Third-quarterly review

I feel like I've made heavy weather of September, which pretty much sums up the past three months. Scorching heat has alternated with heavy rains and whatever clothes you went out with were wrong for some part of the day. Having said that, I've had some very pleasant walks and visited a few new places amongst the regulars. Oddly enough I'd predicted I'd be getting to South Stack before getting to Bempton and got to Bempton but not South Stack, and I've still not visited the Northwich flashes.

The birdwatching has been fitful, looking back I'm surprised how many walks involved there being not much about, most of the warblers decamped mid-August and thrushes of all kinds seem to have been thin on the ground throughout. Even the usual flocks of black-headed gulls worm-dancing in fields have been relatively few and far between, possibly a reflection of the devastating effects of avian flu on some of the breeding colonies.

Species accumulation January to September 2023

Species accumulation January to September 2022

I hit the annual 200 target with the American golden plover at Banks and the white-tailed eagle on Ince Marshes brought the British list up to 300. The grey phalarope at Elton Reservoir and the green woodpecker I heard from Redisher Wood  bring the year list to 202.

• Cheshire & Wirral 126 species so far this year
• Cleveland 31
• Cumbria 89
• Denbighshire 37
• Derbyshire 46
• Durham 13
• Flintshire 28
• Greater Manchester 131
• Lancashire and North Merseyside 148
• Staffordshire 27
• Yorkshire 79

There's still some time left for bumping into one or more of the usual Autumn passage migrants — redstart, spotted flycatcher and tree pipit still elude me and my limited amount of seawatching hasn't had any luck with Manx shearwater or leach's petrel. Hopefully the onset of Winter will add great northern diver, long-tailed duck, brambling and short-eared owl to the year list. And while I'm wishing I'll have a rough-legged buzzard, a red-breasted goose and one of those New World warblers that have been wowing the crowds in Pembrokeshire deciding to drop in and show off a lot in an urban park in Manchester. The one reliable prediction is that there will be mud and rain.

Pennington Flash

Snipe

I decided on a late afternoon wander at Pennington Flash to see if the wind had blown anything into the early season gull roost. The buses being as they are it ended up being a teatime wander but productive all the same.

I walked in from St Helens Road. Woodpigeons and magpies clattered about in the trees, robins sang and a mixed tit flock including long-tailed tits, great tits and blue tits was silently shuffling through the hedgerow.

Black-headed gull

It had been a mild, overcast afternoon and it started raining as I crossed the bridge over the brook. The oystercatcher was busy looking for scraps on the car park with a few mallards and moorhens. There were more mallards on the bank of the flash with black-headed gulls and a couple of Muscovy ducks. There had been reports of an Egyptian goose about but I couldn't find it.

I could see a herd of mute swans on the opposite bank and an impressive raft of sixty-odd Canada geese cruised the mouth of the brook. The flash was littered with coots and tufted ducks, well over a hundred of each, mostly in groups of a dozen or so with a big raft that appeared to include both over by the sailing club. Gulls were starting to roost and there was a great black-back with the lesser black-backs and herring gulls loafing midwater. It was hard work finding great crested grebes, they all seemed to be over beyond the sailing club. The rain passed as quickly as it arrived though it stayed overcast and gloomy which didn't help any in picking out distant bird-shaped objects on the water.

A dozen snipe landed in this patch of grass

I had a stroke of luck walking towards the Horrocks Hide. A flock of fourteen snipe rose up from the spit, flew over the flash and settled back down on the spit as I sat down in the hide. Most of them landed not far out but if I hadn't seen them land I'm not convinced I'd have picked them out in the long grass. There were a few dozen lapwings with the black-headed gulls and cormorants at the end of the spit. I'd seen fifty-odd flying over to roost as I was walking in. Shovelers, teals and mallards were dabbling in the bight with the coots and more black-headed gulls.

The pool at the Tom Edmondson Hide was full of courting gadwall, most of them paired up and noisy with it. The moorhens and dabchicks at the far side looked distinctly crowded out.

Ramsdales Hide was locked as it was getting late but I could see plenty from the screen, what wasn't shovelers was teals.

Walking back to the flash a mixed tit flock included a chiffchaff and at least one goldcrest.

Egyptian goose

More gulls had flown in, including a flock of very boisterous black-headed gulls. They were making such an exhibition of themselves I almost missed the second-calendar-year Mediterranean gull that flew in. Walking through the car park I noticed the Egyptian goose cruising the side of the bank with the Muscovy ducks. I wonder where it had been earlier.

Pennington Flash 

I got the bus back into Leigh and miraculously made the connections for the 126 to the Trafford Centre and the 25 back home in the twilight.

Leighton Moss

Red deer

The day promised to become a bit brisk with the tail end of Storm Thingy hitting us this afternoon so I thought it prudent to be close to a railway station for a speedy exit. Thus it was I got an old man's explorer ticket and headed for Leighton Moss.

It was a cloudy and damp morning. As the train approached Silverdale Station I could see that the pools at the coastal hide were very high. A few mute swans cruised around with a lot of teal and mallard and a small bunch of wigeon.

Leighton Moss was very quiet, perhaps a dozen people about besides a small class of very well-behaved children. Consequently it was a very enjoyable walk even though it was pouring down.

From Lilian's Hide 

The water was high at Lilian's Hide, as it turned out to be everywhere else. Half a dozen black-headed gulls called from where they were sitting on sticks, mallards dozed, a raft of coots and gadwalls drifted midwater and a pair of dabchicks fished in a corner of the reeds. A passing red admiral reminded me that they are tough little buggers. I could only find the one pochard and was surprised to not find a single tufted duck.

Walking to the reedbed hides 

I walked down to the reedbed hides. Most of the small birds were keeping under cover out of the rain. Most of the creaks and squeaks were from tree limbs or my knees and the shaking and twitching of leaves was due more to raindrops than birds. Robins fussed about the edges of the path. Great tits and blue tits rummaged about in ones and twos. The nearest to a mixed tit flock I found was a pair of goldcrests with the usual pair of marsh tits deep in the willows at the bend of the path, all of them heard more than seen.

Red deer

I hadn't yet sat down at the Tim Jackson Hide when four red deer strolled out to graze on the far bank.

Cinnamon teal x shoveler (left) and shoveler

The pool was busy with gadwalls and shovelers. A few teal and mallards dozed at the sides and a couple of wigeon hid in the crowds over by the reeds. The drake cinnamon x shoveler hybrid was showing well. Some of the shovelers still had greyish heads and white crescent on their faces as they hadn't yet moulted out of eclipse plumage but none had the oily blue-grey head of the hybrid duck.

Shovelers

It was a bit late to be expecting to see bearded tits on the grit trays on the way to the Griesdale Hide but that didn't stop me looking just in case. A young Cetti's warbler managed to almost complete a snatch of song. At the hide the pool was littered with shovelers and teal and cormorants loafed in the trees.

Marsh tit

Walking back the marsh tits and goldcrests showed very well in the willows by the path.

The rain was heavy, the wind was getting up and the afternoon trains were looking dicey with two cancellations already listed. I had time to go over for a brief look at the Causeway Hide, any more was pushing my luck.

From the Causeway Hide 

Cetti's warblers sang along the causeway and a mixed tit flock of long-tailed tits, blue tits and chiffchaffs bounced about in the willows. The pool was lapping at the causeway and was occupied by a dozen mute swans, half a dozen cormorants and an otter which looked to be having a giddy time of it. All the ducks looked to have retreated to the drains and smaller pools.

Drowned willows with a full complement of ferns, mosses and lichens

I got the Manchester Airport train which was cancelled under us at Preston. I didn't fancy trying to cram myself into the train back to Manchester from Blackpool so took a leisurely route back via Colne, Burnley and Todmorden.

Mosses

Chat Moss

I overslept too late for the planned outing so I put the cat out to play in the sun (she got as far as the bin and fell asleep), hurled the mop around the house for a bit and went out for a walk on the Salford Mosses.

The train to Irlam was on time and when it arrived forty minutes late (due to two late-running Transpennine Express trains) a bright sunny lunchtime had become an ominously cloudy afternoon with spots of rain. I decided to carry on regardless.

There were more small birds in the bushes at Humphrey Park Station than there were in the hedgerows of Astley Road. A stiff breeze had persuaded all but the goldfinches into deep cover and the goldfinches were only commuting between fields of barley stubble. Robins sang from the depths and the occasional great tit called from within bramble patches. A male sparrowhawk weaving through the treetops didn't help any.

Astley Road 

A filthy dark cloud brought twenty seconds of rain before the wind heaved it over unto Manchester. I'd been hearing an eerie noise that I assumed was the wind through telegraph wires but as I approached the junction with Roscoe Road it resolved into buzzard calls. Over by the farmhouse at Prospect Grange two juvenile buzzards were sitting in telegraph poles calling to each other.

Over the motorway and the turf fields looked barren of birds. Scanning them with my binoculars it quickly became apparent that the distant leaves blowing in the wind were fifty-odd linnets and a not dissimilar number of pied wagtails. A little further along a dozen pied wagtails feeding closer to the road were dispersed by a passing tractor. Swallows and lone house martin passed low overhead spending a few minutes feeding over the turf before going on their way. A huge puddle a couple of fields away had brought in sixty or more black-headed gulls with a few lesser black-backs.

A flock of about a hundred lapwings were loafing with a fieldful of busy starlings a couple of fields away on Hephzibah Farm.

Twelve Yards Road 

I decided against heading into Little Woolden Moss and walked down Twelve Yards Road with the sun in my hair not my eyes. Woodpigeons and pheasants rummaged about in the barley stubble and linnets and goldfinches took flight every so often. The road was littered with common darters and their shadows and it was a real challenge to avoid stepping on either.

Cutnook Lane 

The walk down Cutnook Lane was the quietest I have known. Just the clattering of woodpigeons in the trees and the occasional robin or goldfinch. Just past the fishery a pair of magpies disputed the ownership of a rowan tree with a jay.

I got the 100 back to the Trafford Centre. It was odd not to see any gulls at all on the vacant lot near the canal. The young peregrine was back perched on the sign of the Beyond building, sitting out of the wind on the letter Y for a change.

Martin Mere

Moorhen chick

Today looked like being the optimum day this week for being out in the middle of nowhere with no shelter so I headed out to see what was about at Martin Mere.

Red Cat Lane 

It was a nice walk down from Burscough Bridge on a warm sunny morning with a bit of a breeze. Hordes of rooks and jackdaws rummaged about in cabbage fields while small squadrons of pink-footed geese flew hither and thither and occasionally flew hither, turned on a sixpence and flew thither. It always seems strange to be identifying dragonflies to the sound of wild geese, a couple of migrant hawkers patrolled garden hedgerows while coming darters zipped around the field margins. Just to underline the end of Summer vibe a few swallows flew high overhead.

Black-headed gulls, shovelers and pintails

Arriving at Martin Mere I went straight to the Discovery Hide. The breeze was stiffening but it was still very pleasant. The water was very high and most of the spits and islands were underwater. Out on the mere there were lots of black-headed gulls and mallards but both were easily outnumbered by shovelers. 

My first pintails of Winter dabbled round the relic islands, the drakes still in eclipse and mingling with the crowds. There were a few wigeon about, too, the chocolate browns of the drakes' eclipse plumage peppered with hints of grey. The gadwalls and most of the mallards had fully moulted out of eclipse, the drake teals were still only showing the outlines of the patterns of their breeding plumage on their heads like a colour by numbers picture.

Further out, cormorants hogged the rafts and small groups of pink-footed geese grazed the far bank. A heron flew in, landed then noticed a buzzard digging for worms on the bank a few feet away and flew off. I looked all over for shelducks but there wasn't a one and there were only a few lapwings. There were plenty of lapwings in the fields beyond, they and scores of starlings were put to flight for a few minutes by a couple of marsh harriers.

There were lots of unidentifiable small birds besides the starlings over that way. A few linnets and reed buntings flitted about closer in on the far bank and a couple of pied wagtails flew over. Another bird flying over I assumed was a meadow pipit until it veered and I got a proper look at what was really a yellow wagtail.

Mallards, greylags, pink-footed geese and a cattle egret

I popped into Raines Observatory to see if there were any waders on the bank of the mere here. I had no luck with them but a couple of cattle egrets made a very nice consolation prize.

Red admiral

I wandered down to the Hale Hide. The apple tree by the duckery opposite the hide had provided a host of red admirals with a feast of windfalls.

I had no joy with finding any waders on the pool at the Hale Hide. A little egret, still with its breeding aigrettes, decided that loafing on the bank darting at passing Southern hawkers wasn't a profitable pastime and went fishing. It was phenomenally successful at disturbing fish by stirring up the mud with its feet: nearly every lunge caught something, usually tiddlers but a couple of times it caught a good-sized minnow.

Little egret

The Kingfisher Hide was very quiet indeed, if there hadn't been a couple of goldfinches and a greenfinch on the feeders it would have been entirely barren. I had a predictably fruitless search for tawny owls in the ivy-covered trees along the way.

Marsh harrier

The pools at the Ron Barker Hide were high and covered in teal with a few shovelers and wigeon hiding in the crowds. If any green-winged teal had been blown in by the storms it would have been impossible to pick out, some of the drakes had moulted as far as to have the square buff panels on their rear ends but there was a definite lack of white lines in any direction in the crowd.

From the Ron Barker Hide 

Canada geese and greylags grazed the banks while handfuls of pink-feet flew about and settled in the fields. One of the lingering whooper swans was cruising about in the sluice.

Whooper swan

A panic of lapwings in the fields beyond heralded the return of the marsh harriers. They were upstaged by a passing hobby flying purposefully towards the reedbeds.

A pair of dabchicks bobbed about in the drain in front of the hide. A cormorant fishing in there made me wonder how safe they were. Nothing untoward happened while I was there, except to a couple of fish I couldn't identify because they were swallowed as soon as the cormorant's head reached fresh air.

Spindle berries 

I wandered back and headed for the Reedbed Walk. A family party of long-tailed tits bounced around in the hedge by the Janet Kear Hide which was otherwise unusually quiet.

I've still not got the hang of the names of the new hides out in the reedbeds. Looking over the pool at the Rees Hide there were yet more teal and shovelers and a pair of mute swans flew in and settled to feed. The water was way too high for any waders to be about save the lapwings in the fields beyond. The Gordon Taylor Hide provided more distant views of the same birds with the addition of a couple of young dabchicks that chirruped quietly at each other as they bobbed along, a far cry from the usual far-carrying hinny of the adults.

Pink-footed geese

I had plenty of time so I did the full circuit of the Reedbed Walk. Reed buntings and linnets bounced about; wrens, robins and chiffchaffs called in the trees; black-headed gulls and pink-footed geese flew overhead. There were a lot of dragonflies about, mostly common darters and Southern hawkers. I thought the damselfly season was over and was surprised to see a dozen common blue damselflies zipping along the path margins by the harrier hide.

Rook, Red Cat Lane, Burscough

I had a long wait if I walked to New Lane for the train so I walked back to Burscough Bridge. I'd been chiding myself for not doing the nine mile round walk to try and see the brown booby up at South Gare, the wisdom of that decision became clear by the ache in my good knee once I hit the six mile mark in today's walk. Despite that it was a very pleasant walk. The cloud cover was blowing in but wasn't threatening and the breeze had calmed down a lot. Starlings congregated on telegraph wires, rooks and jackdaws rummaged and small flocks of swallows passed overhead.

Tarlscough Lane 

A fine roebuck, his antlers still in velvet, browsing in a field just past Lostock Station as the train passed by was the icing on a very pleasant cake.

Home thoughts

Blue tit

I haven't been posting enough pictures of the birds in the back garden lately so I thought I should today.

Great tit

The mixed tit flock is usually a few blue tits (I think there's five about but I only see three or four at a time), a pair or two of great tits and one or other of the pair of coal tits though today they were both rummaging about in the dog roses. The cat and I have learned to ignore the tapping noises as the blue tits pick spiders off the windowpane. Every so often the long-tailed tits will barrel in unannounced, generally when the fat balls in the feeder are close to disintegration after the attentions of the spadgers. The coal tits are the least shy of the birds in the garden, sometimes hovering by my shoulder as I fill the feeders, but at the first hint of the camera they're off like a shot. The blue tits, on the other hand, come to the window and pose.

Blue tit

Blue tit

The magpies and blackbirds have done for most of the rowan berries now though they keep going in there to see if there are any they've missed. For some reason all of the birds in my garden choose to ignore the berries on the Pyracantha until late Spring when there's nothing else left anywhere.

I had hoped that pruning back the Mahonia may have removed all the wood that had been got at by a fungal infection but it looks like I was wildly optimistic and I'll have to remove the remains. There's a big gap in that border now — I removed a hazel bush last Winter — and I'm not sure what I want to do with it. I'll get a better idea after leaf fall, there's a lot of chopping back to do and I think I'll have to get someone in before Network Rail's sycamores envelop the whole garden. I really want something that'll provide nectar in Winter, partly for the insects but also for the birds: tits and warblers aren't averse to a sugar rush on a cold day.

Blue tit

Wirral

Raven, Meols

I had planned to go over to the Wirral yesterday before I got sidetracked with the phalarope so I headed that way today. The weather looked fitful but the wind was good for blowing seabirds close in as the tide rolled in. 

On the way over I checked what had been reported over there and found that a Baird's sandpiper had been reported on the beach near the RNLI station at Hoylake the past couple of days. There were no reports today so like as not it had moved on but it made sense to start a walk at that end of the path and have the sun and wind mostly behind me. Even if there had been a hundred reports the likelihood of my seeing and recognising a rare peep was pretty minimal anyway.

(It's probably worth explaining why I have even more problems with small sandpipers than I do gulls. The dunlin is the archetypal small wader the same way that the herring gull is the archetypal large gull and they vary even more, especially on passage when they're transitioning from a breeding plumage of rich brown upperparts and black belly to Winter's grey brown upperparts and white belly. We have two subspecies commonly on our shores, birds from the high Arctic (alpina) with long bills and birds from Western Europe and Southern Scandinavia (schinzii) that are slightly smaller with shorter beaks. And, of course, there's subtle individual variation. So I need a good view — and ideally somebody around with prior experience — before I'm confident of identifying something that isn't obviously structurally different to a dunlin. In this case Baird's sandpiper has longer wings than a dunlin but I don't know how obvious this looks in the field.)

Juvenile pied wagtail, Hoylake

I got off at Manor Road Station and walked down to the promenade. The wind was strong and gusty as I walked down the road and got stronger and gustier as I approached the prom. Out in the open, hanging onto the railings to try and steady myself, it was blowing a hooley. Dozens of pied wagtails fussed about on the beach, mercifully mostly close by so the wind vibrating my binoculars wasn't much of an issue. Looking further out the shelducks and herring gulls sitting on the mud were mostly white blurs and had the curlews not called they would have been indeterminate dark shapes.

Pied wagtails, Hoylake
The wagtails had more sense than me and kept to shelter

There were also dozens of linnets. I generally only saw them when a small group of half a dozen or so flew from one clump of vegetation to another. Most of the time they stayed undercover in the tussocks, venturing out every so often to raid the seed heads of sea plantains. I nearly missed the couple of rock pipits, thinking they were more linnets in the grass. Luckily for me they had a quarrel and bounced out into the open before running back to their separate corners. Every so often a flash of green would catch my eye as a juvenile pied wagtail still sporting the primrose yellow cast of childhood blew past. A young white wagtail a little further out stood out from the nearby selection of juvenile pied wagtails but was impossible to get into focus in this wind. I managed to get some photos of nearby pied wagtails by using myself as a windbreak, even so most had a lot of camera shake about them.

Hoylake beach

I walked along a bit then sat down by the tennis courts so I could brace myself against the wind, though I lost some visibility due to the railings. The tide was starting to turn, it was about an hour and a half before high tide. Cormorants flew above the surf and groups of herring gulls and lesser black-backs loafed on the distant mud. Closer in a few black-headed gulls rummaged about in the tussocks and a couple of common gulls loafed behind what cover they could find against the wind.

Juvenile ringed plover, Hoylake

It wasn't until I got to the end of the tennis courts that I started seeing waders on the mud, redshanks at first then I started being able to pick out ringed plovers and dunlins as they dashed about like clockwork mice. I had another sit down and saw more of them further out, mostly just distant dark shapes until they took flight to move between patches of mud. A grey plover proved surprisingly easy to identify with its long, dark legs and once I found one I found half a dozen, most of them sporting bits of black underpants to make it easier. The knots were harder, I could only reliably identify a couple of them. 

As if the wind wasn't bad enough the clouds blew in and the visibility became distinctly murky. If there was a Baird's sandpiper out there I wasn't going to be the one seeing it. At the end of the tennis courts a couple of birdwatchers had parked up and were sitting in their cars with their telescopes which seemed an eminently sensible idea. We let on and wished each other luck. I tried to find some lee in the wall of the tennis courts but the angles offered no shelter from the wind. After half an hour I gave up on it. A serious birdwatcher would have stuck it out but I'm not a serious birdwatcher, I'm a bloke what goes out birdwatching.

Raven, Meols

As I walked along Meols Promenade in the dim light and the near-horizontal rain a raven kept me company part of the way, hanging in the wind a few feet above the railings before dipping and rolling and coming back to hang above the railings. After a couple of minutes of this it dipped back into the wind, did a victory roll and glided into the wind in the direction of the lifeboat station. I never not marvel at ravens' mastery of the air and the sheer joy they seem to have in flying.

Raven, Meols

More birdwatchers turned up with telescopes hopeful of the incoming tide. I walked on, I'd been concerned that I'd overdressed for the day and was now needing to keep moving to stop the joints getting cold in them as the wind and rain got heavier. More dunlins and ringed plovers skittered about and small flocks of them rose and fell in the distant mud.

I was about halfway down the prom when a flock of about a dozen dunlins about a hundred yards out caught my eye. They rose and fell then rose and fell again, never seeming to settle and after a couple of minutes they flew off towards Hoylake. One of the birds struck me as being different. It was darker somehow from above and instead of the usual distinct white wingbar it was more diffuse, almost a pale wash across the base of the flight feathers. But it was the beak that struck me, it was slightly shorter than the other birds' and had that stick-stuck-in-a-spud look that I associate with plovers and knots. Was this the Baird's? Was this just a particularly short-billed schinzii in a group of alpina? The nearest of the other birders was a few hundred yards away upwind and the flock had flown by the time I had the wit to think about trying to shout over. So I'll never know. Which happens more often than I tend to let on.

From Meols Promenade 

I walked on a bit further and the heavens opened. I looked out to sea to see if this was just a passing shower and saw that we were guaranteed at least half an hour of pure filth. I called it a day and squelched my way into Meols for the train. I'd had a bit of a walk and a bit of birdwatching and I'd exercised my observation skills a tad and there was no point in being silly about it.

Bury bumper bundle

Juvenile stonechat, Holcombe Moor

I've had a couple of phalarope-free years so the news that the grey phalarope that had arrived at Elton Reservoir yesterday evening had decided to linger prompted me to head thataway this morning.

Grey phalarope, Elton Reservoir

It was a bright, fresh morning and the low sun turned all the cormorants and mallards loafing on the sailing club jetty into silhouettes. As I scanned the reservoir for the phalarope I hoped I wouldn't only be seeing it in silhouette. There were rafts of coots and tufted ducks, a few herring gulls and black-headed gulls, a couple of great crested grebes… The phalarope was an easy spot a hundred yards out from the little bay by the creek, like a half-sized black-headed gull turning circles as it picked at midges on the water. Luckily I was standing at a point where the sun gave a modelling light on the bird. As I moved nearer the creek the bird was marginally closer but the sun was directly behind it.

Elton Reservoir 

I decided not to do a circuit of the reservoir, the paths were plenty muddy on this side of the creek, Heaven knows what they would be like on the other side. I was having trouble with a sore knee that wouldn't be helped by slip-sliding about in deep mud so I decided to head back into Bury, get the 474 towards Ramsbottom and give the knee a proper workout on Holcombe Moor.

Luckily the 471 to Bury runs every ten minutes so I only had a half hour wait for the next bus. I just missed the 474 so caught the 472 and went the long way via Ramsbottom and got off at the Hare and Hounds literally thirty seconds before the next 474 arrived. Still, it beat hanging round Bury Interchange for twenty minutes!

Holcombe Old Road 

I walked up Holcombe Old Road and headed for Holcombe Hill. Cobbled roads are a nuisance to walk on on the flat but they're definitely better than a smooth inclined plane going uphill. All the old pack roads were awash with streams of water pouring from the hillside after the past few days' rain. A mixed tit flock — blue tits, great tits, a goldcrest and a nuthatch — bounced around in hedgerows that were heaving with singing robins. Red admirals and speckled woods joined the hundreds of bees and flies feeding on the ivies festooned on the trees.

Walking up Holcombe Hill 

I turned onto Moor Bottom Road and onto the path that goes up Holcombe Hill to the Peel Monument. Robins sang in the thickets at the base of the path. Rising into open country a pair of carrion crows were quite noisy in a bare tree and a pair of ravens cronked their way high above the hilltop. There were a lot of red admirals about and all of them on the move and not stopping to feed. The whinberries had been picked almost clean but I managed to find one so I could say I've had one this year.

Holcombe Hill 

I spent a while enjoying the scenery at the top of the hill before following the flagged path away from the monument and onto the West Pennine Way. There was a passage of swallows and red admirals — about fifty of each passing low over the moor as I walked along. A couple of house martins flew a little higher, as did a yellow wagtail. There were dozens of meadow pipits about and a few skylarks flitted about before disappearing into the tussocks of grass and heather.

Raven, Holcombe Moor

I passed the gate and walked along the path enjoying the luxury of springy peat beneath my feet. It didn't last long, a steep descent along a crumbly path isn't the best place to remember that in the book I was reading the other day the witness to the murder was tumbled down a Pennine slope to stop him talking. The family of four ravens circling about me was a touch ominous.

Holcombe Moor 

Winter Hill from Holcombe Moor 

Reaching level ground I stopped for a drink and a bite to eat and the ravens lost interest and moved on to bullying the carrion crows a couple of fields away. A green woodpecker was yaffling away somewhere down in Redisher Woods. As I sat in the sunshine I looked over the valley to Winter Hill which looked a lot overcast. Over the hill it looked like Wigan was copping for a rainstorm.

The West Pennine Way 

Approaching Moor Bottom Road 

I followed the path down until it met Moor Bottom Road and I bumped into a charming family of stonechats including three youngsters in varying states of fluffy moult.

Stonechats, Holcombe Moor

I followed Moor Bottom Road back onto Holcombe Old Road and headed for the bus back to Bury. I had more bad luck with buses and ended up getting embroiled in college kicking-out time so I called it quits and headed home on the tram from Bury. I'd had a dawdle and a decent walk, the knees were working again and I'd seen a good selection of birdlife and some very fine scenery so I couldn't complain.