Woolston Eyes

Teal, lapwing, green sandpiper and snipe

I evidently needed ten hours' sleep Thursday night and I'm not aware that I woke anytime along the way, both of which are unusual. The very late morning awakening rather put the kibosh on my plans for Friday. In contrast I didn't get to sleep this morning until some time after sunrise and woke just after eight, which I've been telling myself all day is two hours. The old body clock is a bit out of kilter at the moment. The dawn chorus was a robin, a magpie and a ring-necked parakeet, one of the group that is apparently colonising the trees between the school and the clinic this week.

The plan for yesterday was a walk round Woolston Eyes so a walk round Woolston Eyes it was today, even if it was raining. I was feeling lazy so I got the train to Warrington and the No.2 bus to Latchford and walked down Thelwall Lane. Along the way I noticed that all the lesser black-back nestlings have flown from the rooftops of Irlam.

Cormorants, pigeons, black-headed gulls and, remarkably, a pair of great black-backs loafed on Latchford Locks. The faded charcoal black of the secondaries of the first one I saw contrasted with its jet black primaries and had me almost second-guessing it as a lesser black-back but no lesser black-back has pinkish-grey legs and dwarfs the cormorant it's standing next to. The second had scarcely any contrast between the primaries and the rest of the wing and put paid to any of my nonsense.

I've been meaning to have another prolonged wander round No.4 Bed (left). It wasn't the weather for it today.

Thelwall Lane 

The walk down Thelwall Lane feels a lot shorter at the beginning of the walk than the end. It was that sort of weather where you find yourself reacting a lot to leaves bouncing in the rain and you know there are small birds about but have scant evidence for that conviction until a leaf or twig happens to bounce against the flow. Chiffchaffs squeaked in canalside willows, wrens scolded from nettle patches and robins sang their claims to their Winter territories. A mixed tit flock had blue tits flying out sorties into the willows on one side of the lane while the long-tailed tits and great tits stayed put on the other. 

Heron

As I got to the bridge over to No.3 Bed about fifty gadwalls took flight and flew upstream, leaving the scores of remaining gadwalls drawing lazy patterns in the duckweed on the river. They, and the heron loafing by the bank, watched me as I fiddled with the padlock. Once I'd negotiated that, closed the gate and set off over the bridge the gadwalls concluded that I wasn't anything to bother about and resumed their billing and cooing with a loud chorus of quacks and whistles.

Gadwalls 

River Mersey 

A migrant hawker patrolled the bracken on the other side. The sign warning about muddy paths, so irrelevant for most of this year, became worth bearing in mind as a thin sheet of slimy, muddy water slid over the baked clay of the slope up from the bridge. In its own way it's worse than mud, you can get some traction in mud. There'll be a lot of slippery hill-walking going on across the country.

Walking up to the hides

A quick dekko out from the hide with no name found me some teal, coots and mallards on replenished — just — pools and a passage of swallows and sand martins, some of the swallows stopping to feed youngsters in mid-air. The Sybil Hogg Hide provided more shelter from the rain but no more variety in what I was seeing.

From the hide with no name
The near side of the pool at the front was just about thigh-deep to a mallard.

The rain eased and settled into a thin mizzle as I walked towards the meadows. Red admirals, tough little buggers as they are, were the first butterflies to take flight and they were soon joined by green-veined whites. A Southern hawker zipped up and gave me the eyeball before resuming its patrol of the willows and hawthorns. The squeaking of chiffchaffs and songs of robins were drowned out by a couple of jays unsure whether to continue their squabble over the ownership of an oak tree heavy with acorns or give me a good telling off for passing by. I left them to it and they continued squabbling relatively more quietly.

Green-veined white

Sloes, a tad damp
I think I read somewhere that there are hairstreaks on Woolston Eyes. 

A mixed tit flock were in residence in a stand of elderberry bushes. A large family of long-tailed tits fidgeted about the twigs while chiffchaffs, blue tits and great tits rummaged about in the depths. There's been an excellent passage of warblers through Woolston Eyes this past week or so but it wasn't my lucky day save for chiffchaffs and a couple of willow warblers.

I walked straight to the Morgan Hide and gave the shipping container a wide berth. The breeze wafting through the floor can be welcome on a hot day but not today. The Morgan Hide was snug and I immediately felt smug as I sat down and a Mediterranean gull led a procession of lapwings across the bed and over the far reedbeds. Parties of lapwings kept flying over that way in a leisurely fashion so they weren't being chased by anything.

From the Morgan Hide 

There were more lapwings dotted about the banks, breeding rafts and islands on the pool. Teals, mallards and a handful of shovelers dabbled about. There was a crowd of gadwalls in the far corner. More teals bathed and preened in front of the hide with a handful of snipe. And a green sandpiper pottered about the water's edge.

Green sandpiper 

Green sandpiper 

Snipe, teals and shoveler

Lapwings

When I lived in the Midlands for a time I got quite blasé about green sandpipers, they were regular as clockwork towards the end of July, coinciding with the reappearance of teal on the open water. I struggle with them up here, this was my first of the year. Some years I see far more wood sandpipers than green, which goes against what the books will tell you. It's probably a reflection of my style of birdwatching, I'm not constantly plugging away at less than a handful of sites so I'm needing more luck to be in the right place at the right time. Come to that, there are a lot more suitable wetlands for a passing green sandpiper to drop into now than there were forty years ago.

Snipe and teals

Teals and green sandpiper

Teals, green sandpiper, lapwing and snipe

Lapwing, teals, snipes and grèen sandpiper

I looked in vain for black-necked grebes, all the small grebes were dabchicks. The black-necked grebes are on the move now but I'd hoped one or two might be lingering. Woolston Eyes has had a very good year for them, thirty-odd breeding pairs which is excellent news.

A movement in the scrubby reeds to my right caught my eye. I was conscious of a small bird with a bright chestnut brown back. It would have remained a mystery but on the fourth time of trying I found it giving a nice profile view from a bit of rank willowherb just along the way, showing the rich brown upperparts and lead grey underparts of a freshly-moulted Cetti's warbler. It's very unusual to see one without hearing one.

Immediately in front of the hide half a dozen young pheasants rummaged about on the bank in the company of a snipe. I didn't see the snipe until I stood up to close the window and the bird flew out from the crowd onto the mud.

Pheasant 

I made my way back. The rain threatened but never happened. The air was as thick and damp as a school football team's changing room in February. Goldfinches and greenfinches twittered over the meadows. A great spotted woodpecker called from the trees, song thrushes and blackbirds rummaged in the undergrowth, another mixed tit flock skipped through the bramble patches. Half a dozen stock doves mingled with the squadrons of woodpigeons passing overhead.

Heading for the bridge
I bet Tarzan has no problems with padlocks.

I reached the bridge, crossed over to the gate and realised my worst fears about this visit. I spent ten minutes trying to unlock the padlock. Despite themselves, the gadwalls drifted over to watch. I was on the verge of telephoning for help when I noticed that the key was showing a bit more wear than I was expecting. The padlock opened first time with the right key.

Rush veneer

I walked round to Woolston Weir, the quacks and whistles of gadwalls ringing in my ears. Chiffchaffs squeaked, robins sang, speckled woods and migrant hawkers bustled about the bracken. Some rush veneer moths fluttering about the wayside reminded me of my ignorance of micro-moths. As I approached the weir, and the sound of squabbling coots, a flock of a dozen jackdaws escorted a male marsh harrier over to No.3 Bed where it belonged.

Tufted ducks 

Canada geese, coots, mute swans and great crested grebes congregated at the fork of the river. A raft of a dozen tufted ducks kept well away from the young lads fishing from the bridge over the river. 

Walking to Woolston Weir 

Upstream from Woolston Weir

I crossed over and walked up the river a bit. Mallards outnumbered tufted ducks two to one which outnumbered gadwalls three to one, scarcely surprising given that all the gadwall action was going on round the corner. I checked the buses, I just had time to walk up to Manchester Road for the 100 to the Trafford Centre. So I did.

A day out

Great white egret, Leighton Moss

It had been another wet night and the day was filled with the promise of thunder. Cumbria looked to be in for a quieter time of it so I got me an old man's explorer ticket and headed up North. The plan was to do a hit and run visit to Leighton Moss and get the early afternoon train to Corkicle and back.

The profound change in the weather was reflected by a profound change in the birdlife I could see from the train. The wet and miserable weather prompted a lot of wet and miserable woodpigeons to sit on trackside furniture and dream of plucking acorns from the cork forests of Iberia. Carrion crows, jackdaws and rooks fossicked about in fields, pigeons sat in lines on rooftops, black-headed gulls perched on lampposts. There was a light passage of swallows heading South. The rain eased once we passed Preston but it was still grim out there.

The pools by the Eric Morecambe Hide were still dry mud though the cattle put on to graze the marsh there have done a good job of cutting up the mud so that it presents a porous surface. There was water on the Allen pool but the trees got in the way of my seeing anything on there.

I decided I'd stay on the train to Dalton and come back to Leighton Moss, which meant I'd be getting four goes at the estuaries of Morecambe Bay at different states of tide. The tide was high as we crossed the Kent at Arnside. Little egrets lined creeks on the salt marsh and hundreds of oystercatchers lined mudbanks off Grange-over-Sands. As the train approached the viaduct over the River Leven we passed a ringtail hen harrier being harassed by a couple of carrion crows. A heron and a couple of eiders sat out the tide on the island at the base of the central pillar of the viaduct. On the way back the crowds of black-headed gulls on the pond by Grange-over-Sands Station and the couple of dozen teal on the River Winster near Meathop were particularly conspicuous.

Leighton Moss 

At Leighton Moss I had an unsuccessful hunt for marsh tits and spent forty minutes at Lilian's Hide. There was an embarrassment of egrets. It wasn't so very long ago I saw my first great white egret and here was a dozen of them. Mallards loafed about in groups, the drakes halfway through mounting out of eclipse plumage. The drake teals looked to be just starting the moult, a wigeon was still in ginger eclipse plumage, and I could only find a female shoveler. The gadwalls had finished their moult and the lads were making a nuisance of themselves with the ladies. 

Great white egret

From Lilian's Hide 

I got a very busy train to Corkicle. The tide was on the ebb and black-headed gulls and curlews were moving in on the emerging mud on the Kent and the Leven. The light passage of swallows of Lancashire became a torrent in Cumbria, flying past in flocks of a dozen or so or crowding along telephone lines by farmsteads. Flocks of herring gulls rummaged about the fields of Furness and were curiously absent from Barrow, where most of the half of the crowd that didn't get off at Grange-over-Sands alighted and the train suddenly felt more comfortable.

Jackdaws and carrion crows outnumbered the woodpigeons as we headed North. Scores of black-headed gulls and dozens of herring gulls and lapwings loafed on the Duddon Estuary. The osprey's nest on Arnaby Moss had been abandoned for another year. Buzzards sat in trees, pheasants scattered from the trackside. Every so often a flock of linnets or goldfinches took to flight. I congratulated myself on identifying the couple of meadow pipits keeping pace with the train as it slowed down on the approach to Millom and had to be philosophical about the myriad mystery little brown jobs disturbed from trees and bushes elsewhere along the way. The Esk was crowded with herring gulls and Canada geese.

It seemed strange not to have the prolonged stop at St Bees where the train usually waits to swap tokens with the down train for the single track to Corkicle. The line between Corkicle and Whitehaven is still closed so the trains are scheduled to pass each other on the double tracks further down the line.

The Irish Sea near Nethertown

I got to Corkicle and swapped over to the seaward side on the way back. Oystercatchers, black-headed gulls and herring gulls peppered the rocky shoreline. The weather closed in but the rain stayed light as we passed through. Yet more corvids rummaging about in fields. Fidgety flocks of swallows settling on telephone lines. Kestrels and buzzards on telegraph poles. Goosanders on the River Ehen at Sellafield, little egrets and black-headed gulls on the River Irt near Saltcoats. A crowd of lesser black-backs and herring gulls at the waste management site outside Barrow. Next to nothing on Cavendish Dock. The ebb tide brought more eiders near to the viaduct over the Leven and lapwings to the Kent. As the light faded prematurely in the rain I kept an optimistic eye out for owls over the fields and marshes but they had more sense than to chase raindrops.

I had half an hour's wait for the Manchester train from Lancaster and a long wait at Preston as night fell. I was glad of a cup of tea and a bowl of porridge when I finally got home.

A toddle

It teemed down all night and morning, abating at lunchtime and leaving behind the sort of steam-filled day that takes all the creases out of your trousers. Not at all walking weather. I had the fidgets on me anyway so I got the train to Bolton and the buses up to Ramsbottom for a potter about. The train arrives a couple of minutes after the 480 straight to Ramsbottom has left so I had to get the bus to Bury and the 472 to Ramsbottom.

I had a bit of a potter about in Ramsbottom. It's only a little town and if you can ignore the cars and prices it is forever 1957. The bus was held up at the level crossing for a steam train to leave the station and head for Rawtenstall. Jackdaws and woodpigeons lumbered about on the rooftops. A bunch of mallards tidied up the picnic area by the Irwell. It was all very nice.

The mallards had noticed me

I had a look at the little pond on the corner of Kay Brow. I queried the wisdom of this when three dozen mallards took the the water and swam my way with "Feed me!" in their eyes. I hid behind some Canada geese and beat a hasty retreat.

On the way home my latest last swifts of the year wheeled over Langworthy as the 52 bus headed for the Trafford Centre.

Thwarted

One of the disadvantages of living by a railway line is that you know no train has gone down the line even though the departures board tells you you've missed it. Rebranding the 0949 as the late-running 10:23 did little to instil confidence in the day's travel. Not only was the connection with the Southport missed, so was the later connection with the Blackpool train to pick up the Victoria to Southport train at Salford Crescent. I didn't see any great point in trying to get to Martin Mere today: I'd lost at least an hour and if the trains are going to be that unreliable I'd best pass on the experience.

The day's plans so violently scrubbed I wondered what to do instead while fighting a strong urge to say stuff this for a game of soldiers. Instead I got the bus to Huddersfield, like you do, and had a bit of an explore. I've not travelled the train line direct from Huddersfield to Sheffield through Penistone and wondered what the country was like.

It turned out to be a pleasant journey, winding its way round the rolling hills and townships of South Yorkshire. It was unsurprisingly quiet, the large whites outnumbered the woodpigeons and there was a remarkable absence of magpies. The only large flock of birds was the few dozen herring gulls and lesser black-backs having a bath on the River Don just outside Sheffield City Centre in the company of a little egret. What is likely to be my last swift of the year whizzed over Sheffield Station while I waited for the Manchester train.

The Peak District was bathed in a soft light as we chugged past fields dotted with jackdaws, rooks and carrion crows. A nice end to a not very productive day. And I had a better mental map of the Western edges of South Yorkshire.

Greater Manchester bumper bundle

Guelder rose, Cutacre

A mild and sunny  start to the week. I decided I wasn't in the mood for testing my patience with trains today, despite the selection of plans available for a day out. I went over to the Trafford Centre and played bus station bingo. I seem to be riding the 132 a lot this month. Amberswood or Cutacre? I asked myself. In the end I opted for Cutacre and the possibility of waders on Swan Lake. And for a change I'd get off in Atherton and walk down Engine Lane and thence make my way down to Tyldesley.

Engine Lane

A migrant hawker patrolled Shakerley Lane as I walked towards Engine Lane. The hedgerows of Engine Lane were pretty quiet, speckled woods and large whites fluttered about, another migrant hawker zipped past, blue tits and dunnocks fidgeted through the hawthorn bushes and chiffchaffs squeaked from the trees, providing a nice compare and contrast with a willow warbler squeaking from the railway embankment. Half a dozen sand martins twittered on their way South while swallows hawked low over the meadows. A young buzzard was calling from somewhere on the other side of the railway. And there was a constant overhead traffic of gulls.

Black-headed gulls, herring gulls and Canada geese

For once nobody was sitting on the bench at Swan Lake so I settled down and had a scan round. I wasn't going to get any waders today, not even any lapwings or oystercatchers. On the other hand, there were plenty of gulls, equal numbers of herring gulls and black-headed gulls, about half as many lesser black-backs and a single adult great black-back standing on its own on a rock by the island. The black-headed gulls massed on the other side of the lake and were very fidgety. There was just the one mute swan cruising about, coots and moorhens fossicked around the island and a family of dabchicks made sure to be mixed in with mallards, coots and gadwalls well away from the large gulls. There were a few dozen each of mallards, Canada geese and gadwalls and the gadwalls were already feeling the effects of the fires in the blood after their return from their moulting grounds. 

Canada geese and mallards

More swallows passed overhead, a few did a couple of circuits of the lake before drifting off. I almost missed a passing sparrowhawk, it shot across the trees behind the lake and disappeared over the railway line. Half a dozen goldfinches flew in the opposite direction.

Cumbermere Lane 

I crossed the railway bridge and walked down Cumbermere Lane into Tyldesley. The hedgerows were considerably busier down here: house sparrows, goldfinches and greenfinches chipped and tweeted, chiffchaffs squeaked, a robin had a bit of a sing to itself and a family of bullfinches wheezed sadly in a stand of elderberry bushes. A solitary house martin flew by, it seems strange only seeing the one.

Common darter 

Yet another migrant hawker zipped by. As I was approaching the common another dragonfly darted about the hedgerow. I was puzzled by it until it stopped for a breather. While it was flying about I was very conscious of a pale blue abdomen like one of the skimmers but once it parked itself it was a female common darter with a pale blue rear end. Immature or over-mature? Dunno. One or the other.

I got the 132 back to the Trafford Centre from Tyldesley. Rather than going straight home I decided I'd have a look at Eccles Water Treatment Works for the glossy ibises that had turned up there. I will admit that I'd hoped I might have spotted them on the filtration pans as the bus passed by over Barton Bridge but dark against dark at that distance was too big an ask.

I could, arguably should, have walked straight from the bus station to the Barton Lift Bridge and looked over the filtration beds from the West Salford Greenway (God alone knows why the road's called that, Salford in the strict sense is miles to the East, the boundary of the Salford local government area is miles to the West, and it's a four-lane road). Instead I went into Barton-upon-Irwell, to give it its Sunday name, and walked Westward along the canal. It had occurred to me that I've never walked this bit and it was time I did.

Manchester Ship Canal 

Mallards and Canada loafed by the canalside in the hopes that some of the families on the grass might have food to spare. A few black-headed gulls had a bath. A mixed tit flock — long-tailed tits, blue tits and great tits — bounced through the trees and bushes along the way.

Walking by the water treatment works, Barton Bridge in the distance 

A dead end turned out to be a very tight metal kissing gate leading to a footpath beside the water treatment works. I had a wave of nostalgia. Back in the day sewage works were one of the rites of passage for birdwatchers. Cetti's warblers on Countess Weir, rare buntings on Bedminster, et cetera, et cetera. There was too much tree cover for much but passing views of the filtration pans. What I could see was littered with black-headed gulls, jackdaws and carrion crows.

Glossy ibis

At the end of the path I climbed up the steps to the Greenway and walked along until I got a view of the beds. A cyclist who was just packing his binoculars away put me on to where the ibises were. "They're a bit tricky to find," he said. He was dead right, I spotted one straight away but I was beggared if I could find the second. The one I found was straightforward as it was standing still preening at the front of the third pan down. A good view, albeit distant. I spent a while searching in vain for the second one and in the endI gave up and walked into Davyhulme for the bus home (it's only five stops but I was feeling lazy).

Glossy ibis

I wouldn't have given odds on glossy ibises within walking distance from home.

Wellacre Country Park

Swallow

It was a pleasant afternoon, and getting warmer, I didn't fancy travelling anywhere very far so I had a wander round Wellacre Country Park, which is getting to be a habit.

I bumped into the first mixed tit flock almost as soon as I'd got off the bus and walked towards Wellacre Wood. I noticed a goldcrest fidgeting through a hawthorn bush and a couple of blue tits noticed me. I was quickly told to move on my way by great tits and long-tailed tits. The goldcrest quietly went about its business.

Wellacre Wood 

The wood was littered with falling leaves. Ring-necked parakeets called in the treetops, blackbirds muttered in the undergrowth, robins squeaked and practiced their vocals. Deep in the wood I stood to one side to let a lady and her dogs past. She waved me on, her cat, which was also on the walk, was on a sit-down strike under a bush. 

House sparrows 

I left the wood and walked round to Jack Lane. A migrant hawker passed by. Besides being smaller and distinctly bluer they differ from Southern hawkers in not stopping to have a close look at you. The house sparrows I hadn't been seeing last time were out in force today, forty-odd of them dust bathing on the path. Swallows and sand martins zipped about low over the fields and hedgerows and groups of young swallows twittered about in the tops of hawthorn bushes.

Swallows

Swallows

Swallows

Swallows

Jack Lane Nature Reserve 

Large whites, speckled woods and common darters fidgeted about the brambles at the entrance to Jack Lane Nature Reserve. A mild, damp week had perked up the vegetation though the pools were just mostly only slightly muddier than last time. I could see where moorhens had been, and where a dog had chased a moorhen into the reeds, but didn't see any of them. A reed warbler had a bit of a sing to itself from the depths of the reeds. A loud cronking overhead made me look up and see two immature ravens flying over to Irlam. Do they commute between the Mersey Valley and Irlam or for ravens do all roads lead to Irlam, I wondered.

As I walked by the railway embankment chiffchaffs and blue tits bounced through the trees. High overhead a soaring kestrel did a very good impersonation of a sparrowhawk and had me fooled for a moment. Lesser black-backs headed for Woolston Eyes. Speckled woods and large whites fluttered about in the wayside. 

Heading for Dutton's Pond 

By chance I was watching a large white fluttering about the canopy of a willow tree when I spotted another butterfly which wasn't one of the regulars. It was a bit smaller than a gatekeeper and at first looked to have plain foxy brown underwings. It stayed high up and I was only getting fleeting, erratic sight of it. As it flew across the path I got the sense of an inner underwing and outer underwing but no conscious sense of a line between them. My guess, and it is only a guess, is that it was a brown hairstreak. Either that or something considerably rarer. There are plenty enough blackthorns locally to support a population of brown hairstreaks but I didn't think we got them round here. Way, way back when most of our roadside trees were elms, there used to be reports of white-letter hairstreaks but I can't see that happening these days, Dutch elm disease did for the lot of them.

A mallard, a moorhen and a coot pottered about on Dutton's Pond. I rather hoped there was more of the same on the other side of the island.

The blue tits made an appearance as I walked by Green Hill and they joined a wren in making disapproving noises as I passed by. Goldfinches twittered in the treetops and half a dozen pigeons courted on the roof of the abandoned barn at the end of Carrington Road. A mixed tit flock — blue tits, long-tailed tits, chiffchaffs and goldfinches — in the trees by Flixton Bridge were a nice coda to the walk.

Jack Lane