Cheshire bumper bundle

Canada goose, Spike Island

I thought it more than high time I had a wander along the Mersey Estuary at Hale. I got the train to Liverpool South Parkway and missed the 90 into Speke because it was running late and the driver didn't bother slowing down at the interchange and was gone before the automatic doors were open. So I walked down into Garstang for the 82a to Hale and happened to catch the bus I would have connected with anyway and got a couple of retail area buzzards onto the day list as well. Top tip for next time: the Arriva day saver ticket I bought covers Greater Manchester as well as Merseyside and Cheshire so I could have saved ten pounds by going to Wigan, getting the bus to Warrington and travelling on from there.

Arriving at Hale it was a heavy, muggy sort of a day and a stiff breeze coming in from the river stopped it feeling like being in someone's armpit. The village was full of singing blackbirds, greenfinches and collared doves and a flock of swifts joined the house martins feeding over the rooftops.

Looking over the Mersey towards Ince, all the black dots on the water are Canada geese

I walked down to the lighthouse. The skylarks in the field of wheat to my right were very active and three or four took turns to make sure there was always at least one singing on the wing. A flock of half a dozen linnets commuted between the hedgerow and the field. A couple of meadow pipits had flown over and landed in the potato field on my left so when five pipit-shaped birds rose from there I assumed they were more of the same. Then one called and I realised there was a yellow wagtail in there. They wheeled overhead and flew back into the field, giving me the chance to identify them as a family of yellow wagtails including three youngsters.

Hale Lighthouse, the wind turbines are on Frodsham Marsh

The river was high but the tide was starting to ebb. Crowds of black-headed gulls, herring gulls and lesser black-backs loafed on the shallow waters over the sand banks. A couple of shelduck flew past and one dozed by the nearby bank. Over on the far side the mud under the bank was littered with black dots. As I scanned the scene, most of the tall shapes turned out to be cormorants, though there were enough poles stuck in the mud to stop me getting complacent about it. The rest of the dots were hundreds of Canada geese with a small number of ducks, all but a few drake mallards remained unidentifiable.

Skylark, Hale Lighthouse

I walked down the path, all the while being serenaded by skylarks and reed buntings. A couple of sedge warblers sang in rough patches of reeds and cow parsley in the river bank. A couple of little egrets flew over but didn't settle. A sudden burst of angry crow noises heralded the arrival of a buzzard which paid no heed and floated on towards the village.

Barley field, Hale

I took the path that goes inland past the barley fields and into the woods, thence into Hale Park. A heron rose from the ditch by the path and that, in turn, spooked a flock of woodpigeons deep in the barley.

The woodland was busy with robins, wrens and blackcaps while blackbirds, mistle thrushes and linnets fed on the grass in the park.

I'd noticed that the 82a carries on through Widnes on its way to Runcorn and stops a couple of streets away from Spike Island so I caught the next one and hopped over. As the bus headed towards Widnes the clouds started to clear and it became sunnier and less clammy.

Whooper swan, Spike Island

There was a large herd of mute swans on the canal by the car park at Spike Island. Much to my surprise the whooper swan that summered here last year was sitting by the lock gates. It's obviously found life here much to its liking. A couple of families of mute swans with young cygnets kept away from the herd.

I had a bit of a wander. Chiffchaffs and blackcaps sang in the trees and whitethroats, reed buntings and dunnocks sang out in the open.

Heron, Spike Island

I spent a while scanning the river as there had been reports of ruddy shelducks round here over the weekend. A couple of distant dark shapes feeding with a shelduck on the far bank beyond the bridge looked promising but a change of position and light made it clear that it was a drake mallard and, probably, his duck.

Herring gull, Spike Island
Graceful looking individuals with small heads like this, I think a second calendar year female, always make me look twice. The back looks dark, too, though the actual shade of grey is typical herring gull. As it is I don't need to get into the details of the plumage for the ID, the bill is too short for Caspian gull.

There were small groups of lapwings, redshanks and oystercatchers littered the mud banks on the river. The groups of loafing lesser black-backs and black-headed gulls were bigger, the herring gulls tended to be roaming round in ones and twos.

Canada geese, Spike Island

Families of Canada geese loafed on the river bank or grazed on the grass below the stanchions of the bridge.

As I walked back along the canal I bumped into the whooper swan again with the herd of mute swans lazily drifting upstream to feed.

Whooper swan, Spike Island

I was a lot worried by the lack of butterflies at both sites (to be honest I'm quite concerned about it in general this year). Insect life all told seems a bit quiet this month.

The stop for the bus to Warrington is just round the corner from the car park. I got that, had ten minutes to wait for the bus to Wigan and got the train home from there. It would have been an hour and a half quicker to have got the train from Warrington but I was on an adventure and didn't mind saving four quid. It'll definitely be worth doing a bit more exploring with one of these saver tickets.