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| Sedge warbler, Elton Reservoir |
A spotted sandpiper had been found on Elton Reservoir yesterday, showing quite well and in its breeding plumage to avoid confusion with common sandpipers. It's a bird I've never seen and I really should have gone over there yesterday afternoon to have a look at it but I was too tired to be bothered. The cat had me up at silly o'clock again today so I decided to set out early and have a look at it today. I wasn't looking forward to it: it was a very nice day and Elton Reservoir gets understandably busy on nice days, especially at weekends, and I'm getting increasingly uncomfortable in crowd scenes of any sort. As it was, I needn't have worried: it was early enough to be fairly quiet and there were only a dozen birdwatchers there and all very civil.
As the tram passed over the Irwell on its way from Radcliffe to Bury a dipper shot by. I've never seen one on this stretch before so I took this as a good omen.
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I got the 471 to Bolton Road and walked down to the car park to the accompaniment of singing wrens, blackbirds and chiffchaffs. There were the usual few mallards, coots and Canada geese near the sailing club and small groups of noisy black-headed gulls on the water. It took a while to find the handful of tufted ducks and the pair of great crested grebes. They were doing a lot of pair bonding displays, stopping just short of the penguin dance.
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| Reed bunting, Elton Reservoir |
I walked over to the creek, thinking that the beach at the mouth of the creek would be a good place to see any waders that were about. It wasn't today, there were too many kids and dogs about. A dunnock fossicking about on the shoreline gave me a moment's bewilderment. The creek itself, which these days is all but invisible for most of its length, was heaving with warblers: blackcaps, whitethroats and sedge warblers sang from the hawthorn hedges, willow warblers and a chiffchaff from the tall trees. Reed buntings sang, appropriately enough, in the small patches of reeds at the mouth of the creek.
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| Dunlins, Elton Reservoir |
I walked the whole length of the North shore without seeing a single wader, which is unusual. I joined the throng by the farm on the South shore, found a seat on the wall and started scanning the far shore. All the waders were concentrated on a stretch about twenty yards long that's protected from the paths by a thick layer of trees. I couldn't work out if it was two or three little ringef plovers as one kept appearing where I wasn't expecting it. There was also a ringed plover, a couple of dunlins in breeding plumage and a common sandpiper.
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| Spotted sandpiper and dunlins, Elton Reservoir |
The spotted sandpiper was showing well, even at this distance, when I arrived. It soon put paid to that by scuttling round the corner at the point of the bank but I'd had the opportunity to get a good look at it and get some pretty awful record shots (defeated by distance). I turned the identification on its head by looking at the common sandpiper and asking myself why that wasn't the spotted sandpiper, it boiled down to the fact that it just looked too neat. The characteristic white armpit of the common sandpiper was a clean curve, that of the spotted sandpiper a more broken and mottled affair, made the more so by the black markings on its breast. The common sandpiper had a clean white chin and throat and a neat white eye stripe, the spotted sandpiper had a mottled throat and a big eye stripe stretching way back on the head; at this distance through binoculars it reminded me of that motley look of some ruffs when they're starting to acquire their breeding plumage. The phonescoped images of the bird that I've seen show it to be much neater than it appeared with binoculars. I'm really not convinced I'd be able to identify a Winter plumaged spotted sandpiper without any spots.
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| Spotted sandpiper, Elton Reservoir Heavily-cropped record shot (I'll leave the couple of dozen out-takes to your imagination) |
I wandered over to Withins Reservoir for a quick nosy. Pairs of Canada geese, mute swans and mallards were on the water and singing blackbirds, dunnocks and blackcaps in the hedgerows. There were a few lapwings sitting on nests in one of the fields away from the horses.
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| Welsh poppies, Fall Birch Road |
It was still only lunchtime so I decided it was time to move on. It's been bothering me that I haven't paid High Rid Reservoir a visit yet this year so I got the 471 to Bolton and the 575 to the bottom of Fall Birch Road and had a walk up.
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| High Rid Reservoir |
There wasn't much on the water besides mallards, tufties and a couple of mute swans. Gulls — mostly black-headed with a few lesser black-backs — came in to bathe and preen then moved on. Whitethroats sang from the hedgerows and a grey wagtail was busy catching midges in the drain. The field next to the reservoir was being cut for silage and was peppered with jackdaws, rooks and black-headed gulls taking advantage of the disturbed insects in between dodging farm machinery. Taking advantage of the hot thermals a few carrion crows and six buzzards wheeled overhead. It seems a lot of buzzards for this time of year but the area seems to support them.
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| Buzzards, High Rid Reservoir |
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| I didn't know there were koi carp in High Rid Reservoir |
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| Old Hall Clough |
I walked down Old Hall and and took a stroll through Old Hall Clough down to Chorley New Road for the bus back to Bolton. There were all the usual woodland birds in abundance, which is always nice. The coal tits were still singing — ours have gone quiet for the post-breeding moult — and nuthatches were feeding noisy broods.
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| Bluebells, Old Hall Clough |
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| Nuthatch, Old Hall Clough |
I got the 22 back to the Trafford Centre. On the way I noticed that there was an easy connection with the 18 at Eccles Interchange. This bus route changed at the beginning of last month, it no longer goes down Urmston Lane into Stretford before going into Sale, instead it swings out of Urmston into Flixton, goes down the mile road then turns left onto Carrington Lane and into Ashton on Mersey, thence into Sale. This would be a very convenient way of getting to Banky Meadow or the Eastern side of Carrington Moss so I decided to get it and see where it stops. And it turns out to be just right for my purposes.
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| Priory Gardens |
I got off at Priory Gardens and had a walk through. It was teatime and the blackbirds, blackcaps, whitethroats and song thrushes were in full song. I passed over the bridge over the motorway into Sale Water Park which was inevitably very busy so I didn't linger. I still had a day ticket for the trams which I'd used to get to Bury so I got the tram into Chorlton and got the bus home.
It had been a roundabout way of doing things but I'd added an unexpected bird to my life list and had a couple of pleasant walks in agreeable weather. There are worse things in this life.
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