Garden news

My garden's not particularly big but with a couple of trees, a few shrubs and a railway embankment thick with sycamores and brambles at the end of it. Most days I see between six and thirteen species of bird in there.

This has not gone unnoticed.

Sparrowhawk, Stretford

Sparrowhawk, Stretford

Sparrowhawk, Stretford

Sparrowhawk, Stretford

Marshside and Crossens

Marshside
One of those days when the sky's a painted backdrop

Keen to take advantage of the cool, wet weather and get away from the news of the day I went for an afternoon wander round Marshside and Crossens.

Aside from a couple of dozen low flying house martins the approach along Marshside Road was very quiet, picking up only near the end with ten mallard and a heron. Junction Pool was even quieter but that may be because there's been work going on recently to improve the ditches here.

Junction Pool, as quiet as I've ever seen it

Things changed dramatically at the Sandgrounders Hide. A flock of black-tailed godwits were busy feeding in the company of a few teal. Tucked away in a far corner were a couple of snipe and a curlew sandpiper. While I was trying — and failing — to identify a couple of small brown birds that were being chased by a pied wagtail a very bright female wheatear flitted across my eye line. Just as I was about to leave a common sandpiper flew in.

Black-tailed godwits, Marshside

Black-tailed godwit, Marshside

Black-tailed godwit, Marshside

Black-tailed godwits, teal, a curlew sandpiper and a snipe, Marshside

Black-tailed godwits, teal, and a curlew sandpiper, Marshside

A ruddy shelduck could just be seen from the hide. It obligingly swam close by as I was walking down the path towards Crossens.

Ruddy shelduck, Marshside

Ruddy shelduck, Marshside

Crossens Inner Marsh was very quiet, a combination of the time of year and work being done on the ditches now that this area's been added to the nature reserve.

Information board for Crossens Inner Marsh

Thirty or so curlew feeding amongst the greylag geese gave a hint of the Autumn to come.

Crossens Outer Marsh was similarly quiet, save for a large flock of swallows around the wildfowlers' pull-in and a couple of kestrels hunting over the rough sedge. A dark shape quickly skimming low over the salt marsh turned out to be a very fine adult hobby.

A merlin quartering a potato field alongside the railway line a couple of minutes outside Meols Cop was the icing on the cake. I've seen a report that I missed out on a peregrine about half an hour after I left Sandgrounders, a shame as it's always nice to get a full set of falcons in one day.

Urban birdwatching: Longford Park and Rye Banks Fields

Rye Bank Fields

An afternoon stroll around Longford Park and Rye Bank Fields.

Longford Park was August Bank Holiday busy, which didn't stop two or three mixed tit flocks working their way through the trees accompanied by nuthatches, treecreepers and chiffchaffs. A couple of ring-necked parakeets footled round the treetops near the children's play area and a passing sparrowhawk flew overhead.

Despite only being separated from Longford Park by a couple of lines of trees, separated from people's houses by garden fences and being right next to sports day at Longford Stadium Rye Bank Fields was completely different again. Dead quiet, with just a few small kids playing by their house and three people passing through.

This area is owned by Manchester Metropolitan University and used to be one of its recreation grounds but over the past few decades it's been left fallow and nature has taken over. For me this is part of its charm, it's nothing special but that's precisely what makes it special: there's a danger that all we'll have left in the end are a collection of "special" places where we have to drive out to enjoy remnant pieces of managed nature. Needless to say, there are plans to build on it.

Save Ryebank Fields

The trees by the stadium were full of a mixed tit flock that included a big family of long-tailed tits and a willow warbler sharing a poplar tree with a couple of chiffchaffs just to keep me on my toes.

At the other end of the fields, towards Rye Bank Road, a pair of jays were being very noisy in the oak trees. There's a half-dead sycamore just by these trees and something pale caught my eye as it flitted about and returned to a dead branch. Nice to see my first spotted flycatcher of the year.

Spotted flycatcher, Rye Bank Fields

Spotted flycatcher, Rye Bank Fields

Spotted flycatcher, Rye Bank Fields

The Wirral

Red Rocks half an hour before high tide

Gave up on the cricket early enough to only catch the first two wickets. Set off to do the first seawatching of the year over on the Wirral. I was early for high tide so I stopped off at Moreton for a stroll round Leasowe Common. Lots of swallows about the paddocks in Kerr's Field but no sign of any of the stonechats that were there a while back. A very obliging buzzard posed for photographs.

Buzzard, Kerr's Field

Buzzard, Kerr's Field

A lot of dunlin, turnstones and ringed plovers on the beach with the gulls and little egrets.

Dunlins, Moreton Beach

Dunlins and little egret, Moreton Beach

Then over to Hoylake for a walk up to Red Rocks. A fairly low high tide today so everything was a bit distant but still managed to add kittiwake, gannet, Manx shearwater, bonxie and my first ever pomarine skua (a juvenile, I think) to the year list.

There were a lot of distant dark shapes flying past the wind turbines; statistically they were almost certainly juvenile lesser black backs — there were plenty of these kicking about. The bonxie was only half a mile out and high enough to be out of the heat haze. The pom was twenty minutes later and required a long process of elimination: roughly the same size as the juvenile lesser black-backs but a lot heftier and with a lot of chest about it but smaller and with more back end than the bonxie.

I only managed to see the shearwaters because they passed in front of a buoy. There were a lot of indistinct smudges moving through the heat haze which may have been more or could just have been shadows of waves.

Martin Mere

Day out to Martin Mere with the weather managing to behave itself.

The long-billed dowitcher that had been reported this morning was best viewed from where the old Swan Link Hide used to be so it was business as usual for most of the reserve. I had a look in at the viewpoints where the Swan Link used to be but you can't get more than half a dozen people in either so I scratched the dowitcher, only to accidentally see it briefly from a distance from one of the other hides. 

Black-tailed godwits, Martin Mere
No long-billed dowitcher here.

There were a lot of waders about including snipe, ruff, greenshanks and green sandpipers as well as the flock of a few hundred black-tailed godwits the dowitcher was hiding in. 

Not often you get this many different species of wader in one shot without its being a distant crowd scene.

Green sandpiper flying in, black-tailed godwit, a couple of snipe and a couple of greenshanks

Left-to right: green sandpiper, snipe, a couple of greenshanks and another snipe

Greenshanks

Best of the rest was a hobby catching dragonflies in front of the Ron Barker Hide.

Mersey Valley

Had a wander down from Chorlton to Sale Water Park this afternoon. Ivy Green was dead quiet and Chorlton Ees wasn't much better, aside from the occasional contact call or bunch of leaves moving the wrong way you wouldn't think there were any birds about at all.

It was only when I got to where Cholrton Ees meets Hardy Farm that things got busier, starting with a buzzard flying close overhead as it was being mobbed by a carrion crow.

Carrion crow mobbing a buzzard, Chorlton Ees

Carrion crow mobbing a buzzard, Chorlton Ees

Buzzard, Chorlton Ees

Just across the river from Jackson's Boat there's a small copse of apple trees (including a russet, a Golden Delicious type and a nice rose-red apple, all the results of people chucking their apple cores away); these and the elderberry bushes by them were full of chaffinches, blue tits and blackcaps.

Carrying on down to Sale Water Park a swimming competition meant there wasn't much wildfowl on the water. There was some consolation at the feeding station by the visitor centre with plenty of blue, great and coal tits, a pair of nuthatches and a quick visit from a male great spotted woodpecker. No joy sign of any willow tits but they're always at their most elusive this time of year.

Great spotted woodpecker

Pennington Flash

 A quick potter round Pennington Flash, which is still showing signs of last week's flooding.

The view from the F.W. Horrocks Hide. The spit is completely underwater still.

The pair of Egyptian geese greeted me at the car park where they scrabbled with the swans and geese for the bird food being scattered by the kids. It takes the art out of finding them but it gives a good chance to appreciate the subtleties in the sandy brown plumage.

Egyptian goose, Pennington Flash

Egyptian goose, Pennington Flash

A second calendar year yellow legged gull out on the flash was the first hint of Autumn but there were plenty enough common terns about to still be able to pretend it's Summer.

There was a lot of gadwall about in a bewildering range of plumages from nearly full-grown ducklings to adult females and drakes in various stages of eclipse. A couple of mallard families included very young ducklings.

Male gadwall, Pennington Flash

Male gadwall, Pennington Flash

The ground outside the Bunting Hide was still underwater.

The view from the Bunting Hide

This meant that the stock doves had to come in a bit closer than usual.

Stock dove, Pennington Flash

Stock dove, Pennington Flash

Nice to see a juvenile nuthatch on the feeders.

Juvenile nuthatch

Elton Reservoir

The rather ambitious itinerary planned for today went by the board as it took me till past four o'clock in the morning to get to sleep and I didn't reckon on doing the excursion on less than three hours of sleep. So I stole a couple more hours of sleep and went for a wander round Elton Reservoir.

Lesser black-backed gull, Elton Reservoir

Despite all the recent rain the water was surprisingly low. Very few gulls about and just the two common terns. Ducks on the water inlcuded a lot of mallards, a single female goosander, one teal and a tufted duck with one well-grown duckling. There were a dozen great crested grebes on the water, most of which were asleep.

Great crested grebes, Elton Reservoir

The trees around the reservoir were more productive: a few good-sized flocks of goldfinches kept flitting about; warblers included whitethroats, chiffchaffs and willow warblers, including one of the latter singing from one of the trees by the path. The bushes by the creek were particularly busy with blue tits and one hawthorn bush hosted a lesser whitethroat and a kingfisher.

It seemed odd not to have any hirundines hawking over the reservoir. The horse paddocks between Withins Reservoir and St. Andrews Road made up the difference with a large mixed flock of swallows and sand martins feeding low over the fields and house martins feeding higher up. It was nice to meet a flock of twenty-plus house sparrows in the hedgerows along the way.

Local patch

I've neglected the local patch lately due to the weather so I nipped out for a wander round during the cricket lunch interval.

Typically quiet for this time of year though 105 feral pigeons flew overhead at one point. Plenty of thistledown in the fields but only a couple of dozen goldfinches. Just the one female blackcap eating blackberries and a brief glimpse of three whitethroats.

A juvenile great spotted woodpecker on one of the dead trees behind the school was a nice surprise.

Juvenile great spotted woodpecker, Barton Clough

And judging by this youngster it looks like the dunnocks have had a second brood.

Juvenile dunnock, Barton Clough

Etherow Country Park and Keg Wood

I went back to Etherow Country Park and Keg Wood this afternoon as it felt like unfinished business, my having scuttled off rain stopped play on Wednesday. Ironically, I didn't see as many birds this time: all the small stuff could safely forage high up in the trees without any risk of being downed by torrential rain. The Mandarin ducks were the only woodland birds happy to pose for photographs today.

Mandarin ducks, Etherow Country Park

Preening Mandarin duck, Etherow Country Park

Preening Mandarin duck, Etherow Country Park