach inside the river bend. The river was probably too fast and deep for dippers today.

The steep path up to the station was not unexpected but still took the wind out of my sails. For once I was glad a train was four minutes late.

Colwyn Bay

Cormorants
There wasn't any shortage of perches, the original sitter was evicted just out of spite.

The train services are going to be bedlam next week, Manchester Piccadilly is closed for something or other again. I thought I'd best get one or two of the long-distance jaunts done and dusted this week, trains and weather permitting.

February's a good time for checking out the rafts of common scoters in Colwyn Bay. There are reports of a surf scoter this week (is it the same one every year?), it would be good to get them both on the year list and it's a very nice walk from the station to Old Colwyn.

Colwyn Bay Pier

Arriving at Colwyn Bay it's literally just a matter of walking out of the station, taking the footpath under the line and hey presto! there's the pier. The tide was lowish but on the turn. It doesn't go out very far here compared Liverpool Bay so seawatching was a practicable option.

Looking over towards Old Colwyn 

Seawatching's an odd business. You arrive, you look at the sea through your binoculars, not a sausage save a few waves. Then half a minute in you start seeing objects on the waves and half a minute after that you start recognising them. The weather was on my side today, dull but with good visibility up to about five miles, though the wind farm on the horizon was misty. Bright, sunny weather can bring out so much glare and contrast on the water you can't see anything properly. I had a fighting chance today and was soon seeing distant black blobs which eventually resolved themselves into scores of drake common scoters. I couldn't work out if I couldn't see any female scoters because they were too far away for me to pick up or if they just weren't there.

Herring gulls

I walked along a bit. Robins and a coal tit sang from the railway embankment. Herring gulls and black-headed gulls flew about making a racket, perched on lampposts and made a racket or bathed in the sea and made a racket. Cormorants perched on marker cones. Great crested grebes dived in the surf after dabs. I'm always surprised there aren't more waders here, I suppose it's because it's such a short beach and the promenade is always busy with people. Turnstones never seem unduly fussed by people, a dozen of them were busy throwing seaweed about by the car park.

Turnstones

The further I walked the more scoters I was seeing, there were hundreds of them out there with hints of plenty more beyond as every so often a stocky black speck would fly across the waves. Some of the rafts drifted closer inland but still well beyond my camera's capabilities (don't think I didn't try and don't think I didn't bin the results). I started to be able to pick out a few female scoters but they were still very heavily outnumbered by the drakes. A couple of paler objects had me baffled. Luckily they were drifting forward slower than I was walking and after a good five minutes' worth of head-scratching and bad language I finally recognised them as a pair of red-breasted mergansers. It was worth the effort, though, as the raft of scoters they were shadowing included a drake velvet scoter. I very much doubt if I could have picked it out with binoculars had it not raised itself up and given its wings a good stretch, letting me see the big which patch on each of them.

The sea was drifting in as I walked into Old Colwyn

A lady stopped me and asked me what was out there. She'd seen a group of people with telescopes on the fisherman's pier in Old Colwyn and here was me with a pair of bins. She was surprised to hear there were thousands of ducks out there every Winter and even more so when I lent her the bins and she could see a lot of them.

Looking back to Colwyn Bay

I walked down into Old Colwyn and stared out to sea from the fisherman's pier. If the surf scoter was about I wasn't seeing it, or was seeing it but not being able to identify it at that distance. I wasn't terribly disappointed, I'd got two out of the three species of scoter on offer onto my year list and had an exceedingly pleasant walk.

Old Colwyn 

I checked the train times and found that if I put a shift on I could get the next train back. I got it with four minutes to spare. I was ever so glad there was a trolley service and I could have a cup of tea.