Windswept and interesting

St. Anne's beach, Southport in the distance

The weather being cloudy and blustery called for a bit of seawatching. I've had Starr Gate on my radar for a while so I decided it was high time I had a visit there. The tide times weren't ideal but high enough to make it worthwhile.

The day started well with a bright morning after the night's wind and rain. The male coal tit visited the garden while I was getting ready to go out and I bumped into the female as she was feeding in one of the conifers by the station as I waited for the train. A meadow pipit flying overhead as I walked to the station was another Autumnal touch.

There was a bit of a setback involving my being reminded why I don't buy my tickets at Deansgate Station (it's been a few years since I last did it, I can be forgiven for forgetting). To compensate for having to hang around Preston Station for half an hour a flock of sixty-odd pink-footed geese flew low overhead. Anyway, I got to Squire's Gate for lunchtime in bright sunshine and had a five minute walk down the road to Starr Gate to meet a very stiff breeze.

Beach and dunes from Starr Gate

There was plenty of seating to choose from but very little pointing towards the sea. I spent a while sitting sideways at the end of a bench but the buffeting by the wind made it impossible to focus on fast-moving objects on the far horizon. In the end I propped myself against a railing and did as best could for an hour. I hadn't taken my telescope, I didn't know the terrain and didn't fancy lugging it over umpteen trains if I wasn't sure I'd be able to get the use of it. It would have been hard work getting a stable image with it today. A group of windsurfers were another complication but they were there before me so I can't crib.

A few herring gulls and lesser black-backs floated about on the beach and a few black-headed gulls and oystercatchers fed in the surf. An occasional cormorant flew close by but nearly all the action was far out near the horizon. A couple of herring gulls sat on the water for a few minutes but the sea was too choppy for their comfort and they soon flew off.

The Irish Sea, like a mill pond

Far out in the distance some of the dark shapes pitching and rolling in the wind turned out to be lesser black-backs and the occasional great black-back as the light caught their heads and undersides. Cormorants steamed purposefully into the wind. Just as I was thinking there wouldn't be much else I'd be able to see a group of half a dozen Manx shearwaters sheared the waters like it says on the tin. There was a lot I couldn't identify: small dots flying with the wind through the troughs of distant waves might have been auks of some kind but at that distance they could just as easily been scoters or eiders; something pale and graceful skittered across the horizon while a dark burly something loomed over it then disappeared over the horizon. The essence of seawatching is spending long periods looking for birds that probably aren't there interspersed with frustratingly short sightings of birds in the process of disappearing.

I was trying to work out whether the small black speck riding the wind low over the waves in the mid distance was my first Leach's petrel of the year when a windsurfer's sail got in the way and once it had moved the bird was gone. Frustrating but frankly I'd probably have lost it and added it to the mystery list anyway. Half an hour later I did manage to see one very slightly closer, a good enough sighting to be sure that if it wasn't a Leach's it was something considerably rarer so it must have been a Leach's.

Feeling a bit wind-battered I decided to walk down the beach and have a nosy round while the sun was still shining. More of the same gulls and a couple of carrion crows on the beach. I walked down to the water's edge, past what looked like a wreck of razor shells, and scanned the horizon awhile, seeing a few more gulls and cormorants and being entirely unable to hold the binoculars steady enough to recognise anything else.

Lytham Dunes and St. Anne's beach

I followed a path into the dunes and retreated quickly after a few minutes' being sandblasted. About half a mile further down the beach I found some paths that meandered through the marram grasses and over the more stable stretches of dune. Aside from a couple of magpies any birds that were about were keeping well undercover, every so often I'd hear a meadow pipit call from deep in the tussocks.

I walked down and back to the station in time to bump into a skylark flying overhead into Blackpool. I took a circuitous way home, meeting a dozen downpours of rain along the way.

Home thoughts

I'm definitely feeling the change in the weather this week. And this morning I shelved today's plans for a birdwatching day out (none of which were very firm anyway). Which gives me a chance to watch the blue tits and spadgers on the feeders. And a passing cormorant overhead. 

The gulls coming into the school playing field for the lunchtime feeding frenzy included half a dozen lesser black-backs and a nice first-Winter yellow-legged gull. At first I thought it was a second-Winter herring gull but it had a big black beak and the nearly all-dark wings, quite a lot of streaking on the mantle and clean white rump and tail base and clear-cut black tail band clinched the ID. There's usually one passing through most Autumns. They never turn up at weekends when I can point binoculars and big camera lenses over there, luckily this one drifted over this way a bit while the gulls were waiting for the kids to go back in to classes.

Stretford and Salford

Goosander, Peel Park

After a night of wind and rain running into a windy morning most everything was staying undercover in the garden. I definitely wasn't up for being stranded in Terra Incognita in this weather so, predictably, I had a potter about at home.

I'd hoped the weather might have blown a crowd of gulls onto the school playing field but all there was were half a dozen lesser black-backs and the usual dozen black-headed gulls.

Barton Clough

The local patch was thin on the ground. I wouldn't say quiet: the unpaired magpies are forming their Winter gangs and the carrion crows were particularly noisy. The weather was very changeable, one of those days when you're either too hot or too cold depending on how the wind blew. All the small birds were keeping a low profile, I could hear robins, dunnocks and great tits but they were hard work to spot. After half an hour of it I jacked it in as a bad job.

• Blackbird 2
• Carrion Crow 2
• Dunnock 2
• Feral Pigeon 5
• Goldfinch 3
• Great Tit 3
• Lesser Black-backed Gull 1
• Magpie 14
• Robin 1
• Woodpigeon 25

I decided to move on. I've not been along the Irwell in Salford this year and goosanders have been thin on the ground lately so I thought this would be as good a time as any for a wander over there. I got the 10 bus from Victoria to the last remains of the Mocha shopping centre (demolition's pretty much complete now), the bus having to stop anyway because of Canada geese on the road. I noticed they've got a greylag in tow with them today.

River Irwell, Salford

The river was very high today so there was no space on the banks for loafing ducks. A few mallards and black-headed gulls drifted about on the water. A large mixed tit flock bounced about in the willows by the path: at least a dozen long-tailed tits, perhaps half as many each of blue tits and great tits.

I moved onto The Meadow where flocks of magpies and pigeons rummaged about in the grass mowings on the open ground. There wasn't much on the river along this stretch. On the other hand, there was plenty in the trees on the Southern end of The Meadow. A few carrion crows made a racket and a couple of robins sang. Another mixed tit flock moved through the trees with a pair of bullfinches and a chiffchaff in tow. The chiffchaff was hard to find, I thought I'd tracked it down but the bird I found "only" turned out to be a spotted flycatcher. I got a couple of photos of where it had just been then left it in peace.

River Irwell, Peel Park

I crossed over the bridge into Peel Park. A large flock of black-headed gulls littered the water and small groups of mallards and Canada geese loafed on the water's edge. A couple of dabchicks bobbed about on the far bank. Amongst the waterfowl was a lone redhead goosander.

I got the V1 bus to Leigh, the idea being to get over to Pennington Flash to have a nosy at the gull roost but when I got to Leigh bus station and started waiting for the next bus I changed my mind and did a bit of shopping instead.

Home thoughts

Chiffchaff

It's definitely early Autumn: I've just had some of the strawberries the squirrels missed and the first juvenile chiffchaff of the season tagged along with the silver team spadgers to have a forage in the roses.

It's starting to be easier to see the birds in the garden these days, partly because I've made a start pruning the rambling rose but mostly because the rowan tree has suddenly dropped its leaves. The pair of coal tits turned up almost as soon as I'd refilled the sunflower feeder, and disappeared just as quickly once I picked up my camera.

I think the very pale sparrow and the piebald woodpigeon are on the casualty list. Any birds that stand out from the crowd tend to be more vulnerable to predation. I'd be happy to be proved wrong, mind.

I'm wavering a bit in my plans for this week. I'm tempted by the long-staying white-tailed lapwing at Blacktoft Sands though the prospect of being stranded overnight if I miss the last bus of the afternoon doesn't fill me with confidence. I'll probably end up pottering about locally.

Reservoirs

Approaching Slack Gate

I was meeting friends for an evening do in Rochdale so I thought I'd have a wander round Hollingworth Lake then nip up to Watergrove Reservoir and wander down to Whitworth via Slack Gate thence off to the jolly.

I got the train to Littleborough and walked down to Hollingworth Lake and down Rakewood Road. It was a cloudy Friday but even so I was surprised at how quiet it was. Which made for a nice walk. A flock of seventy-odd lapwings overhead was a good omen.

Hollingworth Lake

There wasn't much out on the open water. A heron fished along the base of the reservoir wall and a few mallards hugged the margins. The water was quite low so there was a lot of damp ground for moorhens and pied wagtails to forage on. The spit over by the hide was twice its usual size, which gave the loafing gulls and lapwings room to space themselves out a bit. There were equal numbers of black-headed gulls and lesser black-backs with a few herring gulls and a couple of common gulls. They were joined by a few mallards and Canada geese and there were a couple of teals dabbling in one of the inlets. A couple of the lesser black-backs looked darker than the others but I decided it was due to the light rather than any chance they may be intermedius birds.

Lesser black-backs and black-headed gull

I turned onto the path that follows the South bank of the lake. It was quieter than usual along the stretch to the hide, just a few woodpigeons and great tits and a couple of rabbits.

I had a nosey from the hide. There were a couple of dozen teal on the pond with half a dozen mallards and a drake wigeon in eclipse plumage. I looked in vain for any waders. I looked over at the gulls, getting confirmation about the light on the lesser black-backs because different birds looks darker from this direction. There were more mallards on the water here and an eclipse drake pintail preened in the shallows.

Pintail

I walked on a bit from the hide and looked back at the gulls from a different angle. One of the young herring gulls on the water looked different to the others, my eye was caught by its big, heavy beak. The other herring gulls and the lesser black-backs had smaller bills and one young herring gull, presumably a small female, had a positively dinky beak. I kept looking round then coming back to it (I find this is a good way of checking whether something that looks strikingly different at first sight really is so strikingly different, if it disappears into the crowd it could have been the light, the angle of view or the activity — or not — of the bird that made it look different). The bill was still big, heavier at the end than at the base. I wasn't for taking any account of the particular shades of grey on its mantle and wings in this light so I looked at the structure of the bird. It looked longer-winged than the others and had a bigger, more rectangular head. A yellow-legged gull, then. A bird coming into second or third Winter plumage I think, I'm not at all confident of ageing this species if it's not a first-Winter or adult.

Hollingworth Lake

There wasn't a lot more besides on the walk round the lake besides a few red admirals and speckled woods in the trees by the café, and there were more people about now the weather had warmed up a bit so I went to get the bus up to Wardle. Then gave up on it when it was quarter of an hour late and walked up through Smithybridge and got the bus to Wardle from Halifax Road.

Watergrove Reservoir

I got off at the chapel and walked up Ramsden Road to Watergrove Reservoir. I'd arrived later than planned because of the missing bus so I limited my walk round the reservoir to the path by the southern bank. There wasn't much out on the water, just a dozen black-headed gulls, a few lesser black-backs and a pair of great crested grebes. There was more activity down by the car park with a flock of jackdaws vying with a gang of magpies and a couple of jays to see who could make the most noise in the trees. A raven flew overhead, cronking all the while and doing barrel rolls in the wind apparently just for the fun of doing it.

It was late afternoon so the walk over the moor to Whitworth was predictably quiet. A few carrion crows and jackdaws fossicked round in the grass, a couple of meadow pipits flew overhead and a small flock of woodpigeons flew into one of the little corpses of conifers and sycamore by the path.

A nice, if a bit quiet, couple of short walks.

Etherow Country Park

Dipper, River Etherow

With the change in the weather I took myself off to Etherow Country Park to walk some of the ache out of my knee and to take some photos of mandarin ducks (well, somebody's got to do it). It was a quiet, grey afternoon and a pleasant walk.

Etherow Country Park

There were plenty of mandarin ducks on the little canal, including half a dozen first-Winter drakes. Some of the adult drakes were already vying for the attentions of the ducks, their barks and grunting at each other entirely unlike their usual low whistles.

Mandarin duck

Mandarin duck

First-Winter mandarin duck

There was just the one grey wagtail on the river today. And a very nice adult dipper which kept still long enough to let me take its picture from the little wooden bridge over the canal overflow and also from the bridge by the weir.

Dipper, River Etherow

Over in Ernocroft Wood a couple of carrion crows and a pair of jays were shouting the odds.

There was a large mixed tit flock — at least a dozen each of long-tailed tits and blue tits with great tits, chiffchaffs and coal tits — flying between the weir and Keg Wood. I walked into Keg Wood a little way. I didn't go far, my knee was feeling the inclines and I've a walk I haven't done before planned for tomorrow. 

Etherow Country Park

I turned back and took the path that goes up the hill and back to the visitor centre, the first hundred yards or so are steep then it runs level parallel to the canal then gently drops down to the road. It doesn't have the rollercoaster dips and rises of Keg Wood or the sustained climbs of Ernocroft Wood. It's a nice bit of beech woodland and I bumped into the mixed tit flock again.

As I got to the road a buzzard floated overhead, almost stalling in the wind. I walked down to the bus stop and got the 384 bus into Stockport and thence back home.

Accidental lifer

Pink-footed geese, barnacle goose and lesser white-fronted goose

It was another sunny morning but I wasn't sure where or whether to go out for a walk so I headed off for Marshside, it's a gentle toddle and there's usually something around.

I got off the 44 bus and walked down Marshside Road. The little paddock at the edge of Sutton's Marsh was heaving with house sparrows and starlings. The lack of house martins was the first of many indications of the passage of the seasons.

Starlings

Starling

The field across the road was bone dry. A small flock of curlews fed among the cattle. I looked in vain for any cattle egrets (in fact, I didn't see any egrets at all today, the first time that's happened here).

Junction Pool was dead dry, the mud baked hard and birdless.

Curlew

There were a few greylag geese on Sutton's Marsh and a big flock of Canada geese over by Sandgrounders Hide. The crowd scenes were provided by hundreds of pink-footed geese, with more flying in all the time.

Pink-footed geese

The lockdown restrictions meant I didn't go on any wild goose chases last Winter so the usual mixture of elation and frustration was a bit overwhelming at first. I scanned through the masses looking for anything different and experienced the usual initial touch of confusion with the bright russet youngsters and the variations in bill colour and pattern of the adults, all the way from all black to almost wholly pink. One individual, looking taller than the others in its group because it was on sentry go, made me look twice. Familiar territory.

I did notice a couple of barnacle geese. I took a few photos and while I was checking them on the back of the camera to see how they'd turned out I noticed an odd individual. At first I thought it was a white-fronted goose but it was far too small, barely the size of the pink-footed geese, and far too neat. The likelihood of a lesser white-fronted goose appearing on Marshside is vanishingly small so I'll forgive myself for not twigging it immediately. Try as I might I couldn't find the bird out on the field, either it had gone to sleep with its head tucked into its back feathers or it had disappeared into one of those dips and furrows that can hide a great white egret. A frustrating way of accidentally gaining an addition to the life list.

As always with wildfowl the possibility of its being an escaped bird has to be borne in mind, especially as a lesser white-front is more likely to be in the company of bean geese from the East than pink-feet from the West. (The Rare Bird Committee that keeps the records of national rarities works on the assumption that all rare wildfowl are escaped birds unless unequivocally proven otherwise). There's a reintroduction scheme using captive-bred birds in Holland, this bird could have been a youngster that tagged along with some of last Winter's pink-feet. All of which is speculation on my part. I noticed a little later that somebody else had already reported this bird on BirdGuides and their working assumption was that it was an escapee. I'm still having it on my life list though.

Pink-footed geese and barnacle geese

Pink-footed geese

Pink-footed geese, barnacle goose and lesser white-fronted goose

Pink-footed geese, barnacle goose and lesser white-fronted goose

Greylag geese and pink-footed geese

Wigeon

The first of the wigeon were back, all the drakes still in their ginger eclipse plumage. A great black-back was kept busy trying to eat one it had killed whilst fending off a couple of carrion crows who quite fancied the meal for themselves. There were a few teal and mallard and just a couple of shovelers, there wasn't a lot of water about and most of it was covered in Canada geese.

There were quite a few waders about by Sandgrounders, nearly all of them black-tailed godwits. A few lapwings sat with a group of black-headed gulls on the margins of the biggest flock of Canada geese. A couple of golden plover flew over towards Crossens Marsh. And a single ruff foraged on the mud in front of the hide. No little stints or exotic peeps for me today.

Amidst all these heralds of Autumn a few migrant hawkers patrolled the reeds and tall grasses, glinting blue in the sunlight.

Ruff

Black-tailed godwits

I walked over to Crossens Marsh, which was bone dry save for a bit of water in one of the sluices by the path and a couple of patches of damp mud on the inner marsh, one covered in lapwings and starlings and the other covered in black-headed gulls. I found this stretch of the walk pretty depressing to be honest, I've seen more birds on here in the past when it was thick fog.

A nice couple of hours' wander and a reminder that goose watching is almost as unpredictable and frustrating as gull watching.

Leighton Moss

Bearded tit

It was still a very foggy morning when I set off for Leighton Moss. Had I known it would turn into a bright Summer's day with a twitchable wader and a school party I might have made other plans. Just as well I didn't know: it was a nice day, the birdwatching was stress-free and productive and the kids were brilliant, much better behaved than most grown-ups.

As the train passed the coastal hides I was struck by how bone dry the pools were. The only water was on the pool by the Allen Hide, hosting a few black-headed gulls and a sleeping spoonbill doing an excellent impersonation of a mattress on a stick.

The school party was in the picnic area watching the birds on the feeders so I went straight to Lilian's Hide to see if the pectoral sandpiper that had been reported was still there.

The first things I noticed were the couple of hundred roosting black-tailed godwits and a couple of great white egrets. Every so often the egrets would get too close to each other and they'd indulge in a bit of aggressive display, pointing their beaks skywards and strutting about in an exaggerated manner.

Great white egret and black-tailed godwits

Life imitates art: teal and plastic decoy tern

Pectoral sandpiper (heavily cropped record shot)

A chap helpfully pointed out where to find the pectoral sandpiper. It was well away from everything else, the only bird on a stretch of mud in a little inlet, so it was dead easy to spot. Unfortunately, the strong backlighting and reflections from the mud made it a largely unidentifiable silhouette. I had a stroke of luck when it moved behind a small puddle and the reflected light lit up its underside, showing the sharp distinction between the brown breast and white abdomen. I looked away for a moment, came back and found I'd lost the bird. All that could be seen was a stone in the middle of the mud. After a couple of minutes the stone got up and started wandering around again.

Heron and black-tailed godwits

Great white egret and black-tailed godwits

There were plenty of teal loafing round the margins of the pool and a dozen gadwall lingered in the deep corner of the pool in the company of a few coots and a dabchick. And I noticed a couple of knots in amongst the godwits.

I'd been shown where to find the pectoral sandpiper so I paid the favour on by spending five minutes helping newcomers find it.

There were a couple of mixed tit flocks in the trees along the path into the reeds. Mostly blue tits and great tits with long-tailed tits and chiffchaffs along for the ride.

From the Tim Jackson Hide

The pools in front of the Tim Jackson Hide were lower than usual but plenty enough for a small flock of gadwall and half a dozen moorhens. And plenty enough for hordes of dragonflies, mostly unidentifiable in the strong light. A few brown hawkers were easy enough to get by their size and russet glint in the sunlight. As far as I could tell, most of the rest were common hawkers and common darters, with a couple of migratory hawkers making up the numbers.

As I walked down to the Griesdale Hide I came across a group of people taking photos by one of the grit trays. A male bearded tit was ignoring its audience and getting on with the business of topping up on grit. I was quite surprised, it was late lunchtime and my general experience is that you don't see them on the grit trays after 11:00am. A bonny looking bird.

Bearded tit

The pools at the Griesdale Hide were bone dry though a heron managed to find an eel passing along one of the little ditches by the reeds.

From the Griesdale Hide

Walking back I found a couple of willow warblers calling from willows in the reedbed and a juvenile chiffchaff assayed a bit of song from the trees at the corner of the reserve. There was another mixed tit flock, this one with more long-tailed tits, and a treecreeper rummaged around in the depths of the dry stone wall by the field. A buzzard soaring high on the thermals was joined by a noisy pair drifting over from the coastal marsh.

I had to tiptoe my way round sleeping mallards to get to the visitor centre and the exit.

It was early yet so I considered moving on to Hodbarrow. Then I checked the trains, there was a problem on the Barrow to Carlisle line that would make the journey a bit too interesting for comfort. So I headed for Ulverston, which gave me the chance to see what was about on the Kent and Leven estuaries then have a quarter of an hour to wait for the Manchester train.

The train was packed with a school party going to Grange over Sands so I didn't get a good look on the estuary at Arnside. The tide was ebbing but still high when we reached the Leven Estuary. Lots of black-headed gulls and lesser black-backs, a couple of eiders and a dozen mute swans loafed on the water and the train spooked a curlew that was feeding on the trackside.

I was looking inland on the way back, which gave me the chance to spot a couple of dozen little egrets roosting on the Leven and a similar number of redshanks roosting on the railway causeway approaching Arnside.

A pretty good day's birdwatching and two more additions to the year list.

Holcombe Moor

Holcombe Moor

It being a sunny Saturday I decided I didn't want to take the train out anywhere (they'd be busy and short on carriages like they seem to be every Saturday) and I wanted to avoid the inevitable crowds along the Mersey Valley. The obvious thing to do would be another weekend traipse across the mosses but I'm trying to avoid settling into any routines. Then it occurred to me that over the past couple of years I keep nibbling round Holcombe Moor without actually going up for a wander on it. So I got a tram out to Bury and got the 472 bus out to Holcombe Brook and set off for it.

Holcombe Old Road

I started out by walking a while up Holcombe Old Road then taking a meandering series of paths and lanes up to the Peel Tower on Holcombe Hill. A bit more meandering than originally planned: the road less traveled is often less traveled for a reason but the road more traveled is more likely to have three blokes blocking it as they try to rescue their brand new Mercedes van after ignoring the "No vehicular access" sign at the bottom. These are old pack horse roads.

There were a few small mixed tit flocks along the gardens and hedges at the bottom of Holcombe Old Road and robins all along the way. Further up the hill, beyond the farm buildings, the country was more open and birds harder to come by. Jackdaws squabbled in the fields and the occasional carton crow or woodpigeon flew overhead. Every so often a wren or a dunnock would take exception to me from somewhere deep in the bracken.

Roe deer, Holcombe Hill

A roe deer studiously ignored passers-by as it foraged at the edge of a patch of bracken, though it refused to pose for the camera. A family of small children came walking the other way to me and the deer calmly disappeared into the bracken with just its white behind sticking out.

I hadn't walked on far when I was puzzled by the calling of finches from some stunted birch trees halfway up the hill. I couldn't identify the call and I couldn't spot the birds. After a couple of minutes it was evident they'd moved on. I suspect they were lesser redpolls but I don't bump into them often enough to be sure of the identification.

Holcombe Moor

There were crowds round the Peel Tower so I didn't linger. I headed off towards Moor Lane with no particular purpose in mind. A few crows and jackdaws flew over and even up here there were speckled wood butterflies on the brambles by the dry stone walls.

Carrion crow, Holcombe Moor

I got to Moor Road and decided to carry on towards Helmshore. The walking was good, the scenery was splendid but the birds were few and far between.

Buckden Wood

This changed at an abandoned farmhouse by a gate. Chiffchaffs and wrens called from the trees by the house and a couple of swallows flew over. The entrance to Buckden Wood was a hundred yards down the road so I had a quick wander. There was literally no bird life to be found in there today, not even any chaffinches rummaging in the beech mast. I made a mental note to come again in late Spring to see what would be around then.

Moor Road

I rejoined Moor Road and carried on. Two or three passing swallows became fifty-odd, most of them swooping and hawking low over the moor while a few stayed high overhead, all the while drifting southwards. There were a few meadow pipits about, which became quite a lot of meadow pipits as I walked along a bit further. The Autumn migration's in full tilt now.

Moor Road

The road got steeper and the roadside vegetation thicker as I approached the Helmshore end of the trail. There were robins, wrens and dunnocks in the hedgerows and a small mixed flock of long-tailed tits and great tits called from the hawthorn bushes. 

A field away I could see and hear a small finch calling as it sat on a telegraph line. It took an embarrassingly long time to realise it was a lesser redpoll. A single bird at a distance, away from any treetops and I just couldn't place it in that context.

I walked into Helmshore and got the 481 to Bury, which only got as far as Rawstenstall Bus Station before they kicked us off for want of a bus driver. So I got the X43 express bus back to Manchester. And I have a Transdev Bus day saver voucher to play with which might come in useful for a Transpennine trip.