Dukinfield

Redwing

I'd stayed up into the wee small hours watching the cricket so I decided to keep today's birdwatching short and sweet so's not to tempt fate and doze off in the middle of nowhere. I noticed a firecrest had been reported at Dukinfield Park and headed thataway. There have been a few reports of it over the past month which suggested that it was probably still going to be about but would be pretty elusive. I haven't seen a firecrest this side of the millennium and don't know Dukinfield Park so even if I ended up looking for a needle in a haystack and finding straw I'd have explored somewhere new to me.

Google Maps suggested a variety of ways of getting there. Seeing as how the park's scarcely a mile from Hyde North Station I kept it simple and got the Rose Hill Marple train from Piccadilly, got off at Hyde North and walked there. It was a cool, cloudy February day so the walk was no bother.

Dukinfield Park 

Dukinfield Park's slightly smaller than my local patch, Lostock Park, but is built on a series of steps up the slope to the bowling green so it probably irons out to the same size. There's not a lot of extensive grass but plenty of trees along the paths filled with squirrels and woodpigeons that evidently make a good living by mugging passersby for peanuts. I felt guilty being one of the few people not carrying a bag of monkey nuts.

A few other people were looking for the firecrest and had as much luck finding it as I did. There were plenty of titmice about, nuthatches sang, finches flitted about and sang in the trees. There were enough conifers and holly trees to provide plenty of cover for any very small birds and enough flittings about in the undergrowth to keep me looking. I gave it just over an hour and ceded defeat. A small flock of redwings flew down to throw leaves about the path in front of me as a consolation prize.

I got the 330 into Ashton and made my way home. A long shot hadn't come off but I was no worse off for giving it a go and it had been a nice little stroll.

Martin Mere

Pintails

The day was set cool and cloudy but dry so I headed out for Martin Mere, getting the train to New Lane and walking the long way via the reedbed walk.

It's nudging Spring and the brown hares are out in the fields of West Lancashire. I saw my first of the year as the train left Parbold (and just like every Spring I was surprised how big hares are when they stand up properly). There were a few more in the fields around Hoscar.

The water treatment works at New Lane was heaving with hundreds of black-headed gulls and pied wagtails and dozens of magpies, starlings and meadow pipits. The brambles along the railway by the works were busy with reed buntings feeding on the insects alighting on the wire fence. On my side of the railway line forty-odd black-headed gulls followed a ploughing tractor while a flock of a couple of hundred linnets and goldfinches sat in the treetops nearby and chattered their protests at being moved on. All the while the noise of gulls and finches and wagtails was being accompanied by a background of almost industrial bubbling of thousands of pink-footed geese in the fields beyond Martin Mere. Every so often squadrons of a few hundred geese would rise and fly off to pastures new.

Pink-footed geese

I crossed the railway line and followed the path to Martin Mere trying, and failing, not to keep disturbing the pair of kestrels that were keeping tabs on that field. Each time I disturbed one of them it would fly a few yards ahead and perch by the path and we'd repeat the process until there was enough space between a perch and the path for us both to pretend we hadn't seen each other and I could pass without incident. Each time a kestrel took flight so did a crowd of reed buntings and linnets that were otherwise invisible in the long grass on the field. The female kestrel tired of the game and flew back to perch one, spooking a pair of stonechats in the process. Once they'd made their displeasure quite clear they disappeared into the burdocks whence they came.

Kestrel

I followed the path that skirts the perimeter of Martin Mere's reedbeds. The hedgerows had been slash trimmed recently but that didn't stop them being full of greenfinches, linnets and goldfinches. I took the diversion to the sewage works to see what might be feeding on the fence on this side. The answer was rather a lot of reed buntings, some chiffchaffs and a Siberian chiffchaff. 

At one point I had both the Siberian chiffchaff and a singing common chiffchaff in my line of view which gave me an excellent opportunity to compare them. I was struck by how contrasty the Siberian chiffchaff was with its silver white underparts and coffee coloured upperparts compared to the common chiffchaff which hardly showed any contrast between upper and lower. It also struck me that there's a caveat to the guiding principle that you can tell it's a Siberian chiffchaff by the lack of green tones: there were sulphur yellow edges to its flight feathers which some people might see as green whereas the common chiffchaff was in tones of warm sandy yellow and olive brown without a hint of green about it.

The field by the entrance to Martin Mere was full of fieldfares and linnets with dozens of goldfinches and chaffinches in the trees lining the path. I haven't seen a brambling yet this year so I scoured the crowds just in case. I had no luck but no look no see. A buzzard flew in, sat in a tree in the white stork paddock and spent a few minutes receiving meaningful glares from birds with long pointy beaks before moving on elsewhere in the reserve. Dozens of black-headed gulls were flying about overhead and I almost missed a passing Mediterranean gull in the melee.

Ruff and mallards

The mere was very busy. The bank by the Discovery Hide was carpeted with mallards, pintails and pigeons with a few black-tailed godwits and ruffs picking their way through the masses. A couple of dozen wigeons were dotted about with similar numbers of shelducks, coots and whooper swans. It took a while to find any teal and all the lapwings were over on the far bank with twenty-odd oystercatchers.

Whooper swans

Another couple of dozen whoopers flew in and landed on the far bank. They spent a while preening but seemed skittish and soon moved on. I had a scan round to look at the remaining whoopers and found myself my first half dozen avocets of the year.

Whoopers, avocets, black-headed gulls, wigeon and cormorants

Snowdrops 

I walked down to the Ron Barker Hide past glades of snowdrops. A flock of tree sparrows bustled round the feeders by the Hale Hide, the trees by the Kingfisher Hide were noisy with chaffinches, goldfinches and greenfinches with reed buntings flitting about the undergrowth. I don't remember these paths being that busy before. I had an unsuccessful scan around the ivy-covered trees for any signs of a tawny owl, it's always worth a go.

Cattle egrets being like it says on the tin

The first birds I spotted at Ron Barker's were two cattle egrets paying close attendance to the bull grazing in the wet meadow by the side. Out on the pools were all the teal and shovelers I hadn't seen on the mere. The only marsh harrier of the day was sitting in a tree by the far gate on the drain.

I made my way back, adding an overflying curlew to the day's tally. I debated stopping and having a cup of tea in the café but it occurred to me that once I'd sat down I couldn't guarantee having the energy to get back up and comfortably walk over to Burscough Bridge Station.

I set off for the station. The first half of the walk was busy with birds: dozens of woodpigeons fed in the fields, a dozen whoopers fed in a field down Curlew Lane with a flock of pink-feet, more than a hundred jackdaws were feeding on the turf fields behind the farmhouse. Things got quieter after Crabtree Lane: the woodpigeons were many but distant, as were the fieldfares and lapwings. Any hopes I might have for partridges or corn buntings were unsatisfied, which serves me right for being greedy.

Red Cat Lane 

I arrived at the station with five minutes to wait for the train back to Manchester and by a bit of a miracle made the connection with the train back home at Deansgate, a spectacular end to a spectacular day's birdwatching.

Snowdrops, Martin Mere 

Wellacre Country Park

I fancied a low-key dawdle of a walk on a cold and cloudy Sunday afternoon so I got the 256 into Flixton and headed for Wellacre Wood. I managed to time it just right for a quiet walk through the wood as families started to go home for a warm, great tits and blue tits bounced around in the undergrowth, robins and goldfinches sang in the trees and house sparrows bustled about in the brambles. A dozen magpies split their time between feeding in the fields of horses and chasing each other round the treetops.

Wellacre Wood 

Over by the sewage works a hundred or more black-headed gulls fussed about the filtration beds with yet more magpies and a few crows. There weren't many pied wagtails or starlings about today, all of them in the field with forty-odd woodpigeons.

Jack Lane 

I could hear a few moorhens in the reedbeds on Jack Lane but only managed to see one of them. I could only hear the water rail, I was a bit worried that I might bump into a dog walker on the way out and have some explaining to do about the noise. A heron flew in and disappeared into the reeds without a sound, not something that happens very often. 

Dutton's Pond 

A dozen mallards cruised around Dutton's Pond while the moorhens were being unusually furtive, probably a sign of Spring fever.

I kept thinking I could hear siskins in the alders by the railway on Fly Ash Hill but could only see goldfinches, chaffinches and blue tits and in the end I had to conclude I was just kidding myself. The great tits and robins were in full song, some of the goldfinches were having a bit of a practice. I'd heard a pheasant in Wellacre Wood but couldn't pin it down, the pheasant down on Lafferty's Farm obligingly sat on a fencepost in the paddocks.

A quick look at the river found rather a lot of woodpigeons in the hawthorns on the bank then it was me for the 247 bus and off home.

Pennington Flash

Tufted ducks and a coot

The past few weeks I've skirted round Pennington Flash without actually stopping for a wander round so I thought it was time I did something about that. I had an early lunch, made sure the cat and the birds had enough to tide them over (the sparrows and starlings are demolishing four fat balls a day at the moment) and got the 132 from the Trafford Centre to Sale Lane, got the V1 to Leigh from there and the 34 out to Pennington Flash. (I could have set out half an hour earlier or later and got the 126 straight to Leigh). I had hopes of seeing a kingfisher but I'd settle for anything that was on offer.

Pennington Flash 

The narcissi and primroses at the entrance to Pennington Flash weren't the only signs of Spring. Blue tits sang, great tits staked out an old woodpecker hole as a potential nest and magpies and carrion crows flew around with bits of stick in their beaks. 

Great crested grebes

The car park was busy with both people and birds, it was a cold, dry Saturday afternoon occasionally threatening to show a bit of sunshine. The mute swans and Canada geese were under strength, possibly because of the avian flu, the mallards were mostly on the small pools and brooks rather than the flash. Small parties of tufted ducks bobbed about just offshore, a dozen goldeneyes stuck to the middle of the flash. The great crested grebes were all paired up and every so often one or other pair would spend a few minutes head bobbing and mirroring each other's swaying and head shaking. It's a long time since I last watched the penguin dance, I keep hoping these preliminaries will progress while I'm watching.

This time of year it's easy to tell the male (right) from the female in a pair of great crested grebes

Canada geese and black-headed gulls

There were plenty of black-headed gulls on the car park with the waterfowl, the large gulls were in the raft of mostly lesser black-backs out in midwater. There were only a couple of dozen herring gulls about, split between that raft and the end of the Horrocks spit. A few common gulls loafed with the black-headed gulls by the Horrocks Hide. There was just the one great black-back that I could see, flying overhead in a typically lumbering fashion.

From the Tom Edmondson Hide 

It was an odd scene at the Tom Edmondson Hide: no herons or shovelers to be seen. I'd seen a couple of herons flying about earlier on but for once none were loafing on the banks. A bit of searching round found one on a treetop nest deep in the trees to the left of the hide. The only birds on the pool were a few tufted ducks and coots. Just as I was thinking of moving on a flash of orange and blue shooting across the pool and disappearing into the reeds was my first kingfisher of the year.

Mute swan

I could scarce see over the reeds at Ramsdales (I don't remember them being that high earlier this Winter). A dozen teal dabbled about in the pools with a few moorhens.

Three-cornered leeks at Pengy's Hide 

Great tit

Wandering over to Pengy's I could hear the hinneying of dabchicks and the quarreling of coots on the pool behind the hedgerows. Pengy's pool was full of gadwalls, coots and tufties. The trees next to the hide were bristling with great tits and blue tits.

Robin

Reed bunting

The Bunting Hide was jam-packed with birds. Great tits, blue tits and long-tailed tits monopolised the fat ball feeders. Mallards, moorhens and stock doves fed on the ground. Robins, chaffinches, bullfinches and rather a lot of reed buntings fed on the seed on the bird tables. It's lovely to see a dozen or more reed buntings in one place.

Female bullfinch

Reed buntings

I took the rough path to the Teal Hide. It's usually very wet along here, it was barely muddy today and made me wonder all the more about the state of the paths at Elton Reservoir the other day. I was just thinking that I hadn't seen any coal tits today when one bobbed up and started feeding in the tree just in front of me. After seeing the kingfisher I reckoned I still had one wish left so I concentrated on the thought that I've never seen a Humes leaf warbler. A pair of willow tits came over to see what I was up to.

From the Teal Hide 

It turned out that all the shovelers were on the Teal Hide with a crowd of goosanders. They were nearly all unpaired drakes, which I hope means that pairs are lurking in quiet places intent on making baby shovelers.

Teal and shovelers

Shovelers and goosanders

I got the bus back to Leigh and decided to go home the long way round rather than wait fifty minutes for the next 126 to the Trafford Centre. I got the 516 to Horwich to see if there was anything about along the way. In the event I was just counting woodpigeons and corvids. 

The plan was to get off and get the train at Horwich Parkway into Manchester, the plan was. Unfortunately I'd forgotten to check the fixture list: Bolton were playing at home and my arrival coincided with kicking out time. I got to the station at the same time as the fans, they both looked a bit surly so I walked into Horwich for the bus into Bolton, which gave me the chance to see that the brook by the dual carriageway was busy with wagtails, both grey and pied, and reed buntings and a coal tit sang from the tree by the entrance to the Tesco car park.

Given the state of the traffic and the buses I ended up catching the 575 Wigan bus, getting off at Blackrod Station and getting the next train to Manchester from there. A song thrush serenaded me as I waited in the twilight, not a bad way to end a productive and peculiar afternoon's birdwatching.

An accidental badger 

Lazy day

Ivy Green 

I felt like having a dawdly sort of day today. After an early lunch I toddled over to see what was about on the local patch. It didn't feel that there was much about but there was a fair variety. It was good to see the buzzard, though it was heard far more than it was seen. A couple of redwings did a surprisingly good job of looking inconspicuous in the bare trees, And a singing reed bunting was a bit of a surprise.

• Black-headed Gull 1
• Blackbird 2
• Blue Tit 3
• Buzzard 1
• Carrion Crow 5
• Dunnock 1
• Feral Pigeon 8
• Goldfinch 12
• Great Tit 6
• Greenfinch 2
• Herring Gull 1
• Long-tailed Tit 3
• Magpie 15
• Mistle Thrush 1
• Redwing 2
• Reed Bunting 1
• Robin 8
• Starling 1
• Woodpigeon 5
• Wren 3

Barton Clough 

I got the 25 into Chorlton and had an hour's wander round Ivy Green and Chorlton Ees. There were more birds heard than seen, singing coal tits and song thrushes making themselves heard over the screeching of parakeets; robins, wrens and great tits called from the undergrowth while blue tits, blackbirds and dunnocks quietly rummaged about. One pair of blue tits were busy chipping away at a new nest hole, the entrance was evidently a bit of a tight fit especially when trying to carry bits of moss in to line the nest. Carrion crows and magpies were building nests in the treetops, judging by their excessively furtive manner I suspect a pair of jays were doing similar. I couldn't see any signs of the parakeets nesting yet despite all the interest they were showing in the telegraph pole by Jackson's Boat a few weeks ago. I noticed the usual buzzard was soaring over the golf course. The recovery of the local buzzard population this side of the millennium has been remarkable.

I had a bit of a wait for the 18 back to the Trafford Centre from Barlow Moor so I spent quarter of an hour watching the feeders by the café on Sale Water Park. It was difficult for anything to squeeze through the crowds of great tits on the fat balls but the long-tailed tits somehow managed. A few blue tits and a couple of coal tits waited for the occasional lull in the crowds, which were few and brief. A quick check of the time and I headed for the bus after a nice little cameo of a walk.

Ivy Green 

Chelford

Tree sparrow, Lapwing Hall Pool

It was another delightful April morning in February, I had three planned days out to play with and three in reserve so I did dib-dib-dib, checked the trains and set off for Chelford to see if the smew were still on Lapwing Hall Pool.

Holmes Chapel Road 

Walking down to Lapwing Lane the ivy-covered trees were peppered with blackbirds and redwings after the berries and the fields noisy with jackdaws. The hedgerows of Lapwing Lane were busy with blue tits, great tits and robins. I had a quick look through the trees at the quarry pool on the corner; a dozen or so coots were easy to see, the raft of fifty or more black-headed gulls almost melted into the glare of the water in the bright sun.

Tree sparrow, Lapwing Hall Pool

I turned onto Lapwing Hall Pool and spent a while disentangling the crowds in the hawthorn hedges. At first I could only hear a lot of tree sparrows, it took them a while to emerge from the depths. The chaffinches and blue tits were more conspicuous, the great tits and bullfinches were busy in the alders with a couple of reed buntings.

Lapwing Hall Pool 

At first glance there wasn't a lot on the pool besides a few coot. The wigeon — just a couple of dozen of them today — were all on the Eastern side. A few goosanders over on the far side glowed white in the sunshine. I hoped a smew might do the same but I kept getting distracted by the glare of light bouncing off the shiny surfaces of the wigeon. It came as a relief to find some nice dark cormorants in the distant reeds. As I walked round to the Northern shore I kept hearing the grunts and barks of pairs of great crested grebes squabbling and the hinneying of dabchicks. I found a path through the trees and had a scan of the pool, finding the grebes and some tufted ducks and out there, out in the middle of a raft of wigeons, a redhead smew. No sign of a white nun today. A passing oystercatcher flew overhead calling all the way.

I walked round to the Eastern side, the sun working in my favour now. The unidentifiable blobs lurking by one of the bays turned out to be half a dozen goldeneyes. There were more tufties than I thought and a lot more goosanders — I thought there were two or three of them, in fact it was a couple of dozen. I tried and failed to find the smew again, the angle must have been wrong for it. A couple of buzzards soared overhead, disturbing a kestrel that had been sitting in one of the bankside trees. A sparrowhawk soared by, breaking off to spar with one of the buzzards before gliding off over the fields.

The Mosses

I had a stroll through The Mosses back to Lapwing Lane, pairs of bullfinches, long-tailed tits and coal tits rummaging in the bushes while blue tits and great tits bounced about the treetops.

Robin, The Mosses

I heard the lapwings before I got to Acre Nook Quarry. A couple of hundred of them were loafing and bathing on the near shore of the pool. They were very skittish, I suspect more in preparation for moving on to Summer quarters rather than in response to any nearby predator. Leastways the teal, shovelers and mallards dozing on the bank weren't much fussed.

Lapwings and mallards, Acre Nook Quarry

I walked the length of Lapwing Lane back to Holmes Chapel Road, the hedgerows heaving with blue tits and tree sparrows. The surprise of the day came at the corner of the road, a pair of Egyptian geese in the middle of the field with some jackdaws.

Egyptian geese, Lapwing Lane

I got back into Chelford in time for either the 88 bus to Altrincham or the train back to Manchester. I decided to wait for the bus, I wanted to see how it got from Wilmslow to Altrincham. After hanging round like Piffy for half an hour I gave up on it and headed for the station to get the next train. It will surprise none of my readers to find the bus passing me by a hundred yards down the road. No matter, I'd had a good day's birdwatching and I wasn't going to let that spoil it. And I was rewarded by the sight of a very splendid bright red fox walking through one of the fields on the approach to Wilmslow.

Chelford Station 

North Wales bumper bundle

Llanddulas 

I still had an itch to do a bit of seawatching so I decided on a trip out to Llanddulas to see if the scoters were still being obliging on the North Wales coast. I got the train to Prestatyn then bought a Wales day saver ticket on the 13 bus  to Llandudno, getting off in Llanddulas. (It's slightly cheaper but slower than getting the train to Rhyl, catching the 12 at the station and getting off at the same stop. Come the longer daylight hours there's a good explore to be had with one of those saver tickets.) It's all of five minutes' walk from the bus stop under the overpasses and onto the beach. I was dead lucky, it was a nice April's day with daisies and speedwells in bloom and a mild wind coming in from the sea.

Having a sit down

It was high tide so I had a sit down at the top of the steps to the beach and settled down for a bit of seawatching. There were plenty of herring gulls flying about but most of the rafts of gulls out on the water were common gulls. It didn't take long to find some red-breasted mergansers, the drakes chasing each other away from the ducks. 

Llanddulas 

The first scoters I found — all common scoters — were far out, flying past the wind farm. It took a while to find some more, and some more mergansers, a little closer in. [At this point, where I was about to take some pretty poor photos of distant black blobs, I found I'd forgotten to put the camera card back in last night (again!). On the plus side it spared this blog a lot of pretty poor photos of distant black blobs, there wasn't much closer in for anything better.]

All told there were a couple of dozen common scoters floating or flying about in twos or threes. It took half an hour to find one of the velvet scoters that were around today, and then only because it had a stretch of its wings on the water and I noticed the white secondary feathers. I put another half hour in before giving up on trying to identify the birds in the mid distance, they were definitely scoters of some sort but I couldn't get further than that.

I visited the gentlemen's conveniences and set off for a walk along the shingle. A hundred yards down I found some seats and settled down for another seawatch, enjoying the luxury of not sitting cross-legged on a stone step (I'm getting too old for that). More common scoters and common gulls, some cormorants, a red-throated diver… then I had another look at a raft of half a dozen scoters that had been baffling me earlier. The change of angle worked a treat, even though they were further away. The moment my binoculars were on them I saw two birds I almost thought were coots, a pair of drake surf scoters with their foreheads blazing white in the sunlight. At half a mile's distance I couldn't tell if the birds they were with were common or velvet scoters.

Llanddulas 

Kimmel Bay 

The afternoon was young so I walked down to Beach House Road and got the number 12 bus to Rhyl, getting off at Kimmel Bay for a bit of an explore. The beach was fairly busy with people and dogs but that didn't stop a few redshanks and curlews from feeding in the pools or a flock of a dozen light-bellied brent geese loafing at the tideline. Herring gulls and black-headed gulls were out on the water, a great crested grebe bobbed about offshore and a few cormorants flew by.

River Clwyd, Rhyl

I crossed the Clwyd into Rhyl and had a nosy at the marine lake which was busy with lapwings, dunlins and black-tailed godwits taking refuge from the crowds on the beach.

The salt marshes by the railway line were littered with little egrets on the way in. On the way home they were nowhere to be seen, evidently following the tide out. Just after we passed Ffynnongroew a dozen shelducks were dabbling on the seashore. As the sun set over the Cheshire plain I kept my nose pressed against the train window in the hopes of seeing an owl over one of the fields. To no avail, which serves me right for being greedy after a very good day's birdwatching.