Elton Reservoir

Teal, Elton Reservoir

I've a long list of places I've not visited yet this year and it's a bit embarrassing it's only now I've got round to Elton Reservoir. I did the usual thing: getting the 471 from Bury Bus Station, getting off at the petrol station and walking down past the hospital to the reservoir.

The car park bird feeders were a frenzy of activity. Fifty-something goldfinches fed and squabbled, a few of the dozens of greenfinches were singing in the treetops, the rest were busy trying to barge past the goldfinches to get something to eat. A dozen or so each of chaffinches, house sparrows and great tits got in as best could whenever the goldfinches got distracted, blue tits slipped in and out like thieves in the night and a few reed buntings and bullfinches hung on the margins looking a bit forlorn.

Mallards and tufted duck, Elton Reservoir

The reservoir was nearly full and busy with coots, mallards and black-headed gulls. Teal were thin on the ground, there were only a dozen or so Canada geese and there were no mute swans at all. A few dozen tufted ducks were dotted about in small rafts, a dozen goldeneyes congregated in the middle of the reservoir. There were two pairs of great crested grebes on the reservoir, the pair furthest out on the water would have to be the ones doing their courtship dancing with lots of head-waggling with cheek ruffs flaring, choreographed swimming away and returning and a brief exchange of something or other picked up from underwater.

Elton Reservoir 

The path along the North shore of the reservoir was, even by its own standards, in an abominable state. Slipping and sloshing along it was hard to credit that we're at the cob end of a very dry Winter.

Elton Reservoir 

I spent a while on Withins Reservoir hoping to find the female red-headed pochard that was flitting between the reservoirs. I had no luck, which might just have meant that she was lurking in the depths of the reeds on the far Western side amongst the cormorants, Canada geese and mallards. A little egret rummaging about in the reeds was a consolation prize.

Withins Reservoir 

I took the opportunity of there being plenty of puddles in the potholes on the lane into Radcliffe to wash my boots and lose about two inches in height. It hadn't been a fun walk but the birdwatching was good, I called it quits and got the bus back into Bury and thence home.