Northwich

Water rail, Neumann's Flash 

I was in a dithery sort of mood this morning so I decided on a trip out to Northwich for a bit of a wander. I've not been for a while and it's an uncomplicated journey.

I walked up Old Warrington Road to the Northwich Woods. For once there were no finches in the trees along the road. I noticed there were a few mallards and a teal on the brook as I crossed the bridge.

Ashton's Flash 

Ashton's Flash was bone dry, the pools replaced by scrubby grass haunted by carrion crows. The birch scrub and grass along the path along the bund between Ashton's Flash and Neumann's Flash was littered with fungi, some the size of a plate. I think they were all boletus of one sort or another including a clump of bruised crimson mushrooms that I think were blushing boletes.

Boletus mushroom 

Neumann's Flash 

Neumann's Flash was wetter and busier though the water was low and there were stretches of dried cracked mud. The crowd of black-headed gulls and lapwings loafing on a mud bank were very conspicuous, the teals dabbling on the water line less so. There was at least one juvenile garganey amongst them, one of a group in the company of the only Canada goose on the flash by a mud bank across the way.

I had a nosy round from the hide on the spit. I could see a few lesser black-backs and a couple of herring gulls amongst the black-headed gulls and a couple of dunlin, still with Summer black bellies, on the shore behind them. Over on the shore on the right-hand side there were some more teals with a couple of dozen loafing wigeons and two pairs of shovelers. A family of moorhens fussed about in front of the hide, the juveniles all full grown, and a dabchick fed an arm's length from the bank. A lady was in the hide when I arrived, she told me that a couple of water rails had been feeding with the moorhens just before I arrived. "And there's one of them now!" At which point I discovered I hadn't put the memory card back in my camera (again! this is getting to be a bad habit). Luckily it was close enough for me to photograph with my 'phone, and it might have been too close for my big lens to focus on anyway.

Water rail, Neumann's Flash 

I walked round the flash towards Dairy House Meadows. There was a brisk wind shaking the trees, most of the small bird noises being the squeaks and groans of willows and poplars. Those bird sounds I could pick up were difficult to pin down in the wind. The robins were easy enough most of the time but I struggled with a mixed tit flock that I knew was in a clump of blackthorn but couldn't get at all.

Dairy House Meadows 

Dairy House Meadows was picturesque but very quiet of birds save a chiffchaff in the trees. A few woodpigeons and a couple of stock doves flew overhead and a buzzard floated low overhead and over to the fields by Marston Lane.

I crossed over the canal into Marbury Country Park. The woods were phenomenally quiet, it was ages before I even saw a woodpigeon. A nuthatch took pity on me and called from the treetops. The thud of falling acorns competed with the rustlings of leaves and twigs to make it difficult to pick up any bird calls. I wished I'd brought my cap when it started raining. I wished I had a steel helmet when the conkers and crab apples started dropping 

Marbury Country Park 

The Canada geese on Budworth Mere were feeding on the grass on the far bank with a few coots. Fifty-odd black-headed gulls loafed on the water margin in front of them, a few more were flying about and squabbling over spaces on buoys. Scanning round I found half a dozen great crested grebes, most of them full-grown juveniles, a few tufted ducks and a couple of dabchicks. A dozen mallards and a family of mute swans completed the roll call.

I had more luck walking back through the woods, the mixed tit flocks were making themselves very visible, great tits and blue tits bouncing round in the undergrowth and a family of long-tailed tits calling from a yew tree. There was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing amongst the robins, obviously establishing Winter territories. 

Marbury Country Park 

I took the path that leads out to the edge of the wood and follows the field margin. Having ten acres of field to choose from and more sense than I do the cattle were all feeding in one corner behind a couple of bushes and out of the wind. Common hawkers and a couple of common darters patrolled the bushes along the path. A flock of jackdaws and a couple of carrion crows were mobbing something over the trees to my left. I thought it was another buzzard and I thought wrong, it was a pair of ravens. Having escorted the ravens safely out of their territory the jackdaws returned amid noisy victory celebrations so one of the ravens came back just to make a point.

I crossed back over the canal and walked down Forge Brook. There were more great tits, robins and nuthatches and a couple of calling chiffchaffs. They were joined by chaffinches as I passed Neumann's Flash and a couple of jays called noisily by the car park by Witton Brook.

Ashton's Flash 

By now the rain was falling steadily so I called it a day and walked back to the station. I'd had over three hours' exercise and I had half an hour to spare waiting for the train. It was a wise decision: soon after I'd arrived at the station and under cover the heavens opened!