Hindley

Blackcap, Low Hall

After yesterday's debacle I needed some exercise and a bit of a morale boost so I decided a woodland walk was in order. I headed for Amberswood, hoping to get willow tits and/or jays onto the monthly tally and perhaps even find some Norfolk hawkers on the wing. The weather forecast was set to muggy with some chance of rain so I carried my light raincoat over my arm.

The 25 was running quarter of an hour late so I decided to walk through the park and get the 250 to the Trafford Centre. The blackbirds, wrens and woodpigeons were in full song. A couple of the robins sang, as did a couple of blackcaps and a chiffchaff. There was neither sight nor sound of any whitethroats anywhere, the brambles that hosted three territories in the past had been strimmed down to the ground to tidy the "waste" ground up last year and they've been replaced by huge stands of goldenrod and willowherbs. On the plus side, there are now two song thrush territories.

Barton Clough

I got over to the Trafford Centre and got the 132 to Wigan, getting off at the entrance to Amberswood on. Manchester Road It's a long haul from the Trafford Centre to Hindley and we passed through two heavy showers along the way. The weather was cool and grey and heavy when I got off the bus but the rain seemed to have taken most of the pollen out of the air.

Amberswood 

I waited for two ponies and their lady riders to pass by before joining the trail into Amberswood. All the usual woodland choristers were in song except the great tits which quietly got on with their business. Blue tits were heard, just, but not seen as they shepherded youngsters through the hedgerows. Swifts and swallows passed overhead but didn't seem minded to stay. I thought it too cool to expect to see any butterflies other than the peacock caterpillars on the nettles and was proved wrong by the ringlets and meadow browns fluttering about the grass verges round the lake. 

Peacock caterpillar 

Amberswood Lake 

My arrival at the lake was heralded by Cetti's warblers, I think it's three birds here, two at the North end and one at the South, but I wouldn't be shocked to find it was four. Nearly all the small birds sneaking about in the reeds turned out to be reed buntings. The exception came as I was scanning about for dragonflies and a reed warbler hopped onto a willow twig by my side. We looked at each other for a while, each pretending we hadn't seen the other, then the warbler decided to have a rummage about in the litter at the base of the reeds where somebody had been pulling out Himalayan balsams. A little further along something seemed to be greatly agitating one of the moorhens in the reeds but I could see neither the bird nor the cause for its alarm.

Out on the water there seemed to be two great crested grebes nests on the go at either end by the reeds and one male cruising about midwater. Mallards, mute swans and tufted ducks cruised about and a couple of black-headed gulls squabbled for no particular reason. A heron jumped up into a sapling the better to watch me on my way as I turned the corner at the Southern end.

Heron

Low Hall 

I crossed Liverpool Road for a wander round Low Hall. The song thrushes did their best to sing over the rest of the chorus but they weren't having it. Mute swans and mallards dozed on the pond and a pair of gadwalls and their near full-sized ducklings dabbled in the far corner. I had a bit of a wander round, watching a mixed flock of great tits and blue tits moving anticlockwise round the dipping pool while a family of long-tailed tits moved clockwise. I surprised a male blackcap which had been rooting about in the nettles at the base of a tree, it flew up to the lowermost branches by my head. I think it was only scared of my treading on it.

Blackcap

I checked the time and the buses and decided my best bet was to walk back through Amberswood and get the 132 back from Manchester Road, I'd get to the stop with about five minutes to spare. And so I did, stopping along the way only to watch a couple of common terns coming in to the lake, a whitethroat taking an immense beakful of caterpillars to its nest, and to allow the ladies and their ponies by as we all headed for the Manchester Road entrance.

I didn't get to see willow tits or jays or Norfolk hawkers at Amberswood today but them's the vagaries. As the bus sat at traffic lights in Atherton town centre a jay slowly flew across the road.

Sefton

Meadow pipit, Crosby Marine Park

It was another day dominated by the pollen count. I headed for the seaside in search of seaborne breezes. Seaforth Nature Reserve has had visits from a roseate tern and a black tern the past few days, I thought I'd go over to have a look see, just in case I might get lucky, then move on for a gentle rummage about somewhere or other. It wasn't the weather for anything especially energetic, which was just as well as energetic was well beyond me today.

Crosby Marine Lake 

I got the trains to Waterloo and wandered over to Crosby Marine Park. A chiffchaff was giving it large from one of the gardens. The lawns by the lakes were liberally dotted with black-headed gulls, lesser black-backs and small crowds of starlings and house sparrows. They were feeding on insects emerging from the grass, any that escaped their attentions then had to run the gauntlet of house martins hawking overhead. Dozens of herring gulls loafed by the boating lake while a few mallards and mute swans drifted about.

Herring gulls

Sea holly

The sea hollies were coming into flower. Meadow pipits, house sparrows, starlings and linnets fussed about, eager to see if anything had been kicked up by the Army training team on a route march across the dunes.

Starling

Crosby Beach

It was a sunny Summer lunchtime and it was a toss-up whether there were more house martins than carrion crows on the beach. Just a handful of herring gulls and a cormorant flew by, it's that time of year.

It was raining in North Wales 

The lack of crowd scenes on the beach contrasted with the crowds on Seaforth Nature Reserve as I looked at it through the fence. Much to the disgust of the carrion crows lined up sitting on the fence. I'm entirely capable of walking past a crow without molesting it but they weren't convinced. Shelducks dozed on the close-cropped grass as rabbits did some more cropping. There were more shelducks on the pools, dabbling in the company of lapwings and a handful of redshanks. Oystercatchers were roosting on the big island, crowding out Canada geese, cormorants and herring gulls. It was pure luck that I caught the black-and-white wing and tail patterns of a few black-tailed godwits as they protested at being jostled off balance.

As always this time of year the tern colony provided most of the noise. As far as I could see they were all common terns, at this distance I would struggle to honestly pick out any arctic terns. A few dark, short-tailed terns caught my eye but were quickly identified as second calendar year common terns, the brown immature feathers on the back and wings catching my eye. And then I saw something different: a significantly whiter tern than the others with a stretched out look to the bill and wings. Was this a roseate tern? I decided I'd best make sure I wasn't stringing myself along by having a look at something else then coming back and seeing if the bird still stood out in the crowd. I couldn't find any dunlins amongst the waders on the island. I could, however, immediately find the tern as it swooped and banked in the midst of common terns its long tail steamers standing out from the crowd. I was very made up by the discovery. As if that wasn't surprise enough, a Cetti's warbler started singing from the bit of rank vegetation just over the bankside.

The nature reserve by the sailing club
A lot of hemlock water dropwort

I wandered down to the lake, which was busy with what looked like a school trip, and round to the little nature reserve by the sailing club. I would expect a singing Cetti's warbler here, I've often heard one. Today I heard two. A chiffchaff and a whitethroat also sang and titmice in stealth mode bustled through the undergrowth. Just outside the reserve the grass by the car park was littered with Southern marsh orchids.

Southern marsh orchid 

The bracing sea air had done me a world of good and would have continued doing so had I taken a route back into town that didn't pass lines of privet hedges in full bloom. 

I wasn't sure where I wanted to go next. I wasn't sure I wanted to go anywhere at all but it was still only lunchtime and I'd paid for my travel card. I had best part of an hour to wait for the next bus to Lunt and I didn't fancy hanging round that long. I got on the train and decided I didn't have the energy for the trawl up to Formby Point from either of the stations. And I didn't think the Alt Estuary at Hightown would be very productive, it would be a different matter next month. I really should have a walk across Ainsdale Dunes I told myself as the train left Ainsdale Station. So I ended up in Southport. I'd just missed the 44 and the 15 so I headed for the marine lake. And got as far as a coffee shop where, after a pastie and a pot of tea, I had to concede that I was done. Not by any means gracefully but concede it I did. Sometimes reality reminds me I'm not Peter Pan.

Cob Kiln Wood

Juvenile robin

I missed the memo telling us that Wednesday was the day everyone has to cut the grass and it had to be done before ten o'clock. The antihistamines hadn't properly kicked in when I went out to do the morning errands, by the time I got home all I was good for was having another shower, changing my clothes and having a nap. And blowing my nose a lot, obviously. I felt sorry for the kids doing football practice on the school playing field while the tractor mower circled the pitch.

Spadgers
A couple of the lads

The nap turned out to be eight hours' sleep. I woke up to the spadgers making representations about the lack of fodder in the bird feeders. There were still a couple of suet blocks I could put out to stop them tapping on the living room window. I watched the highlights of the Test cricket I'd missed and went out for an evening walk round Cob Kiln Wood.

Old Eeas Brook 

The evening choir was in full voice. Blackbirds, blackcaps, robins and wrens almost drowned out the song thrushes as I crossed Old Eeas Brook. Chaffinches, woodpigeons, chiffchaffs and dunnocks joined in as I walked into the wood. A coal tit calling from the willows was the only titmouse to hand. Magpies barged about and ring-necked parakeets screeched their way to roost.

The electricity pylon clearing 

Blackcaps and song thrushes led the vocals in the electricity pylon clearing with support from a couple of whitethroats and a garden warbler singing from somewhere deep in the birch and dogwood scrub in the corner. A great spotted woodpecker very much objected to my passing by.

River Mersey 

I had a look on the river as the sun set. All the ducks had gone to bed, a lone heron stalked the shoals at the far bend.

I walked back in the fading light. Swifts came in to hawk low over the clearing and a great tit joined the evening chorus. It occurred to me I should go home and get my tea.

New moon and Venus

Adwick Washland

Reed bunting

I had literally no idea what I was going to do today. I knew I wasn't up for an early start for a couple of trips out that I feel need doing soon. I also knew it probably wasn't wise to have another long walk through grassy countryside on a high pollen count day two days running, the precautions worked yesterday, I shouldn't push my luck. I decided I'd use one of my Delay Repay compo tickets on a trip into Yorkshire and go and have a look at Adwick Washland just outside Bolton-upon-Dearne. I've not been there before, it's not a long trip out and the maps reckoned it was a quarter of an hour's walk from the station. So off I went.

The Northern train to Sheffield stops at nearly all the stations, which was fine because it meant there was only a ten minute wait at Sheffield for the Leeds train that goes through Bolton-upon-Dearne. Along the way the Peak District was busy with jackdaws and carrion crows.

The most difficult part of the journey was finding my way out of Bolton-upon-Dearne Station. After that it was literally a matter of walking straight down the road and there you are. It actually came as a shock how easy it was, the last house down the road is next door to the first, small, pool on the Washland.

Black-headed gulls and jackdaw

English (left) and Japanese honeysuckle 

It was a bright, warm day, fine for a walk. Everywhere was the scent of honeysuckle (I very much like the scent of honeysuckle but my eyes and sinuses aren't keen, which is a shame). 

Just having a nosy to see where the path goes

As it was my first visit I thought I'd best have a wander rather than just walking down the main path that runs straight through the reserve. My first side track run straight beside the edge of the main pool and ended at a gate overlooking a smaller one. The hedgerows were busy with house sparrows, goldfinches, blue tits and singing chiffchaffs. Large whites and gatekeepers fluttered by the wayside and a broad-bodied chaser zipped across the path. A lapwing and a family of coots padded round a large puddle in the corner of a field on one side while skylarks sang in the background. There were considerably more lapwings and coots on the large pool, together with dozens of black-headed gulls and their youngsters.

Avocet

A couple of avocets were feeding on the small pool at the end of the path.

Avocet

Juvenile black-headed gulls

Adwick Washland 

Canada geese and goslings

I retraced my steps and rejoined the main path. The hedgerows quickly receded and the path became a causeway between pools lined with reeds and thin willows. And the birds, by and large, didn't care in the least that people were walking close by. Little egrets stalked the margins, croaking and gronking horribly whenever an avocet or black-headed gull decided it had come to close to their nest or youngster and gone in for the attack. Mallards and gadwalls had ducklings, coots and moorhens had youngsters ranging in age from tiny chicks to just short of full-grown. Pairs of shovelers and tufted ducks cruised about unaccompanied, unlike the caravans of Canada geese and greylags chugging across the pool. Every so often there would be a grand kerfuffle as families of greylags hurried across to the far bank to socialise, like the gathering of parents at the school gates. There were plenty of lapwings about and the adults made sure they were conspicuously well away from their chicks. The chicks' whereabouts were usually betrayed by the juvenile pied wagtails feeding with them

Gadwall and ducklings

Juvenile pied wagtail
That plumage that jumps out at you from a plain surface like a car park or lawn disrupts the bird's shape on broken ground.

Lapwing chick

There was an abundance of reed buntings and sedge warblers. The reed buntings only stopped singing to move a couple of feet into the wayside reeds and teasels if I accidentally got within about a foot of them as I moved aside to let people and dogs go by. Once that precious couple of feet's space was made they'd resume singing. The sedge warblers were more circumspect, but not by much. One of them singing on a branch just above my head added to my portfolio of photos of where a warbler was a moment ago.

Reed bunting

Adwick Washland 
A noisy pair of dabchicks are in the reeds by the near bank of the drain.

I was hearing dabchicks but they were hard work finding. I finally got lucky with a pair of them fishing in the smaller of the two pools though they spent most of the time underwater. A little further on a very noisy pair were fussing about in the reeds in the pathside drain but I couldn't see whether they had chicks to look after or were just particularly noisy.

Large skipper

Another side path was accompanied by skippers large and small, the small skippers hardly stopping still long enough for me to recognise them for what they were. The large skippers posed for the camera like troopers. As I was chatting to a chap in the seating area at the end of this path there was a bit of a commotion going on in the marsh ahead. I couldn't see what was causing it but a couple of lapwings flew off in a panic, a family of greylags ran out of the area and a pair of teal flew out, wheeled round a couple of times and settled back whence they came. I couldn't see an airborne predator so I can only think a stoat or similar was rummaging about on the ground.

Mallard and ducklings

Nesting avocets

The clouds rolled in but there was no appreciable chance of rain. The mugginess held onto the scent of honeysuckle and the clouds of midges over the pools and paths. Swifts, swallows and house martins swooped in to take advantage of the latter. I returned to the main path and walked on. A couple of avocets were sitting on nests while others stalked around feeding. A muddy corner was productive: both a ringed plover and a little ringed plover were skittering about and redshanks waded along the water's edge. I kept being distracted by the shapes zipping about just above the water's surface. Most, if not all, were black-tailed skimmers but I dare say I missed several somethings in the mix.

Mallard, avocet and little ringed plover

Lapwing

I took another side path, this time leading to a pool choked with flowering reeds, sadly still only in bud, I had a look at the map and decided to carry on to the main road just outside Harlington, just to see what was on the other side really, then make my way back for the train.

Flowering rush

Leaving the Washland the path becomes a road through wooded fields, grazing for horses (and some very pretty foals). Pheasants, woodpigeons and rabbits fed in the fields and the usual woodland choristers provided a suitably rural backing track. 

Heading for the main road

I decided not to spoil everything by walking far along the main road. Instead, I turned on my heel, walked back and did it all again. Which was splendid.

Dabchick

I seriously contemplated hopping off the train at Moorthorpe and having a wander round South Kirby, it's been years since I last visited. Common sense prevailed, I'd had an extremely good day, there was no call for kicking the icing off the cake by being greedy 

A big dog fox, battle-scarred by the looks of him, sat and watched the trains go by as we rattled into Leeds. I wished him well.

Mosses

Juvenile long-tailed tits

It was a mild, grey day. Swift numbers locally have been a bit underwhelming so it was nice to see twenty-one of them hawking low over the school playing field. The first black-headed gulls were back from their breeding grounds, a sign of high Summer.

Cutnook Lane by the motorway bridge

I decided to have a wander over the Salford mosses, getting the 100 from the Trafford Centre and getting off at Cutnook Lane. I was barely over the motorway bridge when I bumped into my first mixed tit flock of the season. A pair of great tits and their youngsters bounced through the trees in the company of a blackcap and a family of long-tailed tits. A wood mouse hopped across the road while I was watching them.

Cutnook Lane 

It was rather quieter for the rest of the length of Cutnook Lane. The woodpigeons and magpies were away on the fields. A few blue tits, wrens and robins fidgeted through the hedgerows. Chiffchaffs, blackbirds, dunnocks and more wrens sang in the trees and hedgerows but only sporadically, we're approaching the quiet times of the post-breeding moult. A couple of swallows passed overhead, a buzzard floated towards Barton Moss. As I approached the junction with Twelve Yards Road willow warblers joined the chiffchaffs and a whitethroat sang in the hawthorn on the corner.

Walking up to Croxden's Moss 

I crossed the road and carried on walking North. Blackbirds, blackcaps and willow warblers sang, robins were shy and skulked in the undergrowth. Blue tits, long-tailed tits and goldfinches bounced through the trees. A pair of coal tits bustled through, the male stopping to sing at me before hurrying after his mate. The parents and adult helpers in one long-tailed tit family were busy hunting in the birches intergrowing with a stand of Scots pines, returning every so often to feed their very young fluffy lollipops sitting bewildered in the top of a Rhododendron, almost certainly fresh from the nest.

Juvenile long-tailed tits

I had a quick look over Croxden's Moss. The weather's suited the birch scrub on the open moss, there wasn't much bare peat to be seen. Carrion crows were heard but could not be seen. 

I took the usual path parallel to Twelve Yards Road, accompanied by singing willow warblers nearly all the way. Every so often a reed bunting, a wren, a blackbird or a blackcap would join in. A couple of little egrets fossicked about one of the pools behind the trees while a few lapwings loafed and preened nearby. The mild and muggy weather brought out the meadow browns and speckled woods but the only dragonflies were a couple of common blue damselflies. The weather also brought out the horseflies but I got away without being bitten. My usual sun block seems to attract horseflies, after getting burnt in Wales I've changed to a higher factor one and it doesn't seem to have the same effect, a double win for me.

Brambles
This starry flowered form is one of the dominant varieties in the area.

I broke cover from the trees as a kestrel hovered low over the field by the path. It shifted position then decided I wasn't anything to worry about and got back to its business. Whitethroats sang in the hawthorns at the field margins, skylarks sang in the fields and woodpigeons clattered about all over the place. Typical English countryside noises.

Lavender Lane 

It started to rain. I was midway to anywhere so I carried on walking. The rain stopped when I got to Lavender Lane and it was replaced by sweaty armpit weather. A yellowhammer singing from the top of one of the trees at Four Lanes End was a welcome sight, I'd nigh on given up on them here.

Yellowhammer 

Blackbirds, whitethroats, wrens and skylarks sang. Somewhere to the South a curlew was calling but I couldn't see it. A family of young wrens bundled about the roots of a drainside hawthorn like a barrel load of monkeys. On the field a family of lapwings included two nearly full grown youngsters. Both of the pair of stonechats were very busy, almost too busy to stop and churr me on my way as I passed by. I had to look twice at the male, he was almost black. I don't recall his being that dark before, perhaps he's started to moult and he has black skin under his feathers like titmice do.

Stonechat

Large red damselfly 

I decided I was going to walk through Little Woolden Moss and over to Glazebury. Partly because I didn't want to walk down Astley Road during the school run, partly because I was hoping to see yellow wagtails. Little Woolden Moss was in one of its quieter moods, or would have been if a couple of dozen willow warblers hadn't been in song. Lapwings, black-headed gulls and an oystercatcher fussed about on the pools. Meadow pipits skittered about the heather and birch scrub, a couple sang and one of these performed a parachute song, rising above the bushes and slowing spiralling back down into cover. 

Little Woolden Moss 

Common blue damselflies, large red damselflies and red admirals flitted about the pathside bracken and my first large skippers of the year fluttered about the low brambles. Despite the muggy weather there was a distinct lack of swifts or hirundines. Which was a pity because there were plenty of horseflies and mosquitos for them to be having to eat. I got away with only being bitten a couple of times, both times the last meal of a large bloodthirsty clegg.

Cotton grass 

Barley

The barley fields were ripening. Linnets, reed buntings and skylarks were heard far more often than they were seen, occasionally breaking cover to fly between fields. As did the only yellow wagtail I got to see today, a female that disappeared into the depths of the barley stalks in less than the blink of an eye. Any hopes of seeing a Channel wagtail in the mix today were disappointed. (Channel wagtail is the name used for males showing signs of both the continental blue-headed subspecies and our yellow wagtail in their ancestry, typically they have a lavender blue head. One's reported from here every year.)

Small tortoiseshell 

Most of the butterflies along the wayside were red admirals and small tortoiseshells, there were a few peacocks and a couple of painted ladies. Greenfinches, chaffinches and linnets joined the songscape. Sand martins buzzed about high above the bridge over the River Glaze but the house martins usually found over the fields by The Raven and Fowley Common Road weren't anywhere to be seen.

By Moss Road 

I didn't have long to wait for the bus to Birchwood where I got the train home. It had been one of those walks where there was a lot about but nowhere did it feels busy with birds. They don't all have to be crowd scenes.