Pottering about

I was suspicious of another sunny day. The knees creaked and my flat cap needed another dose of air refreshener to stop it smelling quite so conspicuously like a distressed sheep. 

I'd only been able to get suet pellets when I went to the shop on Friday so the spadgers and starlings squabbled over them while the blue tits and great tits did occasional smash and grab raids on the feeders. I'll have to get some sunflower seeds, the coal tits and goldfinches are missing out.

Lostock Park 

I had a quick nosy at my local patch. The park was predictably busy of people on a mild, sunny Sunday afternoon. Which meant the magpies were mostly in the surrounding gardens rather than the park. There was a distinct "liaisons on the school bus" vibe to the rooftops of Barton Road. Robins, blackbirds and great tits sang in the trees by the play area. More great tits sang in the trees at the far end of the park, and they were joined by goldfinches, a wren and a greenfinch. Blue tits and a chaffinch fidgeted about in the bushes but it was otherwise fairly quiet.

Barton Clough 

It was even quieter in the waste cornfields. A few woodpigeons, pigeons and magpies flew about. Herring gulls and black-headed gulls flew high overhead. A couple of robins sang, a great tit scolded me from one of the hazel bushes. Even the usual song thrush was silent. Consolation came as the buzzard made a cameo appearance, skimming the tops of the Lombardy poplars in the park and putting the wind up the woodpigeons. It's been a while since I last saw it.

Walking back through the park through the avenue of poplars I upset a mistle thrush which rattled at me from one of the branches just above my head and a bullfinch wheezed from the treetops.

I got the 256 into Flixton and walked down from Town Gate to see what was about on Irlam Locks. The starlings were massing and singing on the electricity pylons and don't think I didn't look at them all to make sure none of them were pink. Similarly the masses of black-headed gulls on the water treatment works were given close inspection, just in case a Mediterranean gull was lurking in amongst them. I'm at that point in the game where I'm worrying about the speed of additions to the year list again. It happens every year and the only unpredictability about it is when it's first going to manifest and make me fidgety. As I've also realised that at some point in the future my birdwatching statistics are going to be a record of my declining powers I can see that I may have to give my head a serious wobble one of these days.

The spadgers in the hedgerows were noisy. Blackbirds fossicked about in a flooded fields by Town Gate Farm. Looking at the immense puddle across the road and the gateway it's to be hoped the farm has the use of an amphibious landing craft.

Irlam Road

The Ship Canal was quiet, just a few mallards and a pair of coots. Cormorants dried their wings on the locks in the company of more mallards and handfuls of black-headed gulls and pigeons. Downstream more mallards and cormorants cruised the canal. There was no sign of the usual mute swans and great crested grebes and the only wagtail was a passing pied wagtail.

Downstream from Irlam Locks 

It was a surprisingly low-key day given the weather. Perhaps the birds needed a rest after battling through a week of wind and rain.

One of them birds

I may have mentioned before that I find gulls hard work at times. This morning was one of those times. There were dozens of black-headed gulls on the school playing field with a few herring gulls, common gulls and a lesser black-back. And one gull playing Billy No-Mates in a far corner. There was something not quite about it. Luckily it was Sunday morning so I could point binoculars and a camera that way safely. The "not quite" I'd unconsciously picked up was a long straight beak and gently sloping forehead giving the impression of a stick stuck into a potato. For now I've got it down as a particularly snouty herring gull.

Probably a herring gull
(Heavily cropped photo)

Probably a herring gull
(Heavily cropped photo)

Amberswood

Treecreeper

It had been a bright,sunny morning. I'd debated the pros and cons of where to go today and decided that Amberswood would be the least busy on a sunny Saturday. The clouds rolled in as I put my coat on and walked to the bus stop. It became overcast as I hung about the Trafford Centre waiting for the 132 bus but it was still dry and mild and the wind that had been a feature of the week had died down. I stepped off the bus on Manchester Road and it started pouring down.

Walking in from Manchester Road 

The rain didn't put off the singing robins, woodpigeons and great tits. The hedgerows were heaving with small birds, not least because every do often someone had put bird food on flat surfaces. Great tits, blue tits, house sparrows and reed buntings flitted through the bushes, blackbirds and chaffinches mopped up on the ground. 

Amberswood 

Further along a loose sort of mixed tit flock bouncing through the woodland included great tits, blue tits, goldcrests and blackbirds. The harder the rain fell the louder the song thrushes sang. The peculiar squeaks in the treetops turned out to be a pair of great spotted woodpeckers succumbing to the fires in the blood.

Coal tit

I spent longer than was wise standing at the corner of the lake watching the titmice, chaffinches and reed buntings on the feeders. I was hoping one or more of the willow tits might make themselves available for adding to the year list, I've had no luck so far. And had none today. The long-tailed tits I hadn't been seeing on the path in were on the fat feeders. There were as many coal tits as blue tits and twice as many reed buntings as chaffinches. Given the weather and the time of year it wasn't surprising the feeding was so frenetic.

Blue tit (front) and great tit

Amberswood Lake 

As I squelched round the lake I consoled myself with the thought I'd soon be being baffled by dragonflies. After the past week I made sure to check that all the tufted ducks were tufted ducks. I found a common gull amongst the black-headed gulls. The mallards and moorhens, and most of the coots, were sheltering in the reeds. The usual pair of mute swans had given up and gone to sleep.

Tufted ducks

Heron

A heron stalking the little pond by the path didn't move as I walked by but made sure I knew it was seeing me off the premises. It had to wait longer than either of us had anticipated as I spotted the pair of great crested grebes squaring up to dance. They were well into the initial head-waggling with their tufts and ruffs fully expanded for maximum effect when, almost inevitably, the third grebe on this lake barged in, blaring like a foghorn, and broke up the proceedings.

Great crested grebes

I didn't fancy going over to Low Hall then traipsing up Liverpool Road to get the bus back from Hindley. I decided instead to head for Spring View for the buses to Wigan or Leigh, only a very slightly longer walk and most of it under cover of trees. I hadn't gone far when I bumped into a pair of treecreepers working the moss-covered saplings by the path. They were accompanying a mixed finch flock which at first I thought was just goldfinches and chaffinches then I noticed the larches and alders were busy with siskins and redpolls. The siskins followed me along the path, often coming within an arm's length. Eventually I gave in and tried to get some photos. Which turned out like most of my photos of siskins, silhouettes against a blank grey sky. The light was so awful, and the siskins so active, that any time I caught one against a dark background the inevitably slow shutter speed required rendered the bird a blur. Still, you've got to try.

Siskin

Heading for Spring View 

Further along, song thrushes and blackbirds sang and woodpigeons, magpies and jays barged about in the trees. A dunnock sang from a hawthorn bush in a small clearing. Robins sang from the otherwise deserted fishing lodge. I got the 609 bus to Leigh and connected with the 126 back to the Trafford Centre. About a hundred yards from home it stopped raining.

Wirral

Cormorant, New Brighton
(A carbo bird)

Yesterday was cold and windy and I really didn't feel like battling against it so I had a writing day. Which finished just after 3am when I noticed the time. Today was cool rather than cold, probably because the wind had lessened considerably, so I headed over to the Wirral to see what was about. I've seen very few reports of purple sandpipers at New Brighton this Winter but you never know your luck so I'd go there first. Once I'd finished there I could the go over to West Kirby to see what was on the marine lake.

Turnstone, West Kirby

At Liverpool I just missed the New Brighton train so I headed over to West Kirby first. It was a very high tide, high enough for kayakers to ride over the seawall to the lake with plenty of clearance. Turnstones fussed about the car park end of the lake unheeding of people and not particularly fussed about dogs. Herring gulls and black-headed gulls bobbed about on the water, rather more herring gulls sat on the rooftops in town.

Red-breasted mergansers

Scaup

Walking down the promenade I soon started picking up red-breasted mergansers, half a dozen of them in total. Most were cruising about the seawall end but one pair steamed across the lake shadowing a group of goldeneyes. A drake scaup lead the way for a while until he dived and re-emerged where the goldeneyes had been half a minute ago.

Little Eye, Middle Eye and Hilbre from the marine lake

I carried on walking to the end of the lake, just in case anything else had drifted in, because I was feeling greedy. Nothing had but there were half a dozen common scoters out in the middle of the river. A couple of small flocks of knots and a few redshanks flew downstream to roost on Hilbre. Walking back I could see that Little Eye was covered with cormorants and a pair of great black-backs.

Dunlins and redshank

Redshanks and dunlins

I'd had my lunchtime walk so I headed over to New Brighton where the tide was on the point of turning and the redshanks were leaving the pontoon roost to chase the retreating tide. A few turnstones stayed behind and scuttled about amongst the black-headed gulls and herring gulls, a handful of dunlins caught up with their sleep. There was no sign of any purple sandpipers. A flock of starlings bustled about the promenade and pied wagtails skittered about the car park.

New Brighton 

The emerging beach was dotted with black-headed gulls and redshanks. The sea defences to the lighthouse were littered with oystercatchers and cormorants. I walked down past Fort Perch to the river. The sea defences there were crowded with cormorants. All the dumpy waders scuttling about were turnstones. Upstream three sanderlings and a dunlin played tig with the tide.

Cormorants
(The adult on the left is a sinensis bird.)

Great black-back, cormorants and herring gulls

On the way back I noticed that the herring gulls were joining the black-headed gulls on the beach. I'd noticed a very noisy first-Winter bird begging from its parent on the cinema roof when I arrived. They'd moved down to the tideline and it was still nothing doing as far as a free meal was concerned.

Herring gulls
A first-Winter begging from a parent.

Herring gulls
A pair, female on the left. They'd been doing heads-raised courtship displays just before this picture was taken. I waited for them to resume the display but they'd other plans.

It was still early afternoon, I felt I should be able to fit another site into the day's itinerary but I hit a wall of weariness. Thinking that quarter of an hour's sit down might get me a second wind I got the 411 bus to Hamilton Square Station. It didn't work, I called it a day. I went back home via Wrexham. Like you do.

Mersey Valley

Great tit, Chorlton Ees

It was a bright, sunny day so I thought I'd have a walk through the Mersey Valley from Turn Moss to Princess Road. I've only skimmed through Chorlton Ees so far this year and haven't walked the stretch of the river from Jackson's Boat to Chorlton Water Park. It's about time I did.

Ivy Green 

Hazy clouds had drifted in by the time i got to Turn Moss. Walking down Hawthorn Lane the ring-necked parakeets, carrion crows and magpies were competing to see which could make the most noise in the treetops, drowning out the robins and titmice in the wayside. The damp nights have taken their toll of the paths across Ivy Green. As I slid and squelched my way across the mud there was a definite "My God, not this again!" vibe from the old knees. The green itself had been strimmed to an inch of its life and was for all intents and purposes a desert, even the magpies and crows couldn't be bothered with it.

Chorlton Ees 

Blackthorn 

I crossed the brook into Chorlton Ees where the footpaths were better, if still muddy, and the bird life less subdued. The parakeets were very vocal but couldn't drown out the great tits and robins. Blackbirds and song thrushes bustled about in the dead hedges, titmice bounced through the hawthorns and jays were uncharacteristically quiet as they scuttled about the treetops. A heron flew low over the hay meadow but didn't stop. 

Blackbird

The Mersey was running fast and high past Jackson's Boat. Pairs of mallards loafed on the banks, complaining loudly as they took to the water every so often to avoid dogs intent on getting themselves soaking wet. A line of black-headed gulls drifted down the middle of the river snatching at emerging midges. As each drifted too far for the snacking it flew upstream and joined the end of the line.

Black-headed gulls

The trees and bushes on the Lancashire side of the river were quietly busy with magpies, jays, bullfinches and goldcrests. The goldcrests were very confiding but made sure there was a twig in front of their faces every time the camera got them in focus. 

Jackson's Boat 

Things changed beyond Jackson's Boat. There were far fewer people and dogs and, at first, fewer birds in the hedgerows. The gangs of Canada geese and mallards on the riverbanks made up the numbers.

Long-tailed tit

I was checking the larches on the edge of the golf club for finches, in vain as it happens as it looked like all the cones had been worked out. As I was looking up a troupe of long-tailed tits came giddying across the hedgerow with a few blue tits in tow. Even by long-tailed tit standards the action was frenetic, the lean times seem to have come early this year with everything being out of synch and this cold snap after a mild start to the month can't be helping. Further along as the river ran beside Barlow Tip wrens, robins and bullfinches sang in the trees and another troupe of long-tailed tits passed by.

Cormorant

A couple of cormorants dried their wings on the far riverbank in the company of a few mallards and a redhead goosander floated downstream. The water was too high for the grey wagtails to be in any of their usual haunts, if they were about they were more likely to be fossicking about under bridges than up on the banks. Bailey Bridge, which connected Chorlton Water Park and Kenworthy Woods, had been condemned as unsafe and has now been removed completely. Fingers crossed for its replacement coming soon.

Barlow Tip 

The metalled path into Barlow Tip was very wet indeed, the surrounding ground was even wetter so I didn't wander from it. There were plenty of blackbirds, magpies and dunnocks about. Robins, carrion crows and song thrushes sang and bullfinches wheezed from the trees, a mixed tit flock bounced through the undergrowth and another heron flew overhead. I couldn't work out whether the squeaking from a gorse bush on the rise was a great tit or a chiffchaff, it went quiet almost as soon as I heard it and I wasn't for walking up the cascade of muddy water to try and get a visual on it. Every so often even I can recognise a fool's errand. 

The tufted ducks were easier to see here than at Lymm

Chorlton Water Park was busy with people, birds and dogs and roughly in that order. Rafts of tufted ducks, mallards and black-headed gulls drifted about the island at the Barlow Tip end. It took me a while to find the great crested grebes, they were cruising about just off the island. 

Chorlton Water Park 

There was a much bigger raft of black-headed gulls, inevitably, off the landing stage by the ice cream van with a lot of mallards, coots and pigeons. The Canada geese were very vocal but there were only a handful of them and there were only a few mute swans about. Half a dozen goosanders drifting midwater here included a very salmon-pink drake which evidently knew where all the best shrimps were. Cormorants sat on the island at this end drying their wings and the trees were full of gulls. There were a few common gulls about and they spent most of their time chasing black-headed gulls to try to pinch whatever they'd found to eat.

Black-headed gulls and common gull

I rejoined the river and walked down to Princess Road. Parakeets, magpies and carrion crows called from the woods. Titmice and goldfinches fidgeted through the hedgerows on this side of the river. A coal tit sang from one of the gardens and house sparrows fussed about by the children's playground. I walked down, joined the road and got the 87 into Greenheys and got the 15 back home. I need to remind myself to do that walk more often, it's just the right length for getting the knees working properly and it's very productive for birdwatching, even on a half-term holiday afternoon.

Looking over the river to Kenworthy Woods 

Lymm

Tufted ducks, Manchester Ship Canal

It was one of those early mornings overcrowded with filthy weather that invite you to pull the bedclothes over your head and pretend it hadn't happened. 

By mid-morning the weather started settling down and it began to look like the plans for the day might be feasible after all. There had been reports over the weekend of a female lesser scaup amongst the tufted ducks on the Manchester Ship Canal at Lymm. I've seen a handful of lesser scaups and only ever seen females in the company of drakes. I wondered if my ID skills were up to it. I checked the weather forecast. Sunshine and showers over lunchtime, it said. So off I went.

Common gull, Humphrey Park

Sunshine and showers it was. The wind was brisk and in the fifteen minutes it took to walk to the bus stop on Stretford Road there were three intervals of brilliant sunshine and three heavy showers. It was ideal worm-charming weather for the gulls. I got the 255 to Partington and from there I got the 5A into Lymm. Along the way the rain stopped, replaced by varying degrees of bright and gloomy as the clouds sped by overhead.

The last report of the lesser scaup had it near the inlet North of Statham Pool. Looking at the map there was a path that ended at the canal close by. I got off the bus at Barsbank Lane and walked up, under the Bridgewater Canal where it becomes Star Lane, past the abandoned Altrincham to Warrington line which is this stretch of the Transpennine Trail, across the road and it becomes Pool Road, dead straight all the way and not very far at all yet umpteen names.

Statham Pool 

I had a quick nosy at Statham Pool. A pair of mallards dozed on the banks. Great tits, chaffinches and goldfinches fussed about in the bushes and a nuthatch called from one of the trees. I walked down what was now Statham Lane and watched a pair of great spotted woodpeckers courting in the treetops.

Statham Lane

The road became two diverging paths and I took the one to my right. To be fair, the sign did say: "Restricted footpath," it was proper February walking. Luckily, feet had passed that way before so I meandered across the thick, sticky mud and deep puddles treading in their footprints wherever possible. I was relieved when the path veered away from a farm gate and became a thin avenue of wet grass. And all of a sudden I was at a dead end.

Manchester Ship Canal 

The Ship Canal was visible beyond a thick curtain of tall reeds. It had become a bright, sunny lunchtime but the visibility wasn't great through the reeds without using my binoculars to blur out the foreground. When I did, there was a small raft of tufted ducks and they were all tufted ducks. There was another, slightly larger, raft just downstream. A couple of great crested grebes, an adult and a first-Winter, cruised by. I returned to the nearby raft of tufties, there were more this time. And something else. A first-Winter drake pochard. There were five of them, with an adult drake, they drifted into view and then were hidden by reeds again. There was a big raft of about fifty tufties upstream. It slowly dawned on me that there were upwards of a hundred tufted ducks on this stretch but at no time was I seeing them all at once.

After about fifteen minutes I saw the lesser scaup. She was with a small raft of tufties — more ducks than drakes — that had drifted out into view from the near bank and was slowly drifting downstream. I nearly missed her, not just because she spent so much time underwater. About half the female tufties had white blazes on their faces. The lesser scaup didn't look to have much white on her face at all so she blended into the crowd until she bobbed up in front of a drake tuftie and I got a better look at her. She didn't have the boxy shape of a tufted duck and her head was appreciably darker than the rest of her body, as though she was wearing a hood. I watched a little longer, to make sure I wasn't indulging in wishful thinking, until they drifted out of sight.

A female scaup, a greater scaup in this context, had also been reported. I had no luck with her. She was reported about half an hour later upstream from here.

As I turned to walk back I wondered if I should walk the Transpennine Trail into Heatley or else into Grappenhall. It started pouring down. The hint was taken: I was catching the bus back from Lymm. Returning to the gate I noticed a footpath along the edge of a field  back to Statham Pool. Keen not to indulge in another mudfest I took it, which turned out to be a good idea.

The path between the pools

The unnamed pool

Beyond the field the path ran along a causeway between Statham Pool and a fishing lodge on the right and a larger, wilder pool filled with drowned willows on the left. Titmice, chaffinches, blackbirds and robins were busy in the trees. Teals called from the pool though it took me a long while to find them. A group of drake shovelers were considerably easier to pick out amongst the willow roots.

I followed the path round and into town. The sun came out so I walked a few hundred yards of the Transpennine Trail just so I could say I did it.

Lymm Dam 

I had half an hour to wait for the bus so I had a look at Lymm Dam. Mallards loafed on the banks, a mute swan cruised the side, black-headed gulls squabbled and great crested grebes barked at each other. My knees voiced their objections to all that sliding about in the mud earlier so I had a sit down and enjoyed the view until it was time to hobble over and get the bus. It had been a far better day's birdwatching and walking than I'd expected.

Lymm Dam