Leighton Moss and a bit more

Marsh tit, Leighton Moss

After a rather busy day yesterday I needed a day out for some exercise so I got myself an old man's explorer ticket and headed off for Leighton Moss.

Looking over the coastal pools as the train slowed down for Silverdale there were avocets and shelducks on the pools furthest from the Eric Morecambe Hide; a large, tight block of black-tailed godwits and lapwings closer to the hide and a blanket of black-headed gulls on the Allen pool.

It was an almost cloudless day with a bit of a breeze which made for a pleasant toddle round. There was a school party in but the tiny tots made less noise and fluster than many small groups of grown-ups who should know better.

Black-headed gulls, Leighton Moss

This time of year there's more happening away from the hides than at them. A dozen black-headed gulls squabbled for places on the rafts at Lilian's while pochards and tufties fed over at the back end by the reeds. A couple of male marsh harriers drifted around over the reedbeds at Lilian's, I think one of these was the bird that flew by the Griesdale Hide later on. A couple of pairs of greylags at Griesdale had young goslings.

Greylag and goslings, Leighton Moss

Snipe, Leighton Moss

A snipe gave some of the birders at the Tim Jackson Hide a headache: it was sat in the grass just in front of the hide and it really was a case of you saw it first time and thought it obvious or you looked in vain for ages. It took a good quarter of an hour for the last person to find it and then only after I'd suggested they move over and have a look from where I was sitting as the angle was easier and then had five minutes' orientation from the chap who'd found it in the first place. It's actually horribly easy to stare at some birds and just not see them, I'm often shocked to find there's a heron or a mute swan in my line of view and I hadn't registered it and they're a bit more conspicuous than a half-hidden snipe.

Marsh tit, Leighton Moss
I'll freely admit that at this time of year when titmice are starting to look a bit frazzled with parenthood I'd really struggle to identify a marsh tit from a willow tit away from their traditional sites. There's still a subtle difference in the size and shape of the head that helps a bit (a willow tit is big-headed and bull-necked, exaggerated by the extent of the cap at the back of the neck).

Walking along the reedbed paths I was struck by how busy it was with small birds and how quiet most of them were. Usually I locate small birds by call or song and this time of year I miss a lot of them as they skulk about in the herbage. Luckily, at Leighton Moss the residents are pretty tame of people so I had a fighting chance, especially as so many of the titmice were feeding at head height by the path. A nuthatch made an almighty racket when a magpie got a bit close for comfort and a marsh tit obligingly sneezed at me to let me know it was ready for the camera but that was pretty much it from the residents.

Singing reed warbler, Leighton Moss

The Spring migrants made up for it in spades. Chiffchaffs and a few blackcaps sang around the visitor centre, willow warblers in the trees out in the reedbeds. A couple of Cetti's warblers sang from the reedbed edges and half a dozen reed warblers had set up singing territories and hardly paused for breath between songs.

Brimstone on cowslips

Butterfly numbers are picking up. Orange tips were by far the most numerous today. I'd gotten so blasé about them I initially assumed a small white was a female orange tip and only had a second look when a male orange tip made the same mistake and was angrily sent packing. A few peacocks passed by and there was a crowd of brimstones on the coswlips by the visitor centre.

I didn't want to monkey about with the trains again so got the last of the afternoon's direct trains back to Manchester. There was still plenty of daylight and I wanted to max out the value of my old man's explorer ticket so I decided I'd carry on down to Chelford and walk down to Acre Nook Quarry which has been having one hell of a season and was currently hosting a couple of ring-necked ducks. It would also be a chance to see the change of seasons in what is still a new site to me.

The walk down from Chelford was pleasant enough, sunny with a bit of a cooling breeze. There weren't the big flocks of jackdaws and redwings about, just single figures of jackdaws, a few crows and some woodpigeons. The hedgerows down Lapwing Hall Lane were quietly busy with great tits, blue tits and chaffinches settling in ready for the end of day, house sparrows and a small party of tree sparrows got together and chattered in the hedges by the farmhouses and the rookeries got progressively noisier.

A very distant ring-necked duck (far right), with tufties in a heavily cropped photo, Acre Nook Quarry
Just so you know I wasn't overlooking anything dead obvious.

Standing at the gate overlooking the quarry nearly everything was Very Far Away. A couple of lapwings and a Canada goose sat on the sandbank close by, everything else was clustered by the far banks and islands. A dozen cormorants loafed with dozing shelducks and shovelers, mallards flew about in twos and threes, and when the light was just right it was possible to see that distant dark blobs were tufted ducks and great crested grebes. While I was scanning the quarry chiffchaffs, wrens and robins were singing from the nearby trees and my first garden warbler of the year came and sang in the hawthorn bush by the gate.

Over by one side there were a few slightly closer dark blobs: a couple were obviously coots, there were a couple of female tufties, and there were a couple of male tufties that I couldn't turn into anything else no matter how much wishful thinking I employed. That left a couple of mysteries. One eventually turned out to be another male tuftie. I was about to give up on the last one when it turned and the sun caught the white on its beak. Even from this distance it was different to the tufted ducks. So I found one male ring-necked duck anyway.

A local chap told me I'd get a better view of the duck from one of the other footpaths. I walked through The Mosses and onto the footpath but didn't have a great deal more luck. It was a nice walk so I carried on for a bit, joining Congleton Lane and walking down to see what was about. Chiffchaffs, chaffinches and goldfinches sang in the trees, blackbirds and robins rummaged round the hedge bottoms and swallows swooped low over fields of sheep.

Walking through The Mosses

At this point I did something very foolish: I looked at the map. It occurred to me that I was as far away from Chelford Station as Macclesfield Station and the trains are more frequent and regular at Macclesfield. It didn't occur to me that the relatively straight roads back to Chelford were in marked contrast to the roads snaking their way through Siddington and Pexhill towards Macclesfield which added about three miles to the journey.

The sun was low as I passed through Siddington so I decided to be sensible and call for a taxi only to find that none of the local taxi firms liked going anywhere that had fields by the roadside. So there was nothing to do but tramp it. It would be a pretty good walk in normal circumstances but I started to worry as the twilight came in and I was still three miles from Macclesfield. Salvation came with a passing motorist called Elliott who stopped and offered me a lift and kindly dropped me off at the station ten minutes before the Manchester train came in. He wouldn't take petrol money but I insisted on his having something towards a drink on me. There are still decent people about.

A very pale cock pheasant, Pexhill
This is why I switched on the torch on my 'phone to act as a warning headlight to oncoming traffic.

The day hadn't finished to plan but I'd had a couple of decent walks and had some good birdwatching and the joints had had a good workout. In the wee small hours of the morning they'll be reminding me of this little escapade.