Hindley

Juvenile scaup, Amberswood Lake

After an absence of the best part of a month I've seen the first couple of woodpigeons in our bit of Stretford this lunchtime. Evidently I've been wrong in thinking our local population is largely sedentary and augmented by Winter visitors, they must have been among the tens of thousands that steamed through the region this Autumn while the Winter visitors hung back feeling no pressure to move on while the weather was unseasonably mild.

It was a cool, very grey, day and I'd woken up with a mood of not wanting to do much more than potter about. This time of year I like to try and fill in some of the gaps — I've been adding to my list of places to visit quicker than I've been ticking them off — so I got the 132 bus from the Trafford Centre into Hindley and got off at Gregory Street for a walk into Amberswood.

Amberswood's a place I go past quite often without stopping for a look around. I'd noticed the tiny car park and sign by the bus stop and put it on the list to visit sometime. I'll be coming again.

Amberswood

The entrance to the park takes you onto a footpath that's part of the cycleway between Hindley and Wigan. (It turns out that the cyclists round here are more considerate and friendly than the churls that power their way through the Mersey Valley.) The first few hundred yards is a corridor bound by high hedges of brambles and gorse bushes with an interesting assortment of deciduous trees behind them. The bushes were busy with a mixed tit flock — a big family of long-tailed tits with great tits and blue tits with chaffinches tagging along — and the trees with a flock of bullfinches, all of which knew to duck behind some twigs whenever the camera got into focus. A coal tit flew along the path, followed by a pair of dunnocks. I was watching the dunnocks fossicking around the base of a gorse bush when a willow tit came over to check me out and let me know it would be happy for me to move along, please.

Female bullfinch, Amberswood

Further along the path opened up into young woodland. The birdlife was more thinly spread, and mostly robins, wrens and blackbirds. I turned off the cycleway and dropped off onto the path down to the lake.

Amberswood 

Amberswood Lake

I could hear a class of young kids over on the other side of the reedbeds by the lake. I hoped we'd be going in different directions but we ended up leapfrogging each other round the lake. It wasn't that they were bad, they were excited about being out and about and a lot noisy with it. It's  just my hard luck, I'd sooner have them happy and excited about being out in nature than not. I can live with not knowing whether that bird that disappeared into the reeds was a dunnock or a Cetti's warbler.

Juvenile scaup and black-headed gulls, Amberswood Lake

A couple of dozen mallards loafed and dabbled on the lake in the company of half a dozen tufted ducks, four young-looking great crested grebes and rather a lot of black-headed gulls, most of which were coming in for a quick bath and a loud squawk before moving on to somewhere or other. Two dark, low-lying shapes turned out to be a couple of immature scaups. They were asleep when I first noticed them but the kids soon woke them up so after a quick wash and brush up they floated off to feed over on the far side of the lake. There were a few coots and a couple of moorhens on the reed margins so it wasn't altogether a surprise to hear a water rail squealing near the path but frustrating that I couldn't see it.

I walked through the park onto Liverpool Road and looked for the bus stop for the 559 to Ashton-in-Makerfield. There was a little car park and some noticeboards next to the bus stop which I assumed were for Amberswood until I took a second look. Low Hall is a local nature reserve that wasn't even on my radar, there was a long wait for the next bus so I had a bit of a wander.

Low Hall

Low Hall's yet another of the bits of young woodland that are scattered about Wigan. There were a couple of mute swans and half a dozen black-headed gulls on the pond near the road and plenty of wrens, robins and chaffinches in the limited bit of woodland I explored before I went back for the bus. I suspect a late Summer visit would be good for dragonflies and butterflies.

I gave up waiting for the 559 and walked down into Platt Bridge for the number 9 to Leigh. As we approached Bickershaw I was tempted to nip off for a walk round the old rucks to make up the threesome; limited daylight time, the weather and the timetable for the bus back home persuaded me against it. (To be honest, I didn't need that much persuasion, the knees were feeling the cold damp.) It had been a good few hours' birdwatching and I didn't want to spoil it by being greedy.

Amberswood 

Etherow Country Park

Keg Wood 

It was the first properly November day of the month, a misty day full of dismal twilight. Both ideas for today's birdwatching required a degree of fair light so I postponed them and spent the morning catching up with a bit of domestic stuff including refilling the feeders in the back garden for the umpteenth time this week. I'm not sure whether to blame the spadgers or the coal tits which are spending more time stocking up their hoards than actual feeding.

I bobbed over to Etherow Country Park to have a look at the mandarins and for once was out of luck: it was so gloomy an afternoon they'd gone to bed. They roost in the trees somewhere out of sight in the deeper recesses of Keg Wood. There were plenty of mallards and Canada geese and half a dozen tufted ducks were harbingers of Winter to come. The robins were practising looking winsome for the passing trade while dunnocks and blackbirds seemed to be everywhere. Two pairs of carrion crows were setting up territories, cawing furiously at each other across the river. The pair in Ernocroft Wood flew over, cawed performatively atop a beech tree then floated back over before their outraged antagonists could chase them off.

Etherow Country Park 

I lingered in Keg Wood until sunset, hoping for owls or woodcocks or sundry creatures of the night while robins, great tits and wrens objected loudly to my passing by. I'd given up and was most of the way back, picking my way gingerly over wet leaves in the twilight, when I was rewarded by the "whoo-ooo" of a male tawny owl. It echoed across the trees from somewhere near Keg Pool. I didn't bother going back to try and see the bird, my night vision's not what it was and there's no way I'd be tackling that slope in the dark. I could still hear the owl in the distance as I walked through Etherow Country Park and on for the 384 back to Stockport.

Walking back down into Etherow Country Park 

Southport

Herring gull, Southport Marine Lake

It was a glorious late Autumn morning so I set off for the seaside. The plan was to see if the twite are back at Southport Marine Lake then see where time, energy and the weather got me. The weather was glorious, if a bit nippy in the shadows and I ran out of time about the same time as I ran out of steam (I forget how little afternoon daylight there is this time of year and then try and cram too much into it).

My train got into Manchester a few minutes  late so I got the Barrow train to Wigan and picked up the Southport train from there. As we steamed our way through the mosses I was surprised to find I was seeing more buzzards than woodpigeons. This changed once we got into Lancashire though nowhere were there big crowds of woodpigeons. A marsh harrier was a nice surprise just beyond Bescar Lane Station, I don't generally see them this far West away from the coast. The change in the weather is starting to tell by the small flocks of fieldfares and redwings dashing between copses and the mallards and teals starting to populate the drains on the Scarisbrick mosses.

Southport Marine Lake 

At Southport I walked down to the marine lake and for once had a walk round instead of the usual hit and run. There were dozens of mute swans and black-headed gulls on the lake and more than a hundred herring gulls. I looked in vain for any egrets on the islands — any white birds were swans or gulls — but did manage to find a family of greylag geese and a dozen cormorants hanging around in the trees. A family group of great crested grebes fussed about by the nearest island, the young full grown but still wearing stripy pyjamas on their heads.

Mute swans, Southport Marine Lake

Black-headed gull, Southport Marine Lake

I walked round to the sailing club car park to see if there were any twites around. As if by magic sixteen of them rose from the yachting club roof, circled round a couple of times then settled back on the rooftop hidden by the parapet. They were very flighty and rose up a couple more times but wouldn't settle anywhere for me to take a photo. My photographic skills are limited and getting anything of a flock of small finches flying into the sun on a clear day is beyond me. Still, it was good to see them, and good to see so many of them after only seeing one here at the start of the year.

Redshanks, Southport Beach

Shelducks, Southport Beach

I walked from here past the pier and into Birkdale as the tide quietly came in. Shelducks dabbled at the shoreline in the company of hundreds of redshanks. A couple of greenshanks were disturbed by the tide and flew off into the marshes South of the pier. Skylarks frolicked in the marsh grass and pied wagtails skittered about the sea wall. There was a steady overhead traffic of black-headed gulls, herring gulls and starlings while a pair of common gulls floated in and settled to forage in the car park. Further out a small flock of knots gave in to the tide and flew off towards Marshside while a couple of dozen black-tailed godwits stubbornly held on to a patch of increasingly wet mud. I spotted a line of black shapes off shore. Just as I'd convinced myself it was a big piece of timber two of the six common scoters involved decided to have a squabble.

Common scoters, Southport Beach
First sighting

Common scoters, Southport Beach
A marginally better view later on (heavily cropped!)

Black-headed gulls loafed in the water South of the pier. Further down the ground was higher and only slightly damp with the tide. Oystercatchers came in to roost, redshanks and shelducks fed at the tideline and curlews fed in the tall grass. A few dunlins and ringed plovers flew in to feed amongst the redshanks and I found the greenshanks I'd seen earlier. 

Shelducks, oystercatchers and redshanks, Southport Beach

Curlews, oystercatchers and knots, Southport Beach

I assumed the tide had displaced the cloud of waders, including a few ruffs and a couple of knots I hadn't spotted, that rose from the edge of the marsh. The cause turned out to be a marsh harrier which floated low over the ground chased and mobbed by meadow pipits and skylarks.

Marsh harrier, Southport Beach

I carried on down Marine Drive into Birkdale then walked down to get the train into Hightown, the plan being to walk down to Hightown Dunes for a bit more wader watching. The arrival of heaps of schoolkids at Formby Station alerted me to the passage of time. I got off at Hightown, set off at a trot towards the dunes then conceded defeat, I wouldn't be getting much done before twilight and I wasn't convinced I wouldn't doze off on a bench in the cold.

I got the train back to Manchester from Southport and spent a large part of the journey with my nose pressed against the window in the forlorn hopes of spotting a passing owl or some such. I've had my ration of pure dumb luck this month.

Southport Pier 

Southport Pier from South of the Pleasure Beach

Elton Reservoir

Drake goldeneye and juvenile long-tailed duck

I had an early morning appointment and once that was done and dusted I decided to get out for a walk before the threatened break in the weather broke. There were no trains today and engineering works on the city centre tramlines so I got a bus into town and a bus into Bury and went for a wander around Elton Reservoir.

The feeders in the car park were very busy with fifty-odd goldfinches and a couple of dozen greenfinches. A couple of great tits snuck in as best could but the blue tits, house sparrows and chaffinches couldn't get a look in.

Elton Reservoir and the sailing club 

The reservoir was more than filled, a great contrast to my last visit. Dozens of mallards, coots and black-headed gulls loafed on the water by the sailing club. There were a lot more great crested grebes out on the water than last time but only a couple of cormorants.

Great black-back and herring gull
I often forget that great black-backs are huge, even compared to herring gulls.

Herring gulls and great black-backs

Further out there were rafts of herring gulls and more black-headed gulls with a few lesser black-backs and common gulls. I scanned the bewildering array of herring gulls to see if anything else was about, with no success. There were a couple of big, dark males that might have been argentatus birds from Scandinavia but the light was so miserable it wasn't possible to be sure. A few great black-backs sat like battleships amongst the herring gulls and provided an easily identifiable change from the masses.

A small mixed tit flock flitted through the bushes at the top of the creek near the bridge. A few goldfinches and chaffinches twittered about in the treetops. The path got increasingly treacherous and I found myself concentrating more on my footholds than the flittings about in the undergrowth.

Walking along the creek

There were rafts of tufted ducks beyond the creek and a small flock of goldeneyes, mostly drakes. There was a lot of head bobbing going on amongst the tufties. A juvenile long-tailed duck bobbed up amongst the goldeneyes. It doesn't matter how often I see them, I'm always surprised by how small long-tailed ducks are. It was dwarfed by the goldeneyes and even the tufties, despite the textbooks' saying they're the same length.

Drake goldeneye and juvenile long-tailed duck

Black-headed gulls, tufted ducks and juvenile long-tailed duck

Tufted ducks

Drake goldeneyes and juvenile long-tailed duck

Drake goldeneyes and juvenile long-tailed duck

Tufted ducks

Nearly a hundred Canada geese crowded at the far end of the reservoir with a few mallards and teal.

Canada geese 

I wandered over to Withins Reservoir which was just as full but only boasted three tufted ducks and a cormorant.

I didn't like the look of either the path or the weather so I didn't carry on to the canal, taking the path to St. Andrew's Road instead, which gave me the opportunity to wash the mud off my boots in the deep puddles. I got the bus back to Bury and didn't get rained on until I was waiting for my bus home at Piccadilly Gardens.

Elton Reservoir 

Mersey Valley

Kestrel, Urmston

I really couldn't be bothered today, I had a handful of possible birdwatching trips mapped out, it was a lovely late Autumn day and I really couldn't be bothered.

Stretford Meadows
This is the part of the Transpennine Trail

It got to lunchtime so I dragged myself out for a walk over to Stretford Meadows. Somebody had put pallets down over the beginning of the path at the Newcroft Road end but the path had defeated them. There's a limit to the amount of mud I want to play with this week so I stuck to the velodrome and walked round the edges. 

Buzzard, Stretford Meadows

The usual buzzard flew down from the electricity pylon by the motorway and was promptly chased back by the male kestrel. The kestrel returned back to its tree and was immediately pestered by a carrion crow that had come over to see what all the fuss was about. The kestrel stood a couple of minutes of this and flew off into the trees by the cricket pitch where it was joined by its mate.

Carrion crow and kestrel, Stretford Meadows

I crossed the motorway and walked along Ousel Brook into the Kickety Brook Nature reserve. Which was very quiet, even the titmice were bobbing round in ones and twos.

Robin, Kickety Brook

Kickety Brook Nature Reserve 

I got myself a cup of tea at the Riverside Café and watched the jackdaws and rooks making a racket around the treetops upriver. It was only mid-afternoon and they were preparing to roost. As were a couple of ring-necked parakeets.

River Mersey 

I walked downriver towards Cob Kiln Wood. A few mallards dabbled at the bottom of the bank and a grey wagtail skittered about in the vegetation flattened by the surges after the recent rains. A kestrel hovered over the river, gave up on it and sat in the tree above my head. We passed the time of day and I carried on.

Cob Kiln Wood 

Cob Kiln Wood was quiet by its lights. Blackbirds foraged in the hawthorn hedges for the last of the berries, a long-tailed tit family bounced around an elder bush and a mistle thrush sang from a tree by the motorway. Redwings and parakeets flew into the woods behind the pylons to roost and the usual pair of stock doves did a flying tour of the paddocks before going to roost in an old oak tree. As I left the wood and walked into Torbay Road it occurred to me that this was the first time in decades I've seen more stock doves than woodpigeons, at which point six woodpigeons clattered out of the tree I was passing.

Cob Kiln Wood 

Lazy day

River Kent, Arnside

It was a miserable start to the day and the weather forecast wasn't offering a lot better. The bird feeders were empty again — the spadgers are demolishing half a dozen fat balls a day with the help of a couple of magpies and a starling — and while I was putting more food out I pondered today's options. The weather tidied itself up again by ten o'clock but I felt the dampness of my boots still drying by the radiator and the ache in my joints and decided I'd have a lazy day of it.

I'd read yesterday's bird reports in the search for inspiration and saw the latest about the penduline tit. It looks like yesterday's misgivings were right: there's no access for non-permit holders today and permit holders have been told to stick to the path and not go on the mud bank. I don't think this episode bodes well for access to any future rarities here.

I got myself an old man's explorer ticket and set off on the Barrow train. The aim was to see what was about on the salt marshes of South Cumbria and see what waterfowl were about on the River Leven.

The bare trees along the trackside made it tons easier to see what birdlife was about. Plenty of magpies, carrion crows and jackdaws about but woodpigeons were still thin on the ground. Beyond Wigan small groups of black-headed gulls danced for worms in fields or billowed about in the wind and rain.

The tide was high at Hest Bank, the tide and the recent rain had the marshes between Carnforth and Silverdale awash. The pools at the coastal hides were more than overflowing but only a few dozen shelducks and wigeon were taking advantage. A marsh harrier floated over the fields by the level crossing and a buzzard flew low over the train as we approached Silverdale Station. I don't often see buzzards flying that low round here, the harriers tend to take exception.

As we crossed the Kent at Arnside it was apparent that it was a very high tide being whipped up by the wind in the filthy weather. The salt marshes of the South Cumbrian coast merged into the sea with just a few grassy mounds suggesting land. The marshes were liberally peppered with carrion crows, black-headed gulls and little egrets with seventeen egrets lurking by Kent's Bank station. As we headed inland towards Cark the train spooked a flock of fieldfares that had been settled in the trackside hedgerow.

The water covered nearly all the marsh by the Leven Estuary, the only way to tell which was marsh and which was estuary was the presence or not of telegraph poles. A few mallards dabbled on the water while curlews and redshanks flew by. 

I arrived at Barrow and after checking the trains and the weather I decided not to move on any further. I had a bit of a potter round Barrow then got the next train back to Manchester.

I sat on the landward side on the way back to see what I might have missed on the way up. Small flocks of herring gulls and black-headed gulls danced for worms in the stubble fields while jackdaws and carrion crows strutted amongst the sheep. The tide was just on the ebb as we went over the Leven, a flock of wigeons were already settling on the emerging banks and a red-breasted merganser swam along the channel by the viaduct. There was another merganser on the Kent at Arnside. 

The fields between Grange-over-Sands and Silverdale were extensively flooded, the golf course at Grange looked more like the salt marsh and had rather more mallards on it. Just outside Arnside a great white egret hunted knee-deep in a flooded stubble field while a heron was trying its luck on the golf course at Silverdale. A flock of little egrets kept to the high ground of the junction just outside Carnforth Station.

The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful, which makes a nice change. I'd seen plenty of both birds and scenery in an entirely passive sort of way and kept nice and dry in the process. There's a lot to be said for these changes of pace.

Woolston

Robin, Grey Mist

The teeming rain had pretty much exhausted itself by ten o'clock so, rather against my better judgement, I decided I'd join the twitch for the penduline tit at Woolston Eyes. For one thing, it would be a lifer if I managed to see it. For another, it's rare for non-permit holders to be allowed in so it was a chance for a wander round a site I last explored the best part of forty years ago. (I'd get a permit but the last time I looked you had to download and print the application form.)

The options were: go down to Altrincham and get one or other of the slow buses to Grappenhall and walk up from there or get the train to Padgate and walk down Woolston Brook and the New Cut Trail, cross the Mersey at Woolston Weir and follow the path round Woolston Eyes to Number 4 Bed where the bird has been seen. The journeys take as long as each other so I got the train, the idea being that if I didn't get to see the penduline tit (which was very likely) then at least I'd have had a decent walk.

Woolston Brook 

I walked down Woolston Brook into Paddington, the trees and hedgerows being busy with robins and blackbirds. It had become a very nice, bright morning though there were some dodgy looking clouds on the Western horizon. 

Along the New Cut Trail looking towards Grey Mist

I joined the New Cut Trail at the corner of Paddington Meadows and walked eastwards to the weir. The drowned alders and willows were busy with mixed tit flocks, all of them predominantly long-tailed tits with blue tits, great tits and goldcrests. There seemed to be a lot of goldcrests about and I checked each one just in case they might be something more exotic. It is a rule with goldcrests that if they come to have a look at you to see what you're about (which is nearly always) they'll make sure you can't take any photos because they'll either be silhouettes in flaring sunlight or lurking in a dark patch in a conifer. The only exotic warblers were a couple of Cetti's warblers singing in the cut by Grey Mist. These days most places in Northwest England that have a combination of drowned trees, reeds and brambles have a Cetti's warbler holding a territory. Looking through the trees I could see a dozen black-headed gulls with the coots and mute swans on Grey Mist.

Long-tailed tit, Grey Mist

Looking upstream from Woolston Weir there was just the one mute swan. In contrast, the river between the walkway and the weir was a crowd scene with a dozen tufted ducks, half a dozen Canada geese, a shelduck, a great crested grebe and a dozen mallards, most of which were catching up with their sleep.

River Mersey, Woolston Eyes 

I crossed over and joined the path along the river around Woolston Eyes. For the most part it was fairly quiet, a couple of mixed tit flocks, a chiffchaff and a trio of woodpigeons, until I got to the Ship Canal where the trees were busy with goldfinches and blackbirds. I noticed a pair of gadwall sleeping on the far bank of the canal.

The instructions on entry was to use the gate at the end of Thelwall Lane. It turned out that what this really meant was: "Climb over the muddy mound at the side of the big locked gate. Actually, the gate was a godsend for providing support where footholds were dodgy. The advice was also to wear wellies because the path to Number 4 Lagoon is dodgy. I don't have wellies, as I explained to the mud-spattered birdwatchers returning to their cars. The path really is rough, some of the water in the ruts and potholes is deep. The worst being the first one you meet round the corner from the gate where it's possible to wade shin deep so long as you can find the ridge of broken concrete in the middle. After that it was relatively plain sailing and not often getting to the top of my boots. Every so often I'd bump into a birdwatcher who'd tell me they hadn't seen the bird or that it was very distant and that they'd been up to their armpits in mud.

There were more mixed tit flocks in the bushes and small parties of finches — goldfinches and chaffinches — in the taller trees with a great spotted woodpecker.

Watching the watchers on Number 4 Lagoon
I'm still not convinced of the safety or wisdom of this. 

I eventually reached the lagoon. There was a bunch of people picking their way to and from a point a few hundred yards away on the mounds of recently dredged mud. I assayed a few steps onto it and wasn't enthused. There's a trick it took me a long time to learn but it's very useful: if there's a crowd of people looking for a bird have a good look at what they're doing because that'll tell you how much luck they're having. In this case they were standing round looking at each other and comparing mud stains. It struck me that if they were standing there and the bird, if it was seen at all, was in distant reeds then it made more sense to stick to the path and look over the reeds from there. So I found a point where I could see most of the reedbeds (they're quite young so they're patchy rather than one continuous bed) and started scanning round. Some of the people on the mud reached a similar conclusion and migrated over this way from the mud bank.

Number 4 Lagoon 

About twenty minutes passed before something flew up from the reeds a couple of hundred yards away, over the top and down into the depths of another patch of reeds just in front. At first I thought it was a stonechat but as it got above the reeds I realised it looked like a half-sized reed bunting. And that was it, perhaps five seconds' worth and if I hadn't been primed beforehand to think of a penduline tit I would probably have been left scratching my head till I got home and hit the reference books. I gave it another hour before giving up on a second look. All the while there were calls of dunnocks, robins and wrens in the scrub by the path and a Cetti's warbler sang from nearby reeds.

Woolston Eyes 

I bumped into a mixed flock of finches on the way back, mostly goldfinches with some siskins and redpolls in tow.

It started raining as I gave my shins another wash, climbed past the gate and walked down to Grappenhall for the bus. I'd added a lifer to the year list though it had been a thoroughly unsatisfactory sighting. On the other hand I'd had a good walk and seen plenty about and didn't have anything to grumble about.