Stretford Meadows

Stretford Meadows, Stretford House in the background

I haven't been out for a walk round the park for a few days so I thought I'd add twenty minutes to the usual walk and for a change have a wander over Stretford Meadows (the posh name for the old municipal tip). Hadn't realised how much I'd needed to see a big green space.

The hedgerows were full of singing robins, wrens and chiffchaffs and the paddock fields at the end of Newcroft Road were thick with blackbirds. Carrion crows, stock doves and ring-necked parakeets flew overhead and, a sign of the time of year, for once there wasn't a single gull of any sort. I was surprised by the pheasant calling from the copse near the cricket club, and rather a lot less so by the solitary blackcap singing from one of the sycamores. In a few weeks time there'll be whitethroats in the brambles and perhaps even a lesser whitethroat skulking in the undergrowth.

I resisted the urge to carry on down Kickety Brook and on into the Mersey Valley, confining myself to walking halfway across the meadow then back home. When we're allowed out into the wild again I'm going to be horribly out of condition.

Soap opera

The crow in the nest can be seen here

Walking back home after checking up on my dad I noticed a kerfuffle up in the tree on the corner of the road. A pair of carrion crows have been nesting up there for a week, attracting the attentions of the magpies and jackdaws in the process. I assumed this was more of the same but I was wrong. It was another crow obviously intent on breaking up the happy home one way or another.

It's a strange thing but the crows, which are usually muscularly assertive, quite meekly accept the intrusions of the other birds so long as they stay a beak's length away from the nest. Possibly being old hands at the lark themselves they're careful not to be lured away from their nest by any diversionary tactics.

The two suitors

Winter's end

The view from my living room window

It's a funny thing but the departure of Winter visitors always seems more low-key than that of our Summer visitors. There aren't the great set pieces like the gathering of swallows and martins on telegraph lines or the procession of lots of bright young chiffchaffs and willow warblers through our parks and gardens. Instead you realise it's a couple of weeks since you last saw a fieldfare or redwing and even the skeins of pink-footed geese that noisily honked their way overhead in October go back to their breeding grounds uncharacteristically quietly. Perhaps the closest to a set-piece I see round here are the sudden disappearance of black-headed gulls (literally a hundred or so on the school field across the road one day, nothing the next) and small flocks of starlings having a last feed up before they go. This last catches me on the hop every year: I wonder why I'm suddenly having to refill the fat feeders once a day instead of once every three then I look up into the sycamores on the railway embankment and see the culprits. Yesterday it was sixty-two starlings. Today it was twenty-five. Soon, not long now, it'll be one or two of the dozen or so that are breeding round here.

Elton Reservoir, Withins Reservoir and a bit of Radcliffe

Sketch map of Elton and Withins Reservoir

Elton Reservoir lies just over a mile outside Bury town centre and was originally the feeder for the Bolton and Bury Canal which starts nearby. Nearby is the much smaller Withins Reservoir which fed local factories and the path down from the Elton Reservoir to the canal overlooks a bend of the River Irwell. The combination of different types and depths of water, grazed fields and well-grown hedgerows can lead to a few hours' very productive birdwatching. In Winter the gulls will include great black-backs, possibly a yellow-legged gull or a Mediterranean gull, little gulls are regular Spring passage migrants. Waterfowl include the usual Pennine reservoir suspects with occasional scaup and common scoter being occasional visitors in Winter. I'm an irregular visitor to Elton Reservoir these days, my site total is currently 91 species.

There are lots of different ways of getting onto Elton Reservoir from Bury. My preferred route these days is to get the 471 bus out and get off at the Grange Road stop on Bolton Road. I turn off onto White Street and at the bottom of the road I follow on until I get to the little road on the left that goes over the bridge towards the hospital and thence to the reservoir. (This bridge goes over one of the green paths that used to be a railway line.)

The car park at the corner of the reservoir by the sailing club is a good place to pause and look back amongst the trees. These are festooned with feeders, giving you a chance to get your eye in as they were visited by chaffinches, goldfinches, greenfinches and bullfinches. In late Winter there was always a very good chance of lesser redpoll, possibly brambling, maybe even a mealy redpoll. 

You have a choice now, go over the little bridge over the stream and follow the path on the North side of the reservoir or go down the road and follow the path on the South side.

Common gull

On the Northern shore there's a bit of grassland with bushes, then the path goes through some bushes either side of the creek, then over through a thinly-wooded bit of ground to the Western end of the reservoir. As you approach the creek this path gets very muddy indeed and doesn't get much better further on, especially if horse riders have been along. On the plus side you tend to get better views of the gulls and ducks on the water and the hawthorns along the path can be heaving with finches and warblers. In the overgrown hedges Chiffchaffs, willow warblers, blackcaps and whitethroats are the most likely while sedge warblers are often found singing by the water's edge. There are a couple of tiny small beaches (a yard or so deep) at the mouth of the creek, it's worth checking these on the off-chance there's a wader of two there: redshanks or ruffs sometimes drop in on passage and it's the sort of place where you might see a common or a green sandpiper but I never have.

Mediterranean gull

Elton Reservoir, North shore

Coot and young

Following the road past the sailing club you go past a couple of cottages with an interesting collection of chickens and just past these there's a little cut on the right that becomes the path along the South bank of the reservoir. Continuing down the road gets you to the canal, before you get there you can turn onto the road that comes back up to the reservoir. If the weather's turned bad on a Winter's day you might prefer this route for walking, it's very exposed up on the bank path.

Cattle grazing by the South bank of the reservoir

A view from the South bank of the reservoir

The path on the South Bank is close to the water's edge but being raised up it's drier than the path on the North side. It's also shorter and straighter and you get an uninterrupted view of the whole reservoir. For some reason the great crested grebes come in closer to the water's edge on this side and as they're not overly fussed about people you can get some very close views of them.

Great crested grebe

Feeder stream for the canal

Keep a look out over the fields to the South of the reservoir. Usually there are pipits, finches and thrushes of one sort or another. There's generally a raptor about, usually a buzzard or a kestrel, possibly a sparrowhawk. If there's a little egret about it's likely to be either on this shoreline of the reservoir or somewhere round the feeder stream for the canal. Most of the ducks on the reservoir congregate at the Western end where there's more cover and less disturbance by the sailing club.

At the West end of the reservoir you've three choices:

• Continue your circuit of the reservoir
• Go down the road past the farmhouse and on to the canal, from there either back to Bury or walk down the canal to Radcliffe
• Carry on down the path at the corner of the reservoir towards Withins Reservoir and Radcliffe

Wheatear

Carrying on down the path at the corner you soon come to a junction. The rough path on the left takes you onto Withins Reservoir, thence past the farm and onto the canal. Carrying straight on takes you past a couple of horses stables and eventually takes you onto St. Andrews Road down to Ainsworth Road where you can get the 98 bus into Radcliffe then Manchester or cross the road for the 98 to Bury. In Winter in bad weather I usually end up taking the St Andrews Road route.

In Spring stop and check out the field at the corner of this junction, it's a magnet for wheatears.

Withins Reservoir

The path by Withins Reservoir starts fairly rough and stays fairly rough most of its length. Withins Reservoir is small and doesn't have the variety of birds you'll see on Elton Reservoir and sometimes you won't find a thing but having said that I've managed to find 54 species hereabouts over the years so it's worth having a nosy round. Passing the reservoir, the path drops down into a scrubby field and back up onto a ridge hedged with hawthorns (well worth checking out for passage migrants, though I keep missing out on the redstarts). It then passes over a surprisingly well-made bridge and then follows the back wall of a farmstead before opening out onto somebody's front lawn. At this point you'll worry that you've taken a wrong turning. You haven't, you just need to turn right, walk across the lawn (I walk along the side of the hedge so's not to invade anyone's privacy too much) and join the little road that goes over the bridge. You can either follow the road down to the end where it joins Bury Road and get a bus into Bury or Radcliffe or you can carry on walking down the canal towpath.

Bolton & Bury Canal

As you walk down into Radcliffe the North side of the canal is open fields with their fair share of lapwings and woodpigeons. In Summer sedge warblers and reed buntings sing from the reeds in the canal and the sand martins that nest by the river in Radcliffe town centre are busy overhead. The land on the South side of the canal is more complicated: there's a paddock, a couple of fields that have almost permanent big puddles and a good-sized pond fringed by trees, and most of the way there's a thin hawthorn hedge along the towpath. This variety packed into a relatively small ribbon of land explains why according to my records I've seen 62 species of bird along this stretch of canal. Once in a while you get a big surprise like the very obliging drake garganey that hung around in one of the big puddles for a couple of weeks a few years back.

Garganey in a big puddle in a field by the canal

The red metal bridge over the canal tells you you're in Radcliffe town centre.You can either now carry on along the canal to Blackburn Road and thence down to the bus station or you can take the path just after the bridge (Banana Path, honestly!) and get to Radcliffe Tram Station.

Thinking and hoping ahead

Another Place, Crosby Beach

One of the things I intend doing during the lockdown is catching up with the site guides I had planned, partly as something to do, mostly in the hope that we can get back out there some day.

Jackdaws

Jackdaw

A couple of the jackdaws have caught up with the fact that I put fat balls out on the feeder, much to the disgust of the coal tits which are quite happy to barge their way through a crowd of starlings but are a lot more wary of any corvids. To try and give everyone else a chance I've started emptying the scraps from the cat's bowl onto a feeding tray instead of into the compost bin. While the jackdaws and magpies are squabbling over a few flakes of dried up mystery fish the coal tits can get a quick feed.

Local patch

Peacock butterfly

An hour's stroll round the park and the bit of rough behind the school. I see Max's dad (Max is an amiable but very energetic Staffordshire terrier) and wave hello.

"What are you doing out?" he bellows from ten yards away.
"Could ask the same of you!" I shout back.
"The sparrowhawk was over by the bowling green on Monday! Lovely big brown bird!"
"The female? Lovely. I saw her on Thursday!"
"That kestrel was sat on that goalpost yesterday!"
"It's just been sat on the little hawthorn tree! And one of the buzzards was over on Monday!"
"Aye, I've seen it a couple of times lately! What's them little colourful ones with the red faces?"
"Goldfinches. There's a few kicking round."
"They're beautiful them. Max! Max! Bloody hell, where's he got to now?"
"Getting his one bit of exercise a day?"
"Bloody hell. Any road, look after yourself. Don't go licking any trees."
"Nor you. Take care!"

Aside from Max and Max's dad, there were a few more blackbirds and great tits around than the other day. Also considerably more butterflies, with a few dozen peacocks, a handful each of comma and green-veined white and my first brimstone of the year. Still the two chiffchaffs defending the usual territories, the copse between the school and the flyover to Trafford Park and the Northeast corner of the park. Some years a third territory will be established around the footpath, I'll wait and see how it goes this year.

Kestrel pretending to ignore me

Local Patch

Mistle thrush, Lostock Park

Another sunny day and me feeling fidgety so I went for an hour's stroll around the local patch. I more than observed social distancing requirements: the only time I was within five yards of anybody was when I went to rescue a football from a bramble patch for a couple of blokes because I was dressed sensibly and they were walking down the old railway line in shorts.

A few more robins and blackbirds about this time, five pairs of each, I think, though it doesn't always follow that one male and one female within a yard of each other is necessarily a pair. Definitely a pair of mistle thrushes in the park, with another singing from behind Barton Clough School. There were also two chiffchaffs now holding singing territories. We're back to normal numbers of pigeons these days after a quiet Winter, and more woodpigeons than usual: 48 counted and probably a couple missed in the copse by the flyover.

The thin passage of lesser black-backed gulls continues, all flying South-East from who knows where or why.

Local patch

Barton Clough
I've no idea why they didn't use the freight line for the tram route to the Trafford Centre but I'm glad they didn't.

Of course, now we can't go anywhere the weather's going to be lovely isn't it?

I had an hour's pottering about my local patch. The few gulls that were around were flying high overhead and all the Winter thrushes have left now, leaving behind a pair of mistle thrushes and a couple of pairs of blackbirds (no song thrushes, which is unusual). A pair of chaffinches look to be taking residence which is nice, for some reason they seem to be mainly Winter visitors this side of the railway line. Another harbinger of Spring was the chiffchaff singing from one of last year's territories.

A buzzard soared high overhead and headed off over Davyhulme. I suspect it's one of the ones from the Trafford Centre, there were four of them flying round the bus station last week.

On the way home I nipped to the Co-op in the vain hopes of buying a lettuce (I'll forage in the back garden for dandelion leaves and Winter bittercress, the wild garlic I'm saving for next week's faux minestrone). A chap stopped me by the empty vegetable shelves: "You're the birdwatching man aren't you? Can you identify this bird we saw when we were walking the dog by the canal? We reckon it's a cormorant but me mate says it isn't." It was a cormorant, and in one of the pictures he'd also got a hovering male kestrel in the frame so he left happy.

Home thoughts

It's encouraging to see that the pair of coal tits are still visiting the garden and haven't moved on now the weather's becoming like Spring. The male's been singing a lot from the little tree by the station so I'm hoping they'll stay to breed. A pair of long-tailed tits, with a hanger-on, pass through the garden three or four times a day but the pair of great tits, though still around, seem to go missing for days on end. The blue tits aren't hanging around long either. I heard the first blackcap song at the station the other day. This was the first blackcap of the year for me, the last wintering blackcap in the garden was on New Year's Eve.

One of the local starlings has an excellent imitation of a blackbird in its repertoire, finishing it off with a pitch-perfect common gull squeal. Another seems to have heard an oystercatcher on its travels and liked the noise it makes, sticking it incongruously into the middle of its most ardent bubbling and squeaking.

The change of seasons is most apparent on the school playing field opposite. There's usually been a few dozen black-headed gulls and a handful each of common and herring gull throughout the Winter, lesser black-backs being pretty infrequent. Last week there were a couple of days when there was a hundred or more black-headed gulls on the field, this week it's just odd ones and twos. On the other hand there's a definite passage of lesser black-backed gulls going on though they're mostly flyovers with just odd ones and twos stopping for a short while before moving on.

Martin Mere

Black-tailed godwit, Martin Mere

The weather, and the birdwatching, was good for a final fling before birdwatching purdah.

From Marsh Moss Lane

Skylarks, reed buntings and goldfinches were singing along Marsh Moss Lane and a small flock of fieldfares flitted between the trees. Walking along the path by the side of Martin Mere (a lot drier than on my last visit!) a pair of greylag geese in the field honked their disapproval of me, a chiffchaff sang from the entrance to the reedbed walk and I was surprised to find a pair of stonechats in the rough near the ditch.

Martin Mere itself was showing signs of transition, with fewer whooper swans than last time and more avocets and ruffs. Most of the geese were greylags though there were a couple of small flocks of pink-footed geese in the fields beyond. The long-staying tundra bean goose eluded me completely. Plenty of pintails and wigeon about and quite a few pochard on the mere.

Female pintail from the Discovery Hide

Pair of pintail from the Discovery Hide

Ruff,  from the Raines Observatory
Not often I see one swimming

Female chaffinch by the Kingfisher Hide

Blackbird from the Kingfisher Hide

Wigeon and greylags from the Ron Barker Hide

Walking back from the Ron Barker hide I thought I'd have a look to see if the tawny owl was roosting in "the usual tree" at the corner by Tarslcough Lane. Much to my astonishment, it was, albeit tucked well into the ivy so that only a bit of its belly and a foot could be seen. I think the tree sparrows must have been busy nest building as they were heard far more often than they were seen.

Leaving Martin Mere there was a group of lesser black-backed gulls pretty far out in one of the fields along Tarlscough Lane. One bird was a good candidate for intermedius, with no contrast between the black on its wings and the wing tips even when it stretched its wings out.

Winter Hill from Red Cat Lane

Winter was still lingering on with flocks of fieldfares in the stubble fields, redwings in one of the horse paddocks on Red Cat Lane and a small herd of whooper swans on one of the distant carrot fields. Lots of skylarks and starlings but no corn buntings to be seen. A pair of red-legged partridges ran off from the roadside as I passed the last of the houses before the approach into Burscough.

Red-legged partridges, Red Cat Lane

Not saying the C-word

Well, given the state of things I've decided that I'm going to have to curtail my birdwatching rather a lot. (It's been pointed out to me that I'm technically more at risk than my elderly father). I've seen this coming, which is why I've been doing a bit more than usual lately. So the plan is to have one last trip out tomorrow then that's that for the duration I'll only be visiting sites within walking distance. If I have to get the bus to the shops I'll stay on a couple of stops, get a bit of birdwatching in and get the shopping done on the way back. A pain in the arse but it's the responsible thing to do.

Leighton Moss

 A day out at a very damp Leighton Moss while the weather's behaving itself.

The path to the Griesdale and Tim Jackson Hides.

After fairly quickly abandoning Lilian's Hide — lots of teal, tufted ducks and gadwall, a surprising number of pochard, three goosander flying over the reedbeds and a few too many people who prefer to use the hide as a picnic site — I took the path down to the Griesdale and Tim Jackson hides. The going was extremely wet. A couple of mixed tit flocks, including a very vocal pair of marsh tits and a couple of camera-shy treecreepers, worked their way along the willows, stopping off at the informal feeding stations people have set up for photography (too crowded for me). On my last visit this stretch was dry and the lower path, amongst the reeds, was under six inches of water. As the water got deeper I took the hint and turned back when a pair of mallard swam past.

There are some photogenic bits of tree along the path

There was fresh frogspawn by the sides of the boardwalk leading up to the causeway and the first Cetti's warbler of the day gave a short, sharp blast of song and scuttled off into the undergrowth. Three buzzards and a sparrowhawk soared overhead.

The public causeway.
Only a couple of inches underwater.

A couple more Cetti's warblers were calling and singing along the causeway and all the way down to the Causeway Hide was accompanied by the snufflings and gruntings of water rails as they foraged in the reeds.

I had wondered about the wisdom of splashing my way down to the hide but it was worth it. A male marsh harrier gave a prolonged skydance over the reedbeds opposite. A couple of females were in attendance and didn't take kindly to each other's presence.

Male marsh harrier

Male marsh harrier

Female marsh harriers dogfighting

Female marsh harrier

Then, to cap it all, the bittern that I'd been hearing booming throughout my visit made a very brief appearance, flying up out of the reedbed and going back down again as quickly again.

Merseyside

The weather forecast said it was going to be unsettled at first then sunny by lunchtime so I thought I'd get an old man's explorer ticket and take a meandering route over to Crosby beach and then have a mosey round Lunt Meadows.

High tide on Crosby beach

The spotted redshank and long-tailed duck that have been kicking around the boating pond at Crosby Marina were notable by their absence today. Any disappointment was put aside by my finding a juvenile shag swimming in the pond, the identification being tricky at first as it was spending most of its time underwater and bobbing up only for a second or two to take a breath. Eventually it hauled itself out and spread its wings out to dry, at which point a pair of carrion crows decided it would be fun to try and pull out a few of its primary feathers. Quickly exit stage right a very disgruntled shag.

Skeins of pink-footed geese passing overhead gave a hint of season's passing and when the clouds finally parted and the sun came out it started to feel like Spring. Then I got over the dunes and onto the beach and into the teeth of a strong, cold wind. It was an unusually high Spring tide so there weren't any waders on the beach, though plenty of gulls passing by, including an adult kittiwake blown close to shore. There were some biggish flocks of gulls flying far out amongst the wind farm turbines and a few smaller, darker birds flying low over the waves out there, neither were recognisable at that range.

Crosby beach

I finished the circuit of the marine lake by walking along the perimeter fence to Seaforth Nature Reserve. Lots of Canada geese, shelducks and black-tailed godwits and a hundred or more gulls loafing about, mostly herring gulls with a few lesser black-backs and common gulls and a couple of great black-backs. In a week or two there'll be wheatears on this grass and a couple of weeks on there'll be yellow wagtails.

A singing chiffchaff by the Adventure Centre was a nice end to this stage of the day out.

I got the 133 bus from Waterloo to Lunt and wandered down to Lunt Meadows.

Lunt Meadows

There was a good variety of waterfowl on the pools. Greylags significantly outnumbered Canada geese. Mallards, teal and shelduck were the most numerous ducks, with a couple of dozen each of shelduck, wigeon and shoveler. Gadwall were thinner on the ground and there was just the one dabchick. It looked like slim pickings for waders, too, just half a dozen black-tailed godwits and a couple of oystercatchers then I noticed that the reeds and the thick grass at the water margins were teeming with snipe.

Teal, black-headed gulls and snipe, Lunt Meadows

Dabchick, Lunt Meadows

Lungwort, Lunt Meadows

Oystercatcher, shelduck and teal, Lunt Meadows

133 bus to Kirkby and problems with the trains that meant no chance of stopping off at Orrell on the way in to Wigan for a nosy round the water park before it got dark.

Lancashire meander (with a bit of debatable Yorkshire)

Grey wagtail in the gloom and rain, Todmorden

The weather being utterly bloody awful again today I wasn't much inclined to go out and get drenched again but I was feeling a bit fidgety so decided to get an old man's explorer ticket and see what the possibilities are along the loop through Rochdale and Todmorden, through Burnley and Blackburn and back again. The way the trains were working it was easiest to get the Leeds train from Victoria, getting off at Todmorden then picking up the stopping train to Blackburn. That gave me an hour for toddling round Tod.

Just after the train passes through Mills Hill Station there's a flooded field by the canal that I always used to check out on my way into work. Time was there was just a dip in the field that flooded in wet weather (a lot of the new building work has wiped over a classic bit of "basket of eggs" drumlin topography round here) but about ten years ago it became a more or less permanent pond. Usually there'd be a few Canada geese and moorhens about, occasionally there'd be a couple of goosanders. Today there were forty-odd Canada geese and six goosander.

I wasn't inclined to move far from Todmorden town centre, though the rain was lighter than it had been along the journey. It was nice to see a grey wagtail skittering along the brook besides Water Street.

The stretch from Todmorden to Blackburn is new to me. The hilly country on the way to Burnley is lovely to look at and I'm wondering if some of those woodlands may hold a wood warbler or redstart or both. It was interesting to note that the train actually passes over Rishton Reservoir and a few more goosanders.

I then got the train from Blackburn back into Manchester, with a close past by an unusually empty Wayoh Reservoir just past Entwistle Station.

Southport

Another nice day so I thought I'd go over to Crossens and Marshside on a late-Winter goose chase.

Although it provides a nice unbroken backdrop for backlit daffodils I'm still not altogether sure of the point of grubbing up nearly all the hawthorn hedging along Marshside Road.

As usual walking down Marshside Road this time of year there were large numbers of teal and wigeon, with plenty of shovelers and both Canada and greylag geese. Gadwalls and tufted ducks were less obvious and pintails were notably thin on the ground. A couple of small islands were thick with black-tailed godwits and near the margins of the Junction Pool were the first couple of avocets I've seen here this year.

Black-tailed godwits, Marshside

A couple of hundred pink-footed geese flew in and landed on the marsh. A male kestrel hovering over the car park was the first raptor of the day.

I didn't spot the golden plovers on Marshside until something, probably a merlin, spooked them.

I couldn't see what was spooking the plovers, whatever it was did it four times over the space of an hour. The only merlin I could see was a large female sat on one of the fence posts over the road on Crossens Outer Marsh. A buzzard was perched on a post quite far out in the salt marsh and a female kestrel flew along the road and over towards the waterworks.

Merlin, Crossens Outer Marsh

Pink-footed geese, Crossens Outer Marsh

All told there were a thousand or more pink-footed geese scattered across Marshside and Crossens Marsh. A couple of pink-footed geese on Crossens Outer Marsh had orange tones to their legs that made me look at them twice in the hopes I could turn them into bean geese. They weren't but I found a tundra bean goose a couple of minutes later a bit further out in the long grass. I also managed to spot a couple of barnacle geese amongst a distant group of Canada geese but I had no joy finding any flavour of either brent or white-fronted geese (the Facebook groups have had some nice photos of grey-bellied and dark-bellied brents and both Greenland and Russian white-fronts this week).

A rather fidgety water pipit amongst the meadow pipits and pied wagtails near the wildfowlers' pull-up brought the year list up to 123.