Mersey gateway

Ruddy shelduck, Spike Island

It was a funny sort of day's birdwatching. I'd decided to go over to Hale to see what was about because I've not been there yet this year and there's been a report of something or other interesting there virtually every day for the past few weeks. The walk started with an American vagrant showing well in a field by the road and ended with a vagrant from the Mediterranean literally swimming half a mile to make sure I saw it properly. Days like this don't happen often so it's as well to appreciate it when they do.

I got the train to Hough Green and walked down to the bottom of Coronet Way for the 82a bus to Hale. I got off at the Wellington and walked back up the road and bumped into the chap from Liverpool again (hello John if you're reading this). He confirmed that the pectoral sandpiper that had been reported first thing was still on the pools by the road. He also confirmed my suspicion that it was he who finally refound the green-winged teal at Frodsham the other week. We compared means of transport and had a bit of a general chat about having the money but not the time for long-distance birdwatching when you're working then having the time for it in retirement but baulking at the train fares. He could scarcely believe I was retired (actually, he thought I looked in my seventies, which is harsh but fair).

Black-headed gull and pectoral sandpiper, Hale

A couple of hundred yards down the road there were a couple of people standing by a gap in the hedge by the road. I looked over into the field and the first bird I saw was the pectoral sandpiper grubbing about at the edge of some mud in a small pool (or big puddle). I watched it for a few minutes before it decided to have a sit down and preen on the mud and be a lot less conspicuous than it had been. There were pairs of Canada geese and mallard on the pools together with a few black-headed gulls and a lone little ringed plover. There were more Canada geese on the marshy ground on my side of the road and a barrage of swifts, swallows and both sand and house martins wheeled to and fro low across the road. Whitethroats and reed buntings sang from bushes in the field and a skylark sang high overhead.

Pectoral sandpiper, Hale

I was a bit taken aback at finding the sandpiper so quickly and wondered what to do next. I was already halfway back to Halebank so I decided to carry on down and have a look at Pickering's Pasture which would be a new site for me. 

Pickering's Pasture

It was another of those days where it wasn't sure whether or not to be warm, if you were anywhere out of the wind it was a pleasant and sunny Spring day, otherwise it was perishing. Walking into Halebank there were fewer swifts and no sand martins over the road. Goldfinches, robins and whitethroats sang from the hedgerows and a corn bunting just about managed to make itself heard from the other side of one of the fields.

Herring gulls and lesser black-backs, Pickering's Pasture

I walked into Pickering's Pasture to a barrage of birdsong with robins, blackcaps, wrens and blackbirds belting it out from the hedgerows. Blue tits, great tits and goldfinches flitted about, goldfinches would be constant companions for the rest of the walk. The tide was low on the Mersey and dozens of herring gulls and lesser black-backs loafed on the mudflats while carrion crows indulged in a bit of mudlarking and shelducks dabbled in the wet. There were a few cormorants about, most of them fishing for dabs in the channels, and aside from one lapwing which looked a bit out of place all the waders on the mud were oystercatchers. There was a bit of a commotion as a pair of great black-backs chased a lesser black-back to try and steal its food. After a few minutes' dogfighting the lesser black-back dropped its dinner and skedaddled, one of the great black-backs deftly catching the prize in mid-air and swallowing it in the blink of an eye.

The Mersey from Ditton Brook

I carried on over the bridge and staircase across Ditton Brook and into the West Bank Docklands Park where I saw the Kumlein's gull. The hedgerows were busy with goldfinches, linnets and whitethroats and a family of wrens sitting in a guelder rose bush told me in no uncertain terms that I should beggar off. There were more herring gulls and lesser black-backs and the shelducks were closer to this bank. The gulls on the other side of the Silver Jubilee Bridge were mostly black-headed gulls with just a few large gulls loafing on the big mudflat upstream.

Shelducks, Spike Island

Scanning the river from Spike Island and finding lots of Canada geese and shelducks on the river I started looking for anything glinting gingery orange in the sun, knowing that my chances of finding a ruddy shelduck out there were vanishingly small and I was just being greedy. Well damn me, there one was, way out in the river upstream. I took a record shot of it and spent a while watching it. Then it did no more than swim swiftly downstream. It took a break while it harassed a perfectly innocuous oystercatcher then flew up onto the mud bank on this side of the river fifty yards away. It must have seen the binoculars. From its very bleached white face I thought it was a female but when it got close to I noticed it had a black collar and must be an immature male.

Ruddy shelduck, Spike Island
First sighting

Ruddy shelduck, Spike Island

At this point the ruddy shelduck takes noisy exception to an oystercatcher…

Moves in…

…and chases it off

Job done.

The ruddy shelduck flew over to this side of the river…

…and pottered about, calling every so often to make sure it's being noticed

I got myself a much-need cup of tea from the café and decided I wasn't going to have a walk round Spike Island because the municipal lawnmowers were out in force and my eyes were getting itchy. So I walked down and caught the 110 to Warrington. When I arrived there there was at least half an hour's wait for any of the buses into Greater Manchester so I called it quits and got the train home. I'd had a nice walk, done a bit of birdwatching and the year list is now at 179.

The Silver Jubilee Bridge