The annual contemplation of Autumn migration

After three very rough days I'm feeling better though not yet 100%, my nose sounding like the creaking of a windjammer at dock in a Summer breeze and the get up and go being fine in theory but missing in action in practice. I was bored with the cough by Monday night. Correlation is not causation but my first bad cold in years follows my not wearing a mask on public transport for three days because I'd broken the string and the other two were in the wash. I felt it particularly yesterday as I lay in bed looking at the sun streaming through the window. A weekend of overlapping storms lies ahead and I haven't the energy to feel grumpy about it.

I had hoped to get visits to Marshside and Martin Mere in this week. They're both always good Autumn birdwatching, I'll get round to both a.s.a.p. Goose watching is always a feature this time of year and both deliver well. Banks Marsh is also tempting this time of year, I notice Russian white-fronted geese and an American wigeon have been reported today. A Ross' goose at Pilling is a very tempting year tick, I hope it hangs on a while, ditto the spotted sandpiper in a muddy field at Nostell Priory.

The Northern Isles, the Scillies and Flamborough Head have been issuing their traditional firework displays of rare bird sightings. Having seen excellent photos of the chestnut bunting on Unst and the rufous-tailed robin at Flamborough I remain unconvinced I could recognise either in the field. Which is why even though I feel uncomfortable at twitches I will go along to one every so often: someone will put you onto the bird and if you keep your ears as open as your eyes you'll start picking up the necessary ID features. These hotspots are temperamentally as much as logistically beyond me, I don't want to be trapped in a continuous birdwatching ferment though that's precisely the excitement many people are hoping for when they go. Bempton can get very busy but I can make a day trip of it, don't think I wouldn't have been tempted to bob over there looking for leaf warblers.

And of course, this time of year anything can turn up anywhere, and is probably unnoticed and unrecognised when it does. So it's worth double-checking when you see anything not quite. If an American pipit can set up camp just outside Northampton who knows what there might be elsewhere? And there's always that element of luck, too. Locally, someone reported a ring ousel flying over Stretford Meadows. That one passed by isn't astonishing, a thin stream of them passes through the Northwest each Autumn, the visible migration watches on Winter Hill and Woolston Eyes pick them up regularly.  The remarkable thing is the coincidence between a lone bird passing over and a person capable of identifying it being at the right place and happening to look up at the right time in the right direction. Luck plays a huge role in anyone's year list and it's not to be despised.

It's probably a good job I've been laid up this past few days without the energy for envy and despair. Tomorrow is another day, and by all forecasts it's going to be a wet one. A walk over to Cob Kiln Wood defeated me the other day before I even got there, let's see if I can get to the shops.

Leighton Moss

Shoveler

Either I've got a cold or my putting the central heating on a week early has put enough warm dust into the air to turn me into the bubbly snot monster with one of those coughs like a yapping dog. Either way, I decided that the rather ambitious plans for the day would be imprudent. Especially as I'd managed to sleep through the alarm. I got me an old man's explorer ticket and headed North.

It was likely the last nice day of the week. Woodpigeons, corvids and black-headed gulls dotted the fields along the way. The tide was low so the curlews and redshanks on the Kent Estuary at Arnside were scattered and distant. I was sitting on the inland side of the train watching teals erupt from the land drains on the Meathop side of the estuary. A couple of dozen wigeons abandoned the viaduct embankment as the train passed over the Leven.

The train was making good time so I decided to stay on as far as Dalton-in-Furness and wait the eight minutes for the train back to Silverdale. This turned out to be a mistake, we were on slow running after Ulverstone and I missed the train by a couple of minutes. So I stayed on to Barrow, nipped over the road for a butty, bought a hot chocolate at the Station café and watched the red admiral butterflies skittering about the platform as I waited for the next train back. The walk over to the shop for the butty confirmed that yes, I had a cold and yes, I was in no fit state for yomping over the open countryside. I'd have fifty minutes at Leighton Moss, see what I could see and get the train back to Manchester. I have to admit that a lot of me was for not bothering with Leighton Moss.

Sitting on the seaward side of the train I saw a few dozen wigeons, and just the one duck eider, on the Leven. The salt marsh on the other side was littered with geese. A couple of dozen greylags grazed by the estuary, a couple of hundred pink-footed geese grazed on the salt marsh beyond. Little egrets and carrion crows peppered the salt marsh between Kents Bank and Meathop, a dozen shelducks dabbled on the beach at Grange-over-Sands. A redhead goosander drifted past the loafing mallards on the mud bank by Arnside Viaduct.

Robin

House sparrows bustled about Silverdale Station. I walked round to the Leighton Moss visitor centre where three robins were singing at each other in the hedgerows. The feeding stations haven't yet resumed at the Hideout, which didn't stop robins and great tits making it abundantly clear that they were expecting feeding. I apologised profusely, I wasn't in a fit state for punch-ups with hungry passerines. Try as I might I couldn't find sight or sound of marsh tits and didn't have the time or energy for going hunting after them in the wet woodlands. I'll have to come back in a week or so, and also try and connect with the bearded tits on the grit trays.

Pintail 

I spent most of my time at Lilian's Hide, which was busy with coots and ducks. Most of the coots were cruising round the pool in a small raft, a few barged around on the near bank where the ducks were trying to get some sleep. There were equal numbers of mallards and teals though the teals took some finding in the grass. As did the snipe nestled in with them. There were about a dozen each of pintails and gadwalls and just the half dozen shovelers. Moorhens pottered about and I could hear a water rail muttering to itself but couldn't find it.

Pintails

Pintails, shovelers and gadwalls 

Pintail

It was sunny and just warm enough for dragonflies to be zipping about. Most were, almost inevitably, common darters but a couple of migrant hawkers skimmed low over the reeds.

At Lilian's Hide 

A female-type marsh harrier rose from the reeds over by the causeway, looked like it was coming this way then circled back and landed not far from where it started. Another about ten minutes later was a different bird, showing a lot of pale fringes to its wing coverts.

I looked at the time and had to make a decision: catch the Manchester train due in ten minutes or spend a couple of hours pottering about before catching the next. I didn't have a couple of hours' pottering about in me, I called it quits.

Longendale

Bottoms Reservoir 

It's an odd thing: since I refilled the feeders the only small bird I've had in the back garden has been the robin. In fact, I didn't see a house sparrow anywhere all day, which feels decidedly out of kilter.

It was a cool, mostly sunny afternoon and I was in the mood at most for an amble. I got the train into town and the train to Hadfield and had a wander along a bit of the Longendale Trail.

Jackdaws made a racket as they flew about the station, each one sounding like a crowd scene,  and a flock of Canada geese flew low overhead, honking all the way. A couple of robins sang in the trees as I joined the trail, more of them and a couple of blackbirds furtively slipped through the undergrowth as I walked along. I decided I'd walk as far as the seat overlooking Valehouse Reservoir and walk back. Just enough to get a little exercise.

Passing under Padfield Main Road 

It wasn't until after I'd passed under Padfield Main Road that I started to bump into goldfinches and titmice, at first just a few calls in the undergrowth then, as the cuttings receded and the landscape opened out above Bottoms Reservoir a mixed tit flock of long-tailed tits, blue tits, great tits and chaffinches fidgeted through the hedgerow. 

Walking past Bottoms Reservoir 

Out in the fields jackdaws and rooks rummaged about amongst the sheep and a couple of dozen Canada geese grazed on the slopes down to the reservoir. Looking down there I could see a couple of dozen Canada geese on the far bank with a dozen or so black-headed gulls and at least one herring gull, which seemed a bit out of place, I wouldn't expect one up here it's usually lesser black-backs. 

Robin

On the approach to the wooded stretch of the trail above Valehouse Reservoir the mixed tit flock included a couple of goldcrests. There was enough leaf drop from the trees and bushes to see birds flitting about but enough remaining cover to make actually identifying them hard work unless, like the goldcrests and a couple of blue tits, they were so intent on chasing each other they didn't notice me until they nearly flew into me.

Looking over the valley to Valehouse Wood 

About halfway along the reservoir the path emerges from another short cutting and into open ground. It doesn't feel like there's much of a climb on the trail but looking back down onto Bottoms Reservoir makes it apparent. Mallards and lapwings loafed on the bank of Valehouse Reservoir and a couple of dozen mallards cruised about on the water. A buzzard was calling from somewhere but I couldn't see it for the trees ahead on the trail. More chaffinches and goldfinches fidgeted through the trees, a bullfinch wheezed from a stand of alders, and wrens and robins told me to get on my way.

The Longendale Trail 

I'd just got to the point where the trail passes by the dam between Valehouse and Rhodeswood reservoirs when I checked the train times. I could — just — get the next train back if I turned back now, if I carried on to Torside I'd be getting the one an hour later, in the dark. I wasn't convinced I had the legs for Torside today, I might have if I'd started a few hours earlier and made a day's dawdle of it. I'd have been far too late for the Holmfirth bus from Torside, if it still runs, and if it still runs on a Saturday. I didn't take much persuading to call it quits and walk back. The clouds had rolled over so the picturesque end of day landscapes I'd hoped for weren't happening but it had been a very nice walk up and a not unpleasant walk back.

Valehouse Reservoir 

I was nearly back in Hadfield when a chap further up the path shouted over to me: "Can you see them?" I have to admit, when you spend as much time as I do on public transport you get a bit careful about that sort of question but he seemed both rational and sincere so I looked towards where he was pointing. The trees were in the way of whatever them was. It wasn't until I was pretty much up to where he was standing that I could see the three roe deers skylining on a ridge behind the trees. And a very nice end to a walk, too. Thank you sir.

Home thoughts

After last night's biblical rain a sunny day came as a pleasant surprise, the weather forecast hadn't suggested it. A mixed tit flock bounced into the garden, nine long-tailed tits, four blue tits, a robin and a blackcap. There was a lot of investigation of feeders I hadn't topped up yet and at one point the whole flock except the blackcap was sitting in the rose by the living room window staring inside. I took the hint and went shopping. 

The sunflower seeds in the shop were rubbish, I wasn't for paying that for seed the birds would discard from the feeders. I'll have to try elsewhere. In the meantime I bought a big bag of suet pellets and a bag of suet nuggets with mealworms and oddments in them. I usually buy big suet balls for a couple of fat feeders I have in the garden, today I bought the bag of suet nuggets instead to see how they'd go. 

They went. Within twenty minutes. Between them two magpies and a squirrel got the pine cones unjammed from the top of the feeders and scampered off with all the nuggets. They can't do that with the fat balls. They can get the pine cones out of the way but only the squirrel can remove the fat balls and only the top two, further down is too much of a stretch, they can reach but they don't have the leverage to be able to do the vertical pull. I've watched them trying, there's a lot of power to a grey squirrel's haunches, it's just that cramped leverage stops them making off with the lot. I'll go back to buying the fat balls. And I must find some decent sunflower seeds.

Etherow Country Park

Mandarin duck 

It was a dark, muggy, overcast day. I let the worst of the rain pass and went to take photographs of mandarin ducks in the gloom. There's something about the cheerful abstraction of the patterns on the drake's plumage that's just right for this weather.

Mandarin duck 

Mandarin duck 

Mandarin duck 

Mandarin duck 

Mandarin duck 

Mandarin duck 

Mandarin ducks

Mandarin ducks 

Mandarin ducks 

There were about fifty black-headed gulls on the pool by the car park together with similar numbers of mallards and coots. An adult mute swan was accompanied by two full-grown cygnets with no sign of her mate. Tufted ducks and moorhens jostled through the crowds and a cormorant and a heron loafed at the tip of the peninsula. There were very few Canada geese about, and just the one domestic greylag. The big white Muscovy duck seemed to be on its own, too.

By the car park

Etherow Country Park 

I walked on. There were dozens of mandarin ducks on the canal, most of them sitting amongst the tree roots under the bank, often in the company of mallards.

River Etherow

As I approached the weir I spotted a dipper preening on a rock in the river, a nice bonus for the afternoon.

Dipper

Dipper

Dipper

Dipper

Keg Wood

I had a bit of a wander into Keg Wood, spending most of my time trying to pick out the runners and riders in a large mixed tit flock working its way through the trees by the wayside. I had it down to a couple of dozen long-tailed tits with a couple of great tits, a nuthatch and a handful of blue tits then the flock moved its way up into the canopy of some ash trees which had already mostly lost their leaves and I realised I had substantially underestimated the number of blue tits — there were more than a dozen and at least half a dozen great tits. The flock was silent, unlike the buzzard circling overhead and the carrion crows debating whether or not to give it a hard time. In the end they left it alone and it drifted across over Ernocroft Wood.

Walking through the beechwood

Jackdaws were making a racket of starting to head to roost as I took the high path through the beechwood back to the car park. Perhaps it's not being quite so hard to avoid the word 'quiet' this week as I'd feared.

Elton Reservoir

Great crested grebe 

I thought Elton Reservoir was due a visit. I don't visit nearly as often as I used to as getting there is such a faff these days, now our local trains don't stop at Deansgate it's harder to make connections North and Northeast of the City Centre. I generally get the train into Bolton and the 471 over there but this depends on my train not getting stuck at signals outside Manchester so we pull into Oxford Road as the train to Bolton pulls out. With half an hour to wait for the next one I went over to Deansgate and decided I'd get the tram to Bury and do the quick hop over on the 471. I was reminded, again, that the trams are even less reliable than the trains, even though it was one of those odd weeks of the year when large parts of the network weren't closed for relaying tracks. It literally would have been quicker for me to go to Leighton Moss than it was to get to Bury.

Anyway…

I got to Bury, got the 471 after the one that closed its doors in my face and walked down to the sailing club car park. The feeders in the tree by the car park had been reinstalled for the Winter and were busy with goldfinches, greenfinches, chaffinches and great tits. I lingered for a few minutes to get my eye in with the binoculars and to see if anything else might turn up. Collared doves sat in the depths of the tree behind the feeders. Then a willow tit popped up, pinched a sunflower seed out of a feeder while goldfinches were busy squabbling then disappeared into cover. I couldn't remember seeing one here before, looking at my records I have done but it was eight years ago. It was a nice surprise.

Elton Reservoir 

The reservoir by the sailing club was busy with mallards, coots and black-headed gulls and a few mute swans cruised about. There were no Canada geese to be seen anywhere. Great crested grebes cruised further out and there was a raft of a couple of dozen herring gulls and lesser black-backs loafing and preening in the middle of the reservoir.

Approaching the mouth of the creek

As I walked over to the creek a flock of starlings squeaked and bubbled on the electricity pylons while robins and wrens ticked impatiently as I passed their hawthorn bushes. A young female scaup had been reported so I kept a watch for it as I scanned the reservoir. I have to admit, assessing the age of female scaups is a bit beyond me, I'd have to be getting exceptionally good views to even make the attempt. Which was moot as I wasn't seeing any scaup at all.

Great crested grebe 

A peacock butterfly fluttered by and sunned itself on the path. The mouth of the creek was chockablock with coots. Great crested grebes and mallards wove their way between them and half a dozen juvenile dabchicks had gathered under the far bank. A heron lurked in the bushes behind.

Coots

The path into the creek quickly became pretty horrible so I turned and walked back to the car park, catching a couple of coal tits and a ring-necked parakeet on the feeders, and walked round to the Southern bank where the path was less treacherous. I'd felt distinctly overdressed on my way over, I was exactly right for the wind blowing across the reservoir.

Elton Reservoir 

The clouds rolled in with the wind. A couple of cormorants sat on buoys to dry their wings. There was a lot of coming and going amongst the gulls on the reservoir, including the arrival of a handful of common gulls. All the young great crested grebes were full grown and doing their own fishing.

Great crested grebe, a full-grown humbug coming into First-Winter colours

Looking over to the creek I could see a line of tufted ducks chugging along the bankside heading left. They were all definitely tufties. A couple of meadow pipits flew over and descended into the fields below the reservoir. There were a dozen more dabchicks close by the far bank, mostly juveniles. More gulls flew in and more gulls flew out. I got the impression that for the large gulls at least this was a pit stop rather than a roost.

I'd got as far as Old Hall Farm when I spotted the scaup cruising between mallards and coots on the far bank. I could manage to see that it was a female, I couldn't make a guess as to her age.

Old Hall Farm 

Carrying on I started to see teals dabbling under the far bank and a couple of pairs of gadwalls mingled with the coots, tufted ducks and great crested grebes at the end of the reservoir. A jay with a full crop of acorns flew over and down into the fields to lay its cache for the Winter.

Withins Reservoir 

A walk round to Withins Reservoir was disappointing: not only was the reservoir bone dry it was overgrown. The walk over to the canal was punctuated by great tits, jays, meadow pipits and woodpigeons with a backing track made up of the calls of jackdaws, carrion crows and black-headed gulls. As I neared the canal I could hear geese, eventually I spotted the couple of dozen Canada geese flying down to settle on Elton Reservoir.

Bury and Bolton Canal

Mallards and moorhens lurked in the reeds on the canal. The pools and large puddles were busy with teals. Being an optimist I made sure they were all teals. As the canal came into Radcliffe town centre half a dozen mute swans dozed on the canalside while a dozen Canada geese grazed on the field behind them.

I walked down Banana Path to the tram stop. The roadworks on Spring Lane had been completed and a more confusing suite of pedestrian crossings and miniature bicycle lanes I never want to see. The journey home was as long as the journey out.

Gosh, this is my 2,000th post in this blog. Congratulations to my readers for their patience.

Mosses

Chat Moss 

It was a sunny and cloudy day, the wind having picked up again. I'm going to try not to use the word "quiet," or any of its synonyms, for the rest of this week. It might not be easy. I'd annoyed myself by spending all morning telling myself I should go for a walk but having no idea where to go so come lunchtime I got the train to Irlam and headed up Astley Road.

The house sparrows were notably absent in the hedgerows and the turf fields were entirely empty, no so much as a woodpigeon. A few woodpigeons were having the last of the hawthorn berries, an occasional lesser black-back or carrion crows flew over. The small birds were keeping quietly under cover out of the wind, except the long-tailed tits flitting across the road as they swapped hedgerows and a couple of blackbirds breaking cover as I walked past. A male kestrel glided over, letting the wind do all the work.

Astley Road

Turf fields looking deceptively empty

It was similar, at first, after I'd crossed the motorway. Woodpigeons, black-headed gulls and carrion crows passed by overhead. A couple of meadow pipits flew by. Sheep were grazing the turf by the motorway accompanied by a couple of carrion crows. Further on the turf fields looked empty until I found a couple of dozen pied wagtails and a flock of linnets in a corner near the road. A couple of dozen starlings fidgeted between the fields and the telegraph wires. And in the field behind there were about fifty black-headed gulls with a few herring gulls and lesser black-backs. It actually didn't look that many on the ground but a passing female-type marsh harrier put them all up. She headed over towards Twelve Yards Road.

Approaching Four Lanes End 

The road had been busy. I was standing in the verge just before Four Lanes End waiting for three cars and two vans to negotiate passing each other when I spotted a couple of mistle thrushes in one of the trees and a couple of cock pheasants squabbling in the field opposite. It was sunny enough for a common darter to be hunting in the cover of the hedgerow out of the wind. A wren came to tell me to beggar off.

I scanned the fields at Four Lanes End to see what was about and at first it was all woodpigeons. A couple of fields North of Lavender Lane jackdaws were getting restless, breaking the treeline as they circled about. A couple of carrion crows had the fidgets, too. Just as I'd decided the disturbance was probably some farming activity two buzzards rose up, circled low over the field then drifted off in separate directions. Buzzards aren't much of a threat to corvids but they still make them fidgety.

Chat Moss 

Milky cone cup

There were yet more woodpigeons as I walked down Twelve Yards Road. Great tits and robins ticked in the hedgerows and half a dozen goldfinches flew past. A young kestrel headed over towards Lavender Lane. It wasn't that late in the afternoon but there was still the sound of small birds going to roost in the thickly planted willows in one of the fields. A little further on a couple of swallows flew low over the road, heading South. A migrant hawker patrolled the wayside. And family parties of long-tailed tits skipped between willows and hawthorn bushes along the way. I was keeping an optimistic eye out for barn owls, I found a hovering kestrel.

Kestrel

Twelve Yards Road 

Walking down Cutnook Lane the birdlife was hinted at more than seen. A blackbird muttering softly in deep bracken, contact calls of long-tailed tits, great tits and chaffinches, a dunnock somewhere in a bramble, goldfinches high in beech canopies, a mallard on the fishery. It came as a relief to find a flock of black-headed gulls in the paddocks by the motorway with pied wagtails and goldfinches flitting about the horses' hooves.

Cutnook Lane 

I had ten minutes to wait for the next 100 to the Trafford Centre where I bought a new pair of boots on my way home.