A Pennine stroll

Roebuck, near Shore

I thought I'd use up the pile of travel vouchers I'd amassed from Transpennine Express cancellations to go out to Redcar and see if I could find the king eider that's been staying the Winter, or failing that see a variety of other sea ducks. I've still got the travel vouchers: nearly every TPE train from Oxford Road was cancelled and mine was no exception. The chap at the ticket counter couldn't find an alternative arrangement coming cheaper than £96 which I declined with thanks.

With a whole day of fine weather to play with and no plans whatever I dithered atrociously. A series of half-dazed happenstances found me getting off the tram at Rochdale for to get the 528 to Wardle for a wander round Watergrove Reservoir. I had twenty minutes' wait so I toddled over to the Town Hall to look for peregrines and had a nosy at the river looking for dippers or grey wagtails and found none of them.

Wardle from Watergrove Reservoir 

I got off the bus at Wardle and walked up the road to Watergrove Reservoir. There were plenty of jackdaws about, robins sang in gardens and a mistle thrush was singing lustily from a tree in the car park. At first glance there wasn't much about on the reservoir save a few dozen black-headed gulls and half a dozen common gulls. As I walked round the reservoir wall I found a couple of lesser black-backs and a herring gull, then I noticed a cormorant fishing in the far distance. As I rounded the corner and joined the path to the water sports centre I got better views of the far corner where a drake goosander was escorting a couple of redheads and a pair of great crested grebes were indulging in some vigorous head shaking displays. I found a seat and watched them for a while. Apparently it's still a bit early to be finding them doing the penguin dance.

Watergrove Reservoir 

The trees in the memorial woodland by the reservoir were busy with robins, chaffinches, great tits and carrion crows. The crows were particularly boisterous, I got the impression that they were youngsters pairing up for the first time.

Sparrowhawk, Watergrove

I'd found the flight of steps up to the wall of the reservoir harder work than expected so I decided that knees and lungs both needed a bit of a workout and I headed off up the hillside path towards Shore. A few more crows passed by, followed by a very vocal raven. I hadn't gone far when a sparrowhawk shot over from the new woodland plantation, paused a while on a post then headed off for the memorial woodland.

Looking back towards Watergrove Reservoir 

Walking by Dobbin Hill 

Manchester city centre

Looking towards Oldham

The rest of the stretch of the bridleway past Dobbin Hill was pretty quiet, there were more cyclists than birds, the scenery was splendid and airborne dust blown in from the Sahara provided some wonderful lighting effects. A pair of goosanders dozed on the wall of a tiny reservoir by a copse of trees, the field adjoining the copse being full of jackdaws and carrion crows.

Heading towards Calderbrook 

The plan was to walk down to Shore but I missed the turn off the bridleway by convincing myself that it was the next gate along. I carried on towards Calderbrook, a new walk for me and the scenery continued to appeal. There were more woodpigeons and jackdaws and robins sang in farmyards. 

Heading towards Calderbrook 

I'd just passed the turn off for Clough, just North of Littleborough, and had started up the hill to Summit for the 528 back to Rochdale when I decided that I'd had enough. So I walked back and down to Clough along a damp and springy footpath and joined Hey Head Lane. At the bottom of the lane, on Calderbrook Road, I bumped into a bus stop. I checked it out: it was for the 528 to Rochdale and it was due in six minutes. I wasn't too proud to accept a miracle when I was handed one.

Herring gulls, Salford Quays

I got back to Rochdale and headed home, taking a detour for a bit of gullwatching at the roost on Salford Quays. There were a couple of hundred gulls when I got there, evenly split between black-headed gulls and large gulls, mostly herring gulls in a bewildering array of plumages and sizes. There were a few huge male herring gulls, including a definite Scandinavian argentatus bird, a beefy lad with a slightly darker mantle and a heavily streaked head. These brutes contrasted with some very small females that looked positively dinky. I could get burnt at the stake for saying this but a small adult female herring gull is quite a pretty bird. There were also dozens of first-Winter birds, scaly brown and with panda eye markings. The few lesser black-backs were mostly first-Winters, there were a couple of adults and nothing in between as far as I could find. The half a dozen common gulls were all first-Winters and they stayed in the black-headed gull rafts away from the large gulls. Try as I might I couldn't make any of the gulls any more exotic than they already were so after an hour I called it quits and went to catch a X50 to the Trafford Centre which appeared to be reversing its way back to Piccadilly Gardens judging by the progress tracking online.

Herring gulls, Salford Quays
Scandinavian herring gull (argentatus), the bird at the front with a dark head.

Herring gulls, Salford Quays

Not the planned day out but after a very stressful start it turned out to the good. I think I'll be knocking Transpennine Express on the head for a while.

Looking down towards Littleborough from the hills