Frodsham

No.6 Tank: black-tailed godwits, bar-tailed godwits, ruffs, shelducks, shovelers, teal and gadwall

I was tempted by the green-winged teal's third day at Frodsham Marsh. I seem to be going through a patch of catching up with birds I've not seen since before the pandemic so off I toddled in the hopes of carrying on with the lucky streak.

Female orange tip butterfly on dandelion

As I crossed the motorway and joined Moorditch Lane the air was full of the sound of birds trying to sing over the traffic noise. A song thrush and a wren were, predictably, the most nearly successful. Between them and the traffic I was lucky to hear the jangling keys songs of the dunnock in the hawthorn hedge and a corn bunting in a hawthorn bush in the opposite corner of the field.

Walking down Moorditch Lane there were a lot of small birds about, and a lot of willow leaves and hawthorn leaves to provide cover for small birds. In one stretch of the lane I bumped into six species of warbler. Blackcaps and chiffchaffs sang in the trees while whitethroats sang in the bushes on the rise behind them. My first sedge warbler of the year sang from a bit of rough reeds and nettles and a Cetti's warbler sang from the nettles in the ditch. I was to lose count of the number of Cetti's warblers I heard today. A garden warbler sang from a hawthorn bush, not sure if it was being a blackcap or a sedge warbler and being reassuringly different from the blackcap singing two bushes to my right.

No.6 Tank

The fields on No.5 tank were busy with jackdaws and rooks. A pair of ring ousels had been reported earlier but I couldn't see any sign of them. I bobbed up onto the bank of No.6 tank for a quick look round. Plenty of shelducks, mallards and tufted ducks, not as many shovelers as last time, and a pair of dabchicks. I hoped the green-winged teal hadn't skipped over onto this tank, all the teal I could see were distant silhouettes identifiable only by size and shape.

I exchanged pleasantries with the chap I last bumped into last year at Ince Blundell, each convinced they were the last birdwatcher on public transport. He'd been looking for the green-winged teal for a couple of hours and was about to go home but decided sod it, he'd give it another go. I last saw him half an hour later scanning the mitigation pool from a high bank. I note that the teal was reported there about the same time, I hope it was him he put in the work to deserve it.

No.6 Tank is on the other side of the high bank on the right

I had another look at No.6 Tank from further down the lane. There were about a dozen bar-tailed godwits amongst the crowds of black-tailed loafing and feeding by the shore. A few ruffs skittered about on the shore and a couple of pairs of gadwall dabbled with the shovelers.

I reached the mitigation pool — the tiny pool about halfway along the lane on the opposite side to No.6. There wasn't anything on that I could see. Four teal flew in and I got my hopes up but the drakes were all common teal. I walked along a little, scanning the pool all the while, and another teal popped its head up. Another drake common teal. I couldn't in all conscience turn any of the teal on the pool into a green-winged teal no matter how much I wished for it.

Moorditch Lane 

There were plenty of butterflies about, mostly orange tips with a few large whites, peacocks and small tortoiseshells, brought out as the cold, cloudy morning turned into a warm, bright lunchtime. I found myself acting as sheepdog to half a dozen sheep on the lane. Try as I might to pass by them they'd scamper on ahead a few paces. In the end they havered between me and a chap who was scanning the phalarope pool so they ducked under the fence back onto the marsh.

Garganey

A drake garganey was showing well on the phalarope pool in the company of a dozen teal and a couple of pairs of gadwall. A female teal joined it for a few minutes, I didn't think anything of it until I noticed it had a distinct eyestripe and a pale loral spot just in front of its beak. A female garganey hiding in plain sight!

Common teal

Whinchat

There were a couple of whitethroat skittering about in the vegetation at the front of the pool. I was looking at them when something small and colourful flitted by. I was lucky: it found a couple of sticks it liked and spent a few minutes fly-catching from them. I was struck by how different a whinchat looks side-on, where it is a small brown bird with a white eyestripe, and head-on, where it is a fiery orange bird with a black-and-white striped face.

Whinchat

I carried on walking to a backdrop of singing whitethroats and Cetti's warblers. A male marsh harrier floated over the marsh, stopping only to mob a buzzard that had floated too low and too near for its liking.

Marsh harrier

Lordship Lane was almost bone dry. In fact it was entirely unnecessary to step in any mud, which is remarkable so early in the year. Linnets, which had been a bit thin on the ground on Moorditch Lane, were plentiful and noisy, as were the goldfinches, chiffchaffs and whitethroats. Yet another Cetti's warbler sang a duet with a sedge warbler in the nettles in the ditch.

I seriously contemplated trying the walk into Elton and catching the bus back to Frodsham but after due consideration I had to concede that I had the mile and a half to Helsby in my legs but not the three and a half to Elton. 

There were more linnets and goldfinches in the hedgerows along Rake Line together with a lot of chaffinches and house sparrows. A raven gave a passing buzzard a very hard time. I got to Helsby in time to have missed the train by ten minutes then missed the bus to Frodsham because it was five minutes early(!!!) So I got the bus to Chester to get a feel for the Ellesmere Port/North Chester area and found out that the Ince Marshes aren't quite as inaccessible as I thought given a bit of planning.

The phalarope pool 

Back home for a much-needed pot of tea and then another after another good day.