An odd sort of year

Hoopoe, Collingham

We live in Interesting Times, sadly, and end the year in for all intents and purposes another lockdown, not what I'd had planned at the beginning of the month, let alone the beginning of the year.  But there are worse things than drinking a cup of tea while looking out of the living room window trying to work out whether that's six or seven long-tailed tits bouncing through the sycamores on the railway embankment.

A few birds from 2020

Being in lockdown throughout the Spring migration season put the mockers on my hitting a year list of 200+ again, though I was lucky to catch up with so many birds on their way back. In the end the 2020 total was 180, which is fairly good in all the ciircumstances. Travel restrictions meant I didn't see many seabirds, missing out on auks and gannets, fulmars and skuas. Ticks that would have been "easy" any other years I missed. But I saw some splendid birds, got some lifers and really gave Greater Manchester some birdwatching hammer (and still have a couple of dozen places on a "must pay a visit" list, which seems to be growing faster than I'm ticking off).

Siberian stonechat, Ashton's Flash

This was the year I finally got to see my first hoopoe on a bright sunny day as I stood on a cricket outfield watching the bird do the groundsman's job for him as it aerated the grass roots and made inroads on the local chafer grub population. And I was charmed by my first Siberian stonechat as I stood at the edge of an old saltings bed watching it hunting from a perch twenty yards away. My first Sabine's gull was fleeting, frustrating, but memorable, the big white triangular flash on its wings jumping out in the sunlight against the backdrop of a ploughed field. And standing in a muddy field trying to make sure if I was looking at a brown shrike or a red-tailed shrike, either of which would have been an outlandish call for an addition to the life list at the beginning of the year. It took two goes for me to fail to see the wryneck at Horwich, but I got two very nice walks out of the experience and I can still look forward to seeing my first.

Greater Manchester sites from which I recorded in 2020

Locally I've done a lot more walking and a lot more exploration. Ironically it was the full lockdown what did it: up til then I was going out birdwatching perhaps two or three times a week. Going out for a walk being virtually the only permitted reason for leaving the house meant I got into the habit of going birdwatching more often and now I feel I've had a lazy week if I've only been out three times. There are times when I've been fed up of the sites within walking distance (the inevitable consequence of limited green space in suburbia) but there are enough places a short hop away on public transport to give me a change of pace. 

So I've found more lesser whitethroats than usual, and my second quail in exactly the same place as my first last year. I know now to look out for "Channel wagtails" (blue-headed/yellow wagtail hybrids) on Chat Moss. And I know which hedgerows to search in Autumn at Hollingworth Lake for passage migrants.

It's interesting to see that Birdguides is stopping treating great white egret as a rarity for most of England and is approaching doing the same with cattle egret in some parts of the country. I saw my first great white egret four years ago, these days I'm disappointed not to have a dozen records a year (even with this year's restrictions I've nine records). I don't often see cattle egrets away from the Sefton coast so I've only seen them a couple of times this year, though both times they'd arrived mob-handed.

Willow tit breeding numbers (total pairs) in 2018
British Birds 113 p779

I hadn't quite realised how important our local willow tit populations are in the national scheme of things until I read the 2018 Rare Breeding Birds report in the December edition of "British Birds."

If, as we must hope, 2021 is less fraught and the pandemic can be controlled or even abated I'm hoping to capitalise on this year's experience to improve my birdwatching tallies and get some very nice walks under my belt in the process. And, of course, there will be mud. Best wishes, all.

Home thoughts

Spadgers

The plan for today was for something rather more relaxed than yesterday's effort but a day of heavy mists put paid to that. A shame as we're now in Tier 4 (pretty much the same as the November lockdown) tomorrow. Ah well…

I wouldn't have bothered going out at all today had the spadgers not scoffed all the sunflower seeds. The shop was out of hulled sunflower seeds so the birds will have to undo the wrappers themselves.

All the giant pine cones have been stripped now and it's been weeks since the shops had any. I wonder if I can refill them using crumbled fat balls. Looks like I might have time on my hands to give it a go.
 

Great tit

Spadger

Winter wonderland

Robin auditioning for a Christmas card
Dairy House Meadows

I had a day out in Cheshire, taking advantage of the usual empty trains between Christmas and New Year and its only being a half hour trip from Altrincham to Northwich. I was hoping to add to the year list: there had been repeated reports of a firecrest at Marbury Country Park and a bittern on Budworth Mere and lesser spotted woodpeckers are a rare resident thereabouts. The plan hadn't reckoned on more overnight snow. The slush of Stretford was firm snow by Altrincham and the countryside by the Mid-Cheshire Line was covered by a white blanket. Of particular note was one field just outside Mobberley that was covered in cock pheasants.

Bullfinch, Northwich Woodlands

I walked down to Northwich Woodlands from the station, making slow progress due to treacherous conditions underfoot. I decided to give the flashes a miss and have a nosy round them on the way back, heading straight for Marbury Country Park (with an accidental exploration of Uplands Wood after taking the first path on the left instead of the second).

Along Marbury Lane

The hedgerows along Marbury Lane were full of robins, wrens and goldfinches. The tit flocks were small, generally only great and blue tits; just the one flock included a family party of long-tailed tits. There were lots of nuthatches but they were generally feeding on the ground in the company of robins and dunnocks.

Nuthatch, Northwich Woodlands

A less conventional view of a nuthatch

There were a lot of jays about in the woodlands, not being at all shy about their business. Jackdaws, carrion crows and buzzards added to the soundscape.

Marbury Country Park

The paths through Marbury Country Park were busy so I took to the rough paths through the trees, which weren't a lot worse underfoot than the metalled paths. There were a lot of blackbirds and song thrushes feeding in the undergrowth, but I only found a couple of redwings.

Marbury Country Park

The paths by the shore of Budworth Mere were very busy so I didn't linger long. Most of the open water was still ice-free so great-crested grebes could carry on with their fishing. Mallards, coots, mutes and tufties haunted the shoreline in the hopes that all these people meant someone would have brought some food with them. A herd of Canada geese on the opposite side were making a hell of a racket.

Nuthatch, Marbury Country Park

I found the Woodland Hide which is reported to be the best place for seeing the firecrest when it's about. The feeding station was very busy with titmice, robins and nuthatches. I scanned around in the hopes of the firecrest or a lesser spotted woodpecker but it wasn't my day for them, even after one of the regulars pointed out the favoured holly and yew trees. Ah well, you live in hope.

Dairy House Meadows

I walked over to Neumann's Flash via Dairy House Meadows, which looked very picturesque. Most of the flash was frozen over with clusters of coot and mallard huddling under drowned willows and a flock of wigeon loafing on the ice with a few dozen black-headed gulls. Ashton's Flash was entirely frozen over, with all the action limited to the blue tits and reed buntings feeding in the reeds.

And then back to the station, in plenty of time for the next train. Four hours' walking and I have to say that I hated most of it: nearly all the paths were slippy with half-melted ice, slippy with wet mud, or slippy with half-melted frozen mud and I'm an uncertain walker on ice, I'm too long in the leg for the circumstances. I had one bit of luck when the shoulder strap on my bag came adrift so I had to carry it like a briefcase: what I lost in ease of use of binoculars and camera I gained by having a relatively low slung pendulum helping with the centre of gravity. Why do I do this when I could be sat at home reading comics and drinking too much tea? An old chap I bump into at Pennington Flash sums it up nicely: "It's an addiction. I get fidgety if I've not gone out with my bins for a few days."

Train home, a rather nice Cheshire sunset matched by the rise of the full moon, and as I put the key into the lock of my front door a skein of pink-footed geese flew overhead, honking in the darkness.

Snow

I had all sorts of plans for today involving making an effort to add to the year list but I had one of those nights where I wake up more tired than I was when I went to bed. I was surprised to see snow on the ground as I thought last night's rain would have stopped it sticking.

It snowed overnight so here's the obligatory "It's been snowing" photo.

The spadgers and a couple of goldfinches successfully guilt-tripped me into refilling one of the feeders by pointedly ignoring the feeders that were nearly full. Most days I get at least a dozen sparrows in, the goldfinches have been very occasional lately. There's generally a couple of blue tits knocking about and another couple come in with the great tits. I usually spot the female great tit first, she's a pale greyish green above and primrose yellow below, which makes her stand out against the dark background.

A small skein of pink-footed geese, nineteen birds in all, flew low over at lunchtime heading towards Chat Moss.

Just after lunch I wondered why the trees at the bottom of the garden were suddenly full of carrion crows and jackdaws. A fox poked its head out of the blackcurrant bush, spotted me reaching for my camera and promptly retreated whence it came.

Stretford

Male stonechat, Stretford Ees

The heavy weather last night seems to have brought a lot of herring gulls in. Ten of them joined the black-headed gulls on the school playing field opposite this morning. The magpies are still poking sticks into their new nest; one of the carrion crows called in to see if it was worth pinching yet and got a noisy reception.

The Met Office app promised heavy pourdowns and there was a yellow wind warning after Christmas dinners so I decided I'd take advantage of a nice sunny Sunday to have a walk. The plan was to wander down to Stretford Meadows to see what was about, move on to Stretford Ees and then either finish up on Sale Water Park or Chorlton Ees, or give up and call it quits, depending on how busy the paths were.

Walking down from Newcroft Road I decided not to take the first path onto the meadow.

The path I didn't take

A small tit flock worked its way through the trees by the stable paddocks and there was a lot of twittering goldfinches in the tops of the alders. I was hoping one of the ravens might pass overhead but it was all carrion crows, including a few pairs making display flights over the treetops.

The path I did take

I took the first opportunity to dodge the crowds on the path and took one of the less muddy paths onto the meadow which was only ankle-deep in fairly clear water. By the end of half an hour's wander I wondered if it had been worth it: aside from the crows and the usual magpies the only birds on the open meadow were a wren and a meadow pipit. I skirted round the central rise; walking uphill in deep mud is hard work, making the downhill journey while keeping any sort of dignity is just asking for trouble.

Stretford Meadows

Stretford Meadows

Between the motorway and the track bikes charging up and down the path there wasn't much hope of hearing or seeing much birdlife in the trees by Kickety Brook and the paths got even busier as I approached the canal aquaduct.

I decided not to head off towards Sale Water Park or Chorlton: if Stretford was this busy I didn't fancy my chances of a quiet walk over that way. I'd have a wander round Stretford Ees then call it quits.

I'd taken the little path that leads out into the middle of the field and was rewarded by very nice views of the pair of stonechats that have taken Winter residence here.

Female stonechat, Stretford Ees

The pool at the end of Kickety Brook was unusually quiet, just a robin and no waterbirds. The path here was atrocious and my joining the riverside path descended into farce as I quickly got to the top of the rise and more quickly slid back down the way I came. Second time lucky, with just a ginormous muddy patch where my knee used to be, and I got onto the path and was confronted by a family walking seven abreast. I negotiated my way past them and ducked down the embankment onto Turn Moss.

With so many people and dogs about there wasn't much birdlife on the fields, just a couple of carrion crows. There were a few jackdaws and parakeets flying overhead making enough noise for large flocks of most any other types of bird. All the gulls had congregated on the grammar school playing field: fifty or sixty black-headed gulls with a few lesser black-backs and common gulls and a huge brute of a herring gull. Judging by the size of the bird and its huge beak I wondered if it might be one of the nominate argentatus subspecies from Scandinavia but though there was plenty of white on the tips of its primaries the grey didn't look particularly dark, not much more so than the black-headed gulls. It was probably just an unusually big male argenteus herring gull.

A huge brute of a herring gull amongst black-headed gulls, lesser black-backs and common gulls, Stretford Grammar School

Local patch

Barton Clough

It's Christmas Eve and the collared doves have been singing, the woodpigeons a-courting, the magpies are building a nest in the tree across the road and the rooks are flying round in courtship packs.

I had a lunchtime wander round the local patch. The keen wind made me glad I did the walk round the mosses the other day. It was fairly quiet, the bulk of the birds being a couple of flocks of pigeons flying over into Trafford Park.

Magpie, Barton Clough
(Limestone chippings track bed, not snow)

A touch of Winter was provided by a small flock of redwings chattering in the Lombardy poplars lining the path from Old Hall Road. 

A rabbit darting down the old railway track bed was expected, I see one every other visit. The fox that trotted across and disappeared into the brambles was a surprise.

Barton Clough

• Blackbird 8 
• Blue Tit 2 
• Carrion Crow 3 
• Common Gull 3 
• Dunnock 2 
• Feral Pigeon 59 
• Goldfinch 1 
• Great Tit 4 
• Jackdaw 1 
• Lesser Black-backed Gull 1 
• Magpie 15 
• Mistle Thrush 3 
• Redwing 7 
• Robin 2 
• Starling 3 
• Woodpigeon 5 
• Wren 2

Mosses

Buzzard, Cadishead Moss

It was a grey, cool but dry day so I had a walk on the Salford mosses, getting the train to Irlam (ten minutes' ride with three of us in the carriage) then walking up Astley Road, then on to Little Woolden Moss and then back to Irlam via Cadishead Moss. I'd made the mistake of praising public transport's efforts in this plague year so my train home was cancelled and I had to get four buses home, the last of which didn't turn up so I had to get as close as possible and walk the last half mile. Despite that it was a good few hours' walking.

Astley Road, Irlam Moss

As usual, the hedgerows on Astley Road were full of chaffinches and small flocks of blue and great tits and there was a robin every fifteen yards or so. Looking over on my left towards Cadishead a pair of male pheasants patrolled the margins of a big field of rough pasture while a family of crows had a good dig around in the middle. Looking over to my right I noticed that one of the small brown lumps a couple of fields away had moved. A few minutes later a couple of heads bobbed up to confirm I was looking at a small covey of grey partridges, five birds in all.

Kestrel and woodpigeon, Irlam Moss

A pair of kestrels sat in one of the trees by the house near the bend and a couple of hundred yards further on a young male kestrel shared a telegraph pole with a woodpigeon, neither of them taking much notice of the other.

The field by the motorway was busy with birds: about eighty starlings, a few dozen woodpigeons, a couple of dozen pigeons and a dozen stock doves. The stock doves took some finding, I saw one of them from a distance as the pigeons and woodpigeons rose and dipped back down onto the field after a buzzard lolloped low overhead but I couldn't see where it went. I finally found it as I got to the barnyard near the motorway, one of a bunch of blue heads with beady eyes poking up from the long grass in the middle distance. A flock of chaffinches rose up and joined a pair of yellowhammers and a mistlethrush in the trees on the motorway embankment. By this stage I was worrying that I hadn't seen a single pied wagtail (I only saw one all day, which is very unusual round here).

Walking up towards Four Lanes End there were a few big flocks of starlings (at any one time they'd be two, four or five flocks and birds flew en masse from one flock into another). At one stage there were about a hundred birds on the telegraph lines and more than two hundred feeding on the field below.

Little Woolden Moss

Little Woolden Moss was very quiet indeed apart from a flock of fieldfares that flew overhead.

There was a model aeroplane meet going on by Little Woolden Hall so I took the path to New Moss Road. It was fairly quiet down the length of the road until just after the motorway bridge. The big field held a few dozen black-headed gulls, a couple of herring gulls and thirteen buzzards, all digging for earthworms. The field on the corner of Woolden Road had a flock of fifty or so fieldfares.

Cadishead Moss

I had a quick shufti round New Moss Wood, adding a couple of jays to the day's tally.

As I got to the railway bridge I noticed a male great spotted woodpecker fly over into a tree by the entrance to the tree nursery. It was immediately followed by a pair of woodpeckers and the two males spent the next five minutes posturing at each other as they bird for the attention of the female, including short bursts of mock drumming on the tree trunks.

Male great spotted woodpeckers (left) vying for the attention of a female

Salford

Drake goldeneye

I popped round to friends in Salford to drop off a parcel (2020 has ushered in the return of Knock and Run). "There's a lot of goldeneyes on the river," I was told so we had a socially-distanced walk down the river from Broughton Bridge down to Salford Crescent.

Goldeneye

There were a lot of goldeneyes, at least a couple of dozen scattered along the length of the river, a group of six drakes and three ducks being the biggest group.

Goldeneyes

Goldeneye

Goldeneyes

There were also plenty of goosanders, mostly drakes in sumptuous plumage, with but half a dozen redheads, all by Peel Park. There were a few dabchicks about, together with a lot of mallards and Canada geese, a couple of herons and a treeful of cormorants. A couple of pied wagtails and a grey wagtail ran along the riverbank near Frederick Road.

Drake goosander

Heron

A tit flock followed us along the path though they were hard work to spot. A song thrush sang from a holly bush and as we were trying to see where it was sitting a goldcrest bustled out of the depths and fidgeted its way about the top of the bush. And three mistlethrushes rattled from a treetop by the art gallery.

A nice couple of hours' stroll, and it was good to see friends, though I'm so out of practice talking to people it must have been hard work to hear me at times. We bid our adieus at Salford Central and I made my way home.

On my way home the bus got stuck at lights at White City where a song thrush serenaded us while we waited.

Home thoughts

First-Winter starling

It was a lovely, bright Winter's day and I really should have gone for a walk or done some cutting down in the garden or some such. So I refilled the feeders and left the garden to the spadgers and starlings and spent the day reading, well out of the way of the grim reality that is the last Saturday before Christmas.

Singing starling

I read that it's been a bad breeding year for passerines. In my garden the spadgers did well but the others seemed to have had mixed fortunes. The goldfinches had at least three broods but none of them resulted in more than three young and I don't know they survived long; I've not had more than one goldfinch in the garden for a couple of months and even that not since the beginning of December. The blue tits and great tits didn't have big broods and they're only coming into the garden in ones or twos so far this Winter. Hopefully next Spring won't lurch from cool and wet straight into blazing hot again and the birds get the chance to find enough small insect food for their nestlings.

Martin Mere-ish

Pink-footed goose, New Lane

I felt the need for wild geese. Southport being in Tier 2 and off-limits I decided on a wander around Martin Mere. I toyed with the idea of booking a visit to Martin Mere itself but as all the hides are closed I couldn't see I'd get enough out of a visit for it to be worth the hassle, so somebody else who wanted to have a look round the bird collection could have my go.

It was a bright sunny morning as I stood waiting for my train at Humphrey Park and I took it as a good omen when a carrion crow chased a buzzard over the station.

I changed trains at Wigan. It was only when I got on the train I realised I'd gone into autopilot and bought a ticket to Southport. I behaved myself and got off at New Lane as planned.

By New Lane Station

As the train approached New Lane we passed one field with more than a hundred black-headed gulls feeding in the mud and a field of stubble ankle-deep in woodpigeons. The lettuces in the field next to the station had run to seed and the train disturbed a cloud of chaffinches and linnets. Once the train had left the birds settled back down and disappeared completely in the vegetation. There were more black-headed gulls on the water treatment works, along with a big flock of starlings and a dozen pied wagtails.

The bright sunny morning lasted about thirty yards down the path alongside the railway line and was replaced by heavy gloomy clouds. More chaffinches and linnets flew between the hawthorns along the railway line and an abandoned field of beetroot, together with a couple of corn buntings and a skylark.

I crossed over the line and walked down the path that eventually goes round the perimeter of Martin Mere. It was dead quiet at first though distant clouds of pink-footed geese could be seen rising and falling on the horizon as they moved between fields near Curlew Lane. A couple more corn buntings bobbed up from the hay field and a reed bunting shot out of a hawthorn bush as I passed.

Pink-footed geese, Martin Mere

Pink-footed geese, Martin Mere

Pink-footed geese, Martin Mere

I got to the corner where the path meets the boundary of the reserve and looked over the gate. An island on one of the pools a couple of hundred yards away was busy with oystercatchers and lapwings feeding in the mud and further out there were more pink-feet, a few shelduck and a small herd of whooper swans. A male peregrine falcon was sat on a metal girder impaled in the island, an object of surprising indifference to the waders just in front of it. It might have just fed, I couldn't see any evidence of it from where I was standing. Or it could be that the waders were safe where they are: peregrines aren't pounce hunters, they need to get up a bit of steam to crash into their victims, perhaps the birds a few feet away are significantly safer than the ones a field away.

The path got progressively wetter until I got to a stretch that was shin-deep and gave me a chance to test how waterproof my boots are inside as well as out. So it started raining. A tit flock in the hedgerow was heard more than seen most of the way, it finally emerged near one of the hide screens and included a couple of goldcrests amongst the long-tailed tits in the rearguard. Far out over the reserve a marsh harrier flew low over the reeds and disturbed a group of shovelers.

Reedbed walk

By the time I got to the public part of the reedbed walk the rain had dialled down to a dull drizzle and the geese were getting noisier. I squelched along the path to Tarlscough Lane, disturbing a little egret and a flock of fieldfares in the process.

I walked down the road to Burscough Bridge Station, all the while pink-footed geese flying over from the fields over near Curlew Lane and onto fields next to the railway line. By this stage I'd spent a couple of hours scanning hundreds of geese on the off-chance of finding anything except pink-feet and I was getting pretty jaded. As I was passing Brandeth Barn a dozen geese passed over and I barely gave them a second glance until one of them called, deeper and harsher than the others and without the nasal echo of a greylag. The bird was slightly bigger and darker than the others, a tundra bean goose.

There were a hundred or so whooper swans feeding on the fields along Curlew Lane, bumping along with pink-feet and some less than overly successful scarecrows.

Pink-footed geese, Burscough

Past the bend on Red Cat Lane there were more geese on the field by the road, a mixture of greylags and pink-feet, and yet more pink-feet in the field between the stables and the houses on Cherry Grove. A couple of hundred very noisy garden birds!

Hindley and Leigh and mud

Lapwings, Pennington Flash

I had all sorts of plans for today but then decided I really couldn't be doing with all that bother, which is becoming a common occurrence lately. In the end I decided to go for a wander round Hindley Green, somewhere I've gone through quite often on the bus but never stopped for a nosey. The plan was to get the 132 to Dangerous Corner (yes, really, and it's a dead straight length of road)  and join the lane that runs between Howe Bridge and Platt Bridge which runs parallel to a small wooded brook with crossing points onto the more open country to the South.

Walking down to Leigh Road

Finding the path was a lot easier than I expected and it was only quite a bit muddy. A small tit flock — great, blue and coal, foraged in the trees and a female chaffinch fed in the brambles by the path. At the first little bridge over the brook I crossed over, climbed some steps and found myself on a path in the open scrub. A flock of a dozen lapwings flew overhead and a couple of jays screeched from the trees a bit further along.  It looked like it would be a good idea to follow this path right up to the point where I looked at the state of it as it went over a rise and into a hollow. You never want to see moorhens swimming on a path. So I went back to the other path and carried on down to Leigh Road.

Crossing Leigh Road I tried to join the path again. The slope, the mud, and the pool at the bottom of the slop defeated me. I tried a couple of steps down, using a sapling as support, it soon become apparent that the only question would be whether I'd land in the puddle before the ground I was walking on. So I knocked that plan on the head.

The bus stop was just across the road so I got the bus to Leigh, got off on Firs Lane and walked down the canal to Pennington Flash.

Leeds & Liverpool Canal, Leigh

There was a steady stream of gulls and jackdaws overhead on their way to roost on Pennington Flash. Most of the gulls were black-headed with not many fewer lesser black-backs. Every so often a few herring gulls or common gulls would drift over though they were very much in the minority. As I got to the steps down into Pennington Flash a couple of first-Winter herring gulls flew over in the company of a third-Winter yellow-legged gull, the difference in structure of the birds being really striking — the yellow-legged being bigger, longer winged and front heavy, and with a dirty great beak to boot.

It was a noisy twilight walk down the path to Ramsdales Hide: jays and magpies called in the trees, gulls and lapwings called in the background from the flash and woodpigeons crashed and cooed as they settled down to roost. A couple of dozen each of teal and mallard loafed about on the pool by Ramsdales and five dabchicks fussed about busily by the reed margins.

By Ramsdales Hide

The pools by the Tom Edmondson and Pengy's hides were thick with gadwalls and shovelers with at least fifty of the former, most of which seemed to be pairing up already.

There were quite a few gulls on the flash. There must have been more than five hundred black-headed gulls scattered around. Out in mid water there was a raft of a hundred or more lesser black-backs with a lot of great black-backs further behind. There were a few herring gulls and common gulls about but only in low double figures. Further yet there was a huge raft of big gulls I couldn't identify in the gloom. A Mediterranean gull flew in, circled the Horrocks spit and flew off towards the sailing club. The bits of black in its primary feathers suggested it was a second-Winter bird.

Pennington Flash

The great crested grebes and female tufties were hard to pick out in the twilit gloom, as were what turned out to be half a dozen goldeneyes. I waved a cheery bye to the car park oystercatcher and wandered off for the bus back into Leigh.