Northwich

Great crested grebe, Neumann's Flash

It was looking like being another decent day's weather and I had half a dozen ideas for what to do with it. After a last-minute diversion to finish off yesterday's job round at my dad's (long story, basically I now know which buttons to press to get the readings from his electricity meter), I drifted into a day out walking in Cheshire.

I got the train from Navigation Road to Northwich (I always make this mistake: it's less stressful getting it from Altrincham because you aren't left standing at the level crossing for five minutes or more of your eight minutes' connection time). Good to see that Northwich Station's been mostly repaired after the roof fell in last year.

I walked up Leicester Street then up Old Warrington Road into the Northwich Woodlands. Robins and wrens sang in the bushes by the roadside and there was a twittering of goldfinches in the trees. Somebody's put bird feeders up in some of the trees and they were proving very popular with reed buntings. Witton Brook was busy with pairs of teal and mallards.

Ashton's Flash was busy with black-headed gulls. Mallards, coots and mute swans fed and loafed in the pools with a couple of shelducks.

The bund between Ashton's Flash and Neumann's Flash

It was one of those days where it was too warm to wear your coat but too cold not to be wearing it. The wind picked up and settled the matter. The breeze in the birch trees along the bund between the flashes made it difficult to pick out the titmice and finches from the leaves being blown about. A lot of the small bird noises were the creaking of hawthorn and elder, or else my knees and back.

Neumann's Flash
The tropical island effect in the water is caused by the waste from the old lime workings here.

There were more shelducks on Neumann's Flash, together with half a dozen each of mallards and tufted ducks and a few dozen teal. Wigeon were notable by their absence, which seems a bit early.

Great crested grebe, Neumann's Flash

Great crested grebe (female), Neumann's Flash

Great crested grebe (male), Neumann's Flash

There were a few pairs of great crested grebes about. One pair dozed by the hide on the spit. Every so often they'd wake up, indulge in a minute or two's noisy head-wagging then go back to sleep. Judging by their behaviours the darker of the two birds seemed to be the male.

A couple of Cetti's warblers sang lustily from the reeds and a family of long-tailed tits bounced across the front of the hide and over into the birch trees.

Mallard, Neumann's Flash
We see these so often it's easy to forget what a fine-looking bird is a drake mallard

I walked round Neumann's Flash to Dairy House Meadows. The trees along the path were full of small birds, mostly blue tits, robins and dunnocks. Greenfinches and goldfinches sang from the trees along Warrington Road and pairs of great tits and bullfinches quietly went about their business in the hawthorns. Every so often a family party of long-tailed tits would tumble by in the undergrowth. A couple more Cetti's warblers sang from the reeds by the flash.

Coltsfoot, Neumann's Flash

Bullfinch, Neumann's Flash

A flock of a dozen curlews flew low overhead and over the flash to the fields over Great Budworth way. At least three buzzards flew about at treetop height, probably a pair and an interloper.

Buzzard, Marbury Country Park

I crossed over into Marbury Country Park accompanied by the songs of stock doves and robins. Blue tits and great tits were investigating nest boxes and my first common chiffchaff of the year sang from deep in a holly bush. Another buzzard flew low overhead and out over Budworth Mere.

Marbury Country Park

As I arrived at the mere a Mediterranean gull flew overhead, readily identifiable by its loud, high camp call. There were plenty of black-headed gulls on the water with a few lesser black-backs and herring gulls and a lone second-Winter common gull. Over on the far side every pole rising from the water had a cormorant on it, a herd of Canada geese noisily floated about by the shore and a pair of oystercatchers tried to shout over them. Half a dozen herons occupied their places in the heronry near the watersports centre. Closer to hand pairs of mallards and coots hugged the shore and small rafts of tufties bobbed about. There were more pairs of great crested grebes and a pair of mute swans were being very self-effacing in the reedbeds in the corner.

Budworth Mere

There were more titmice and chiffchaffs in the trees by the mere and they were joined by a couple of treecreepers.

I walked through the park and over to Comberbatch where I caught the CAT9 bus to Warrington and got the train home from there. First time I've done that stretch of the walk, it won't be the last.

Neumann's Flash