Bolton

Tufted duck, Doffcocker Lodge

I'd overslept and missed the planned trains and I wasn't feeling at my most Pollyanna-ish anyway, feeling that I'd not done much this week, just lolling about embroidering my doilies, so I decided to give myself a day off birdwatching then it occurred to me that lolling about embroidering my doilies isn't a convincing way of persuading myself that I'm not lolling about embroidering my doilies…

The pouring rain offered by the weather forecasts were always an hour away so by lunchtime I decided to take the chance and go for a walk. I got the train into town, changed at Oxford Road and was soon at Bolton Interchange. I'd decided to have a wander round High Rid Reservoir but I just missed the 575 bus that goes down Chorley New Road. The 125 bus that goes down Chorley Old Road was ready to leave so I got that into Doffcocker, the idea being to have a wander round Doffcocker Lodge, come out on Old Kiln Lane then walk up Old Hall Lane to the reservoir. And the plan worked a treat and the weather behaved itself.

Tufted duck, Doffcocker Lodge

I got off the bus at the Rope and Anchor and walked round to the car park at Doffcocker Lodge. The bank on this end of the lake was lined with farmyard geese with a few mallards and moorhens while coots fussed about on the water. Further out were more coots and mallards and a small raft of tufted ducks.

Coot, Doffcocker Lodge

I took the path through the trees around the lake, half its length running beside the back gardens of adjacent houses. A large mixed tit flock was very active in the undergrowth. At first I thought it was a handful of great tits and a couple of treecreepers but then a dozen or more blue tits barrelled up. It was odd not to see any long-tailed tits amongst them. Brown hawkers hunted over the Himalayan balsams and a Southern hawker zipped by as I walked along a bit of grassy bank.

Doffcocker Lodge 

Turning into the causeway across the end of the lake I could see a couple of great crested grebes with the tufted ducks at this end and a small crowd of black-headed gulls squabbling around the nesting rafts out on the water. A pair of mute swans and their two full-grown cygnets dozed by the path as they waited for schoolchildren to arrive with bread and bird seed. A couple of happy donors were arriving with their dad as I was going out.

I walked down Old Kiln Lane, crossing the A58 along the way, and headed for Old Hall Lane. A couple of fields away, by Chorley Old Road, a pair of carrion crows were chasing a buzzard off their territory.

By Old Hall Lane 

There are stretches of Old Hall Lane that I am sure should harbour spotted flycatchers, enclosures with large trees in very rough pasture and the overgrown fishery. Today there were robins, blue tits and chiffchaffs.

Pied wagtails were already going to roost in the trees by the golf course as I arrived at High Rid Reservoir. Three small birds flitting about the reservoir sluice turned out to be goldfinches.

Pied wagtail, High Rid Reservoir

High Rid Reservoir 

Out on the water there were a few coots and tufted ducks dotted about, with a raft of a couple of dozen tufted ducks in the corner opposite the entrance gate. Further out on the water was a raft of perhaps thirty large gulls, more lesser black-backs than herring gulls. The black-headed gulls were just leaving, by the time I'd got halfway round they'd all gone. A great black-back made its departure too, calling ominously as it circled round then went on its way.

Dabchick, High Rid Reservoir

There were a couple of dozen dabchicks bobbing about. Most were at the pier end, half a dozen at the gate end. About half of them were juveniles getting their first-Winter plumage. I couldn't turn any of them into black-necked grebes.

Pied wagtail, High Rid Reservoir

There were still a few wagtails on the bankside, mostly male pied wagtails with a couple of juveniles. The grey wagtails were skittish and soon headed off to roost. The first wagtail I saw, though, was a female white wagtail which flew by and landed a few yards away. It stayed there just long enough to be sure of the ID — pale grey back contrasting sharply with the black cap, silvery grey flanks — before disappearing off to the golf club.

Grey wagtail, High Rid Reservoir

A couple of dozen Canada geese were settling down to sleep in the field by the reservoir, a steady stream of woodpigeons and jackdaws headed to roost. I took the hint and headed for home feeling a bit better about the world than when I'd started.

High Rid Reservoir is one of those places that look like you're walking round an infinity pool.