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.