Mosses

Common darter, New Moss Wood 

It was a bright, warm morning with a stiff breeze and I was tempted to go on a twitch. Very tempted, indeed. It would have been a lifer, and worth my going on a Saturday twitch for but it became apparent from the reports that the bird in question was a bit of a fidget. A Saturday twitch scampering about like Mike Reid's Runaround? I didn't fancy it. We'll see what Monday brings.

I had a lazy old time of it then got the mid-afternoon train to Irlam. I thought I'd have an hour's walk round New Moss Wood then see where I felt like going thereafter. Three swifts wheeled around the station as the train arrived, which was good to see, I'm worried about the state of our local swift population and can't do anything practical by way of helping them. The nestling lesser black-back on the factory roof on the way into Irlam is nearly as big as its parents now and has stopped looking fluffy.

Collared doves and woodpigeons sang as I walked through the allotments to Moss Road. A couple of magpies rattled in the trees and a lesser black-back drifted lazily North overhead. Large whites, red admirals and speckled woods fluttered about the brambles in the hedgerows. I crossed over and walked a little way down the lane by the railway line, adding a greenfinch to the songscape. A wren tutted, goldfinches twittered, red admirals and holly blues fluttered about the brambles in the hedgerows.

New Moss Wood 

I walked into New Moss Wood, a brown hawker patrolling the glade at the entrance. It was nice to walk on green grass and have the ground give a little as I walked. And it was very quiet save the occasional squeak from a chiffchaff. A Southern hawker passed by as it patrolled the rides. Large whites fluttered about but for all they there nettles there were no red admirals. The ground was soft enough for new molehills to have erupted along the wayside.

New Moss Wood 

Buff-tailed bumblebee 

I'm ambivalent about Himalayan balsam. I can see how they were attractive garden plants originally, they're bright and colourful and scented. But they are horribly invasive. I do my bit tugging up stems to thin them out as I walk along. Except when they're in full flower. The bees love them and there's precious little else providing them with a livelihood at the moment. Even the knapweeds and goldenrods are past their best. So I leave the ones in full flower alone, only tugging up stems where the flowers have gone over before they can set seed.

Honey bee

As I met one of the crossroads I realised I'd become a creature of habit so I turned into one of the wilder rides. Common darters zipped around as I walked. At the next crossroads I heard a long-tailed tit and stopped. I worked out which bush it was in and watched as a mixed tit flock flew across the ride into the bush and thence into the willows beyond. A family of long-tailed tits, a few great tits and blue tits, a coal tit and a chiffchaff. All silent except that one first long-tailed tit.

Common darter

This ride seemed to coincide with the divide between the drier part of the wood dominated by birches, oaks and sallows and the damper part dominated by willows, alders and birches. Wrens warned me off going too close to any dragonfly pools. A flock of swallows twittered high overhead. A willow warbler squeaked in the crack willows to my left. There was a different answering squeak in the sallows to my right. A chiffchaff popped out to check me out before quietly disappearing into the canopy. The willow warbler continued squeaking so I took the hint and moved on.

I decided I hadn't the legs for walking up to Little Woolden Moss then back one way or another to Irlam but I didn't want to walk back whence I came. So I walked up a little and took the footpath over to Astley Road. I'd forgotten that the steps on the stile by the road were missing so it was effectively a three barred fence. Luckily, aside from a singing collared dove there were no witnesses to the ungainly old main making a bog of clambering over it. Unfortunately I jarred the bad knee in the process. Nothing that couldn't be put right later but it detracted from the walk. The long grass and nettles along the path were busy with grass moths and small flies. Some larger moths were very keen to get back into cover when disturbed by my passing by. A painted lady looked straight off the production line. 

Painted lady

Some moths refuse to be identified, this one had a look of a box moth

Walking over to Astley Road 
The rosebay mark the land drain.

Squadrons of woodpigeons passed overhead like a military parade. Lesser black-backs headed North, presumably to Pennington Flash. Swallows skimmed over the grass in the fields. A pair of cyclists passed by, I knew they were coming by the bad language as they negotiated the stiles behind me. About fifty yards ahead of me they flushed a meadow pipits that had been feeding on the ground. As I negotiated the wobbly step onto the steel bridge over a land drain a whitethroat razzed me loudly from the willowherbs on its banks.

Astley Road 

I got to Astley Road and scanned the fields. There weren't even many woodpigeons about. I still took the time to inspect every big clod of earth just in case it might turn into a partridge. Hope springs eternal. A dunnock hopped onto a dead branch in the hawthorn by my side and gave me as close to a good telling off as a dunnock ever gets.

It was quiet walking down Astley Road into Irlam. A blue tit and a goldfinch called in the trees. One of the Zinnia Close house sparrows passed the time of day. A collared dove and a woodpigeon sang. I got the 100 to the Trafford Centre and thence home and my knee forgave me. It had been a very pleasant walk albeit a quiet one. And I would have been an hour too late arriving for that twitch.

Salford Quays

Lesser black-backs
(I rather like the air of menace in this photo)

It was another nice day and I wasn't disposed to do anything with it. I've found the birdwatching this past couple of weeks a bit dispiriting. They've been lovely walks and I've had my fresh air and exercise and all that but the shortage of birds has been inescapable. Much, much more than the usual July lull. The local swifts had their farewell party a couple of weeks ago, screaming round the chimney tops in the twilight. A couple linger on near the station, I hope this means they have a nest with mouths to feed on the go. Blackcaps and whitethroats, similarly, seem to have shut up shop early. It feels somehow like something is broken.

Lostock Park 

Fresh air and exercise is good for the spirit so after this morning's fifteen minute downpour I headed over to the park to see what was about on my local patch.

Three magpies, two woodpigeons, a great tit and a black-headed gull passing through.

Ordinarily this time of year I'd be hearing enigmatic squeaks and scufflings in the undergrowth and be scratching my head trying to identify them. Today, nothing. More life in a tramp's vest. But then, everything's so parched, even after fifteen minutes of rain, it must have an impact on the food and water supplies.

Barton Clough 

Thoroughly demoralised I walked through and got the 250, got off near Sir Matt Busby Way and walked through to Wharfside to see what was on the Ship Canal. By golly, I shall see a body of water today, I told myself. And so I did

Manchester Ship Canal

Black-headed gulls and juvenile lesser black-back
The adult black-headed gulls were in that odd grey-headed stage of moult.

For most of the gulls the breeding season is over though I'm still seeing a few large lesser black-back chicks on factory rooves. A raft of lesser black-backs and a few herring gulls bathed by the Lowry. Mute swans, coots and Canada geese drifted about the Central Bay. Sand martins were much in evidence, a dozen were feeding by this bank and more zipped across my line of vision as I scanned the gulls. There were maybe fifty black-headed gulls about and they seemed a bit skittish, tending not to settle on the water and fidgeting about whenever they were on the dockside furniture. Half a dozen very young-looking lesser black-backs begged by Clipper Quay and were extravagantly ignored by the adults at the scene.

Walking to Pomona

I walked over to Pomona, adding a couple of cormorants and a mallard to the tally. Walking back, a grey wagtail was heard and not seen, I suspect it was on the walkway on the Salford bank.

Walking back past Clipper Quay I noticed that three mallards and a moorhen had joined the crowd and the adult lesser black-backs had moved on. One of the young lesser black-backs took to the sky and spent the next three minutes being chased round the block by an adult until it got bored and flew over to the Lowry for a bath.

Even the Ship Canal's low

There was a steady traffic of large gulls of all ages, three lesser black-backs for every herring gull, drifting in and out of that raft by the Lowry. I kept my eyes peeled, the "usual" yellow-legged gull had been reported again earlier this week and I might strike lucky today. I wasn't seeing anything likely on the water. One subadult gull flying over the canal caught my eye but I had shockingly bad views of it because most of the time the sun was right behind it. It might have been a subadult yellow-legged gull but with the views I was getting it might just as easily have been a rather full-breasted lesser black-back with a chunky beak. 

Central Bay 

As I approached the Imperial War Museum another batch of gulls flew in from the Ontario Basin. I was in luck: one of them was an adult — the usual adult? — yellow-legged gull. It's an odd thing about yellow-legged gulls: compared to herring gulls, and even lesser black-backs, they always look freshly laundered. Perhaps it's just that that shade of grey seems to emphasise the whiteness of the head. The raft was dispersed when the tourist boat came in to dock, the extensive black tips to the primaries on the yellow-legged gull had the rather squared-off look, as if the tip of the wing had been dipped in a pot of paint. I notice that every time.

So I got my hundred species for the month after all. In snooker they apologise for a fluke. I'm a bit irritated with myself at the sense of relief I got that I made it.

I got the 30 to the Trafford Centre and the 25 back home. More lesser black-backs flew in to roost a the quays and a red admiral chased the bus out of its territory as we approached the bus station. The butterflies are in football hooligan on holiday mode this Summer, I think the heat's getting to them.

Seven Acres Country Park

Heron

It was a nice day for a walk, we're not getting the heatwave the South of England is enduring, at least not yet, it's just July warm with a cooling breeze. I was in a pottering about and sod the numbers mood so I went and had a walk through Seven Acres Country Park just outside Bolton. It was one of those July days where you see fewer species of birds in a local nature reserve than you do from the bus driving through a housing estate on the way home but it's a pleasant enough walk and any one that starts with a kingfisher and ends with grey wagtails is nothing to complain about.

I got the train to Bolton and the 471 heading for Rochdale, getting off at Stephens Street and walking back a little (the entrance to the reserve is near enough exactly halfway between bus stops, there's a shop on the walk back and I wanted to buy a drink as I'd forgotten to fill my water bottle).

The entrance path is hidden a bit by the bushes at the corner of the car park. I'd hardly emerged from the bushes and onto Rosario's Pond when a kingfisher flashed across the water. It sat on a dead branch on the opposite side for a moment then dropped down into cover. I really wasn't expecting that. I suppose that given the lack of rainfall kingfishers are having to spread themselves around. A heron in the middle of the pond was startled by the kingfisher and flew over to the side of the reeds before resuming fishing. A few common blue damselflies zipped about and a Southern hawker patrolled the reeds well away from the heron.

Walking by the brook

I followed the path into the woods and upstream along the bank of Bradshaw Brook. A woodpigeon sang, a magpie rattled, brown hawkers patrolled the Himalayan balsams and speckled woods chased gatekeepers out of their territories. The shoals and shallows of the stream were occupied by small humans.

Common darter

Beyond the bridge over the brook the terrain felt a little wilder, primarily because it's not so easy to get to the brook. I kept scanning the shoals and shallows for wagtails and dippers but wasn't having any success. Red admirals and common darters joined the wayside cavalcade as the canopy opened up and let in more light.

Bradshaw Brook 

Bradshaw Brook 

Just after the path forks I started to hear signs of a mixed tit flock in the willows along the bank (I was following the low road). A blue tit churred and I started to hear the quiet contact call tuttings of long-tailed tits. They were coming my way so I stayed still and let them pass. A few blue tits, at least one pair of great tits and a family of long-tailed tits. The dramatically backlit long-tailed tits appealed to my artistic sensibilities but the photos weren't up to much.

Long-tailed tit

Long-tailed tit

A couple of chiffchaffs squeaking in the oak trees by a little clearing were the only warblers of the day.

Bradshaw Brook looking upstream from Thicketford Bridge 

I'd reached Thicketford Bridge when I noticed a quick dash of something over the water. I walked round to get a clear view of the brook and found a grey wagtail flycatching from the stones. When I crossed the road to walk up to the bus stop I found another upstream of the bridge.

I caught the 561 on Thicketford Bridge. A few stops on as I looked out of the window a small brown and orange object kept pace with the bus, not as big a challenge as it sounds as this bus route can't find a corner without having to turn into it. I'd have put money on not encountering a hummingbird hawk moth in Breightmet.

Wirral

Curlew, Meols

I had a day out on the Wirral, the hope being to add a few waders to that tally for the month and edge it closer to that hundred mark. In the event, there weren't many around that weren't redshanks or oystercatchers but one that wasn't added to the year list. (This paragraph is an object lesson to you all not to set targets on your birdwatching. Especially if you get a bit obsessive about numbers.)

Juvenile herring gull

It was an overcast and windy lunchtime and West Kirby was the first port of call. Despite the cloud and cooling breeze, perhaps because of them after the blistering heat we've had this month, the marine lake was busy. A few herring gulls, pigeons and black-headed gulls checked out the opportunities for an easy meal and pied wagtails scampered round the car park. I wasn't surprised to see no ducks on the lake, what wouldn't be elsewhere in moulting flocks would be making a living on the estuary away from the crowds.

Dee Estuary 

It was low tide, or near as, and hundreds of waders, mostly redshanks, were liberally scattered about the exposed mud. Oystercatchers massed on distant mudbanks near the river and cormorants dried their wings by the riverside. A few curlews strutted about in the distance, gangs of turnstones still in their tortoiseshell breeding finery skittered about the rocks and unidentified somethings which were probably yet more redshanks dotted the estuary upstream and down. There were a lot of carrion crows about but I kept hearing a raven. It flew low overhead over the rooftops as I was waiting to cross the road to the station.

Small copper

I got the train back as far as Manor Road and walked down Hoyle Road to the beach. Parched though the grass verges were they seemed to have something to offer my first small coppers of the year. A dozen swifts circled overhead, a few more were with the swarms of house martins low over the lifeboat station.

Hoylake Beach 

It was still lowish tide and the broad expanse of mud ahead was like a desert. There weren't even any birds skulking about in the salt marsh. I didn't have to go far to see why. This patch of marsh is part of a land-building process, the combination of successive mud deposits and colonisation by grasses is raising the ground above sea level and parts are only ever inundated with water at the height of Spring tides. The mud here was baked hard and cracked though there was enough moisture some way underground to keep the grass and sea plantains green.

It's flying ant season. High overhead herring gulls, black-headed gulls and lesser black-backs circled to pick off the emerging ants. Even a great black-back flew inland to join in; masses of protein on the wing, easy pickings and no fighting back is a lot more energetically efficient than hunting bigger game.

Shelduck

Beyond the Parade Gardens the foreshore is lower and wetter and not yet salt marsh. Herring gulls loafed by puddles and black-headed gulls stopped for a drink. I was a bit surprised to see a lone shelduck accompanying some of the black-headed gulls.

Juvenile herring gull 

Black-headed gull 

My first common gull of the Winter season was sitting on its own, spending most of its time trying to tidy a loose primary wing feather that wouldn't either fall out or stay put.

Common gull

I joined the revetment and walked down. Small groups of redshanks and smaller groups of oystercatchers pottered about in puddles and creeks. A couple of little egrets were shrimping near one of the beached boats. And there were more herring gulls.

Curlew (left) and whimbrel

Curlews were more often heard that seen. A couple ran across the mud into a patch of grass and started feeding. There was a marked size difference, even more than the usual difference between a big adult female and a small adult male. I thought it might be a young curlew, which would have been good as I don't get to see them very often, any opportunity to get my eye in on them is welcomed. As I drew level with the grass I became puzzled. That beak on the smaller bird didn't look right for any age of curlew. And it wasn't. It was a whimbrel keeping a curlew company. The abrupt turn of the whimbrel's beak I find a better ID point than the dark crown and eye stripe, some curlews are more contrasty than others and strong directional light plays tricks with old eyes, I can easily talk myself out of a textbook whimbrel if I'm not seeing the bill properly and I've not got something readily to hand to provide scale. This is the first time I've had a curlew helpfully screaming out the size difference for me. Had I a bag of lugworms on me I'd have happily let them have the lot.

Whimbrel

Whimbrel

Looking back along the revetment towards Meols

A mixed flock of linnets, goldfinches and swallows skittered over the slope of the revetment, the finches stopping for a moment or two to feed before bundling on a few yards, the swallows hawking mere inches from the ground. A couple of swallows even landed to pick insects off the ground like the finches before flying off to join the others. It didn't look like it was ants they were after, there were a lot of very small flies about I couldn't identify. I could identify the mosquito that decided to have its last meal off my little finger. The first hint of the tide turning was swelling the pools at the base of the revetment. A young heron joined the little egrets shrimping and squabbling here and turnstones flew in to rummage about in the stranded seaweed.

Heron and little egrets 

This swallow decided to have a sit down to pick flies off the mud

The same swallow heading off to join the flock

Turnstone 

I left the revetment and dropped down into Leasowe Common and was immediately razzed by whitethroats. Having got cocky about chiffchaffs and willow warblers the other day I actually had to see the bird before I was sure it was a chiffchaff squeaking in the trees. A blackcap made it easy by singing a snatch of song. As did a reed warbler by the remains of the pond. There must have been some water or mud somewhere in the depths of the reeds because I could hear a coot muttering to itself. 

The pool had dried

There weren't a lot of butterflies about and most of they were gatekeepers or speckled woods. A brown hawker patrolled the tops of the reeds and was my only dragonfly of the day.

I walked down past the lighthouse, where greenfinches and house sparrows bounced about in the hedgerows and red admirals sunned themselves on the brambles. It was hard work seeing through the hedgerow by Kerr's Field, and hardly worth the bother: half a dozen woodpigeons, a herring gull and a magpie accompanied the horses.

Sloes

I had an all areas saveaway for the day and it was still only late teatime. The legs suggested that moving on to another site might be asking a lot of I was going to be walking up the escalator at Lime Street at the end of the trip. My head pointed out that if I got the next train from Moreton I'd only have twenty minutes to wait for the last sensibly timed train direct home. So just this once I did that.

The raven, turnstones and whimbrel brought July's tally to 99. The Canada geese on a pond outside Halewood brought the day's tally to 49. And the year list is 196. Remember kids: just say no to numbers.

Rixton Claypits

Rixton 

It's being a difficult birdwatching month. July itself is always difficult, the lassitude caused by heat and hayfever and the skulking nature of birds in post-breeding moult make it a time for appreciating insects and landscapes, but this year it's being particularly unproductive. Most years I've got that monthly hundred target in the middle of the third week, I'm still only on 96 so far and the total number of records is about three-quarters the norm. I'm getting out and about as much as any other July and there's lots I'm not seeing because it's just not there. Visiting wetlands and having no sign of reed warblers or Cetti's warblers. An avocet-less visit to Marshside. A scarcity of blackcaps and whitethroats. A sudden disappearance of swifts. In lots of ways it feels like late August out there. I read that many songbirds don't seem to be having second or third broods this year because the land is parched and the usual supplies of insects have been out of synch with nesting, which would go a long way to explaining the famine. The problem personally is that I'm not seeing this as a challenge to rise to, I'm seeing it as a disincentive to bother. Brute bloody-mindedness will get me out and about in the end but it's hard work when there's other things eating up your bandwidth.

It was a cooler, grey morning. Yesterday's rain had freshened the air and the wind had calmed down, it seemed fair walking weather. I thought I'd catch up with a few places I hadn't visited yet this year so I pottered out at lunchtime, got the train into Oxford Road and found that everything going North had been cancelled. At that stage I was ready to throw the towel in and admit defeat, had there been a train home anytime soon I probably would have done. I couldn't be arsed trying to get across the city centre to Victoria and trying from there. If I had a more definite incentive to do it I might have, with only the vague intent to wander round and see what was about I had no appetite for negotiating the knock-on effects of the annual trammegedon. So I drifted back onto the stopping train to Liverpool that sails past my station, one of many stopping trains to Liverpool that sail past my station, and wondered where I was going.

I got off at Glazebrook and decided I was going for a walk round into Rixton and perhaps go and look for farmland birds and what have you. Cloudy though it was, it was nice walking weather, the exercise might improve my mood.

Dam Head Lane 

The sun poked its way through the clouds but the wind provided some relief. The rolling fields of grain along Dam Head Lane and Dam Lane had been harvested and dozens of pigeons and woodpigeons rummaged through the stubble with occasional family groups of carrion crows. I looked in vain for stock doves, gamebirds or buntings, a couple of goldfinches flew by, two swifts wheeled overhead and house sparrows chirped in the farmsteads.

Rixton 

I turned and crossed the field to Moss Side Lane, not noticing the rise and fall of the drumlin I was walking over unless I looked back and saw the changes on the open horizon. The hedgerows and houses on Moss Side Lane seem to mask the effect going forward. At last I spotted something that wasn't a pigeon or crow in the field. A pair of pheasants. Three swifts wheeled overhead.

Walking up Moss Side Lane past the brickworks I wondered where I was going. According to Google, Rixton Claypits were closed so I walked down Moat Lane to have a look at them.

Moat Lane 

A flooded claypit at the top of the lane behind locked gates had a couple of families of coots and a family of dabchicks. There wasn't much vegetation about, it looks like it was still being worked fairly recently.

Further down and across the road I found the entrance to Rixton Claypits. Perhaps it's a car park that was closed. The claypits are, effectively, large ponds surrounded by trees and covered in waterlilies. So I had a bit of an introductory nosy round.

Rixton Claypits 

Coots and mallards pottered about the pools. Common blue damselflies did a lethargic version of zipping about in the verges of the path and brown hawkers patrolled the tops of the bushes and reeds. Blue tits, great tits and chiffchaffs called quietly as they moved through the trees. A young robin squeaked from the depths of cover. A goldcrest caught my eye as it fidgeted about in a willow, the state of moult it was in had left it with a very pale grey, almost white, head. Every time I turned a corner I seemed to surprise a rabbit or a blackbird, every length straight beside the hedgerow was littered with speckled woods and gatekeepers, a small clearing full of rosebay and ragwort continued the excellent year for painted ladies.

Rixton Claypits 

I had an hour's potter about just to get a feeling for the place, it seems to have a lot going for it given how small the nature reserve is. I definitely need a repeat visit, this time getting the 100 to the bottom of Moat Lane and walking up rather than tagging it onto the end of a walk.

I walked down to the bottom of Moat Lane, past a field of rabbits and white farm geese, and struck lucky: the 100 is an hourly service and I only had ten minutes to wait for it. I struck lucky twice: I got off at Irlam Station and had five minutes to wait for the train home.