Martin Mere

Whooper swans, greylags and mallards

It was another damp, grey morning and it started badly when the train into Manchester was cancelled. I took the time to have some breakfast for a change and watched the spadgers on the feeding stations. The weather patterns have certainly disrupted the plants in the garden: the squirrels and birds have stripped the Pyracantha of berries but there'll be more to come as half of it is in flower. I got the next train into Manchester which had to make an unscheduled stop at Deansgate, allowing me to catch the Southport train I'd intended to catch in the first place by the skin of my teeth. Sometimes the madness works your way.

Red Cat Lane 

I got off at Burscough Bridge and wandered down Red Cat Lane. There were a lot of jackdaws about, the rooks were mostly on a freshly-tilled field over towards Curlew Lane. Skylarks flew about in twos and threes, a flock of a few dozen lapwings flew over and small skeins of pink-footed geese passed by. A rattling in the treetops by Crabtree Lane heralded a few dozen fieldfares amongst the starlings. A sudden eruption of starlings and skylarks was caused by a male marsh harrier passing overhead with a carrion crow escort.

Whoopers, mallards and greylag

It was a damp entry into Martin Mere with deep puddles either end of the pedestrian entrance. I went straight over to the Discovery Hide to ser what was on the mere. The dozens of whooper swans were the most immediately obvious birds out here. There were similar numbers of greylag geese and mallards, rather more black-headed gulls and wigeon (they were making all the noise today) and a supporting cast of lapwings, shelducks, teal, pochard, tufted ducks, pintails and cormorants. A couple of marsh harriers flew over the distant fields, scattering lapwings and starlings in their wake. Eight snipe rose up from who knows where and headed off for the reedbeds beyond the mere.

Whooper cygnet

There was a small mixed flock of goldfinches and chaffinches in the trees by the Hale Observatory. I looked in vain for any siskins or redpolls. 

Cladonia lichen on tree stump

I found one of the snipe settling down for a kip on the pool by the Hale Hide. It was quickly woken up by the arrival of a little egret. Given the elegant appearance of little egrets it seems rather a shame for them to sound like industrial machinery in pain.

Snipe

Snipe and little egret

Great tits, blue tits and long-tailed tits bounced about in the trees along the path but the first mixed tit flock I encountered was in the hedge by the Ron Barker Hide. A dozen long-tailed tits flew over the path into the hedge and similar numbers of blue and great tits tagged along. There was a bit of a kerfuffle when a couple of great tits tried to bounce a dunnock away from a rotten fencepost. The dunnock stood its ground and got back to whatever it was interested in in the hollow of the top of the post. A migrant hawker zipped about the path catching midges and devouring them mid-air.

Walking by the Kingfisher Hide 

The scene at the Ron Barker Hide was one of contrasts: the pool on the left hosted one whooper swan, on the right there were a couple of dozen together with a hundred or more wigeon and a dozen or so teal. More ducks appeared on the pool when a couple of marsh harriers floated close over the reeds.

Whoopers, wigeon and cormorant

Close by a stoat fossicked around the base of the brambles on the bridge over the sluice. A stonechat kept an eye on it from the top of nearby reeds. A Cetti's warbler sang from our side of the sluice but I was beggared if I could see it.

I caught sight of a peregrine flying low over the woodland a couple of fields away. It disappeared behind the woods then reappeared in the company of two marsh harriers it had evidently decided to harass. The harriers gave as good as they got and taught the peregrine, probably a young bird putting itself through its paces, a good lesson in only picking fights with things that are smaller and weaker than you. The dogfight carried on for more than five minutes, complicated every so often by the intervention of carrion crows objecting to all three raptors.

It was a fairly quiet walk back bar the calls of passing jackdaws. I checked out the ivy-covered trees by the road for roosting tawny owls. I had no luck, which doesn't necessarily mean there weren't any, a Cape buffalo could easily hide in some of those treetops.

The road walked probably a bit too often for its own good

I had myself a cup of tea and decided to head for New Lane for the train home. The sun broke the clouds rather abruptly and the landscape was suddenly golden. Unlike the walking. The path by the fence to Martin Mere was a tad damp and at a couple of points I had to cling to the fence and tiptoe my way across muddy puddle margins. Luckily the electric fence wasn't switched on.

Marsh Moss Road 

Dozens of woodpigeons were settling down to roost in the treetops along Marsh Moss Lane as the gloom rolled back in. Small flocks of skylarks flew overhead and there was a steady traffic of black-headed gulls. I got to the station in plenty of time so I walked down the path a stretch to see what was on the water treatment works. The answer was more black-headed gulls. I walked back to the station to the sound of the calls of a small skein of pink-footed geese.

Mersey Valley

Canada geese and shag, Sale Water Park

It's that time of year when lights are vivid, contrasts are strong and shadows are long. I'd listened to India's innings in the one day match and decided to go for a walk and catch up with the England innings when I got home, which turned out to be an excellent decision and I didn't bother doing the catch-up. Instead I joined what seemed like half of Chorlton having a walk round on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

Ivy Green 

I got the 25 to the top of Edge Lane and walked down into Ivy Green. Great tits and blue tits bounced about the undergrowth while goldfinches, woodpigeons and magpies moved about the treetops and a great spotted woodpecker bashed away at a bit of dead willow stump. Squirrels and jays were stashing acorns, I sometimes wonder if they don't keep half an eye on where the other's caching their food.

Jay, Chorlton Ees

There were more jays in Chorlton Ees and they were considerably noisier, out-shrieking even the ring-necked parakeets that were zipping round the treetops. With all that going on it would have been easy to miss the dunnocks in the dead hedges and the heron lurking by the pond in the hay meadow.

Heron, Chorlton Ees

There was enough parakeet action going on at Jackson's Boat to more than make up for recent absences. A couple of buzzards floated low overhead and drifted over to the golf courses.

Sale Ees 

I was going to say that Sale Ees was quiet but the carrion crows, magpies and parakeets made it anything but.

Mute swans, Sale Water Park

Sale Water Park was busy with kayakers, waterboarders and jet skis so the birds were pushed into corners of the lake. Most of the mute swans congregated by Cow Lane, a couple were with the Canada geese, mallards, coots and black-headed gulls catching free meals by the car park jetty. The great crested grebes lurked near the reedbeds, disappearing into them on the approach of a jet ski. The adult with a dodgy wings looks to be going strong still.

Shag and Canada geese, Sale Water Park

The juvenile shag that had turned up yesterday was still about, sitting on the pontoon entirely unmoved by the busy humans to-ing and fro-ing on the water nearby.

Broad Ees Dole 

The tit flocks on Ivy Green and Chorlton Ees had been very loosely organised, more in the way of passing coincidences rather than coordinated assembly. It was quite different on Sale Ees, the blue tits and great tits definitely tagging along with the long-tailed tits. One of the flocks on Broad Ees Dole included some very conspicuous goldcrests acting as vanguard with some of the long-tailed tits.

The pool by the hide on Broad Ees Dole was relatively quiet: three herons loafed on the islands, handfuls of shovelers and gadwall loafed on the water while a few coots and moorhens fussed about. The half a dozen gadwalls on the teal pool were accompanied by a couple of pairs of mallards and a heron.

Teal pool, Broad Ees Dole 

I crossed the bridge into Stretford Ees and walked down to the aquaduct, the trees rattling with the sound of parakeets and magpies coming in to roost. It was the merest chance I noticed the treecreeper sidling up a tree trunk by the path. Out on the open meadow a kestrel hovered quite low over the tall grass, not a lot more than head high. Whatever it had spotted seemed to be keeping its head well down.

The clouds rolled in as I walked along Kickety Brook towards Stretford Meadows. Jackdaws and woodpigeons were starting to go to roost as the parakeets settled to their treetops mutterings.

Stretford Meadows 

It was positively gloomy when I got to Stretford Meadows so I had a stroll through the woodland margin and into Stretford town centre. Dozens of woodpigeons were settling into the trees by this stage.

I waited for the bus home as squadrons of lesser black-backs flew South to roost on the water parks or over on Woolston Eyes and small groups of black-headed gulls flew North to their roosts in Trafford Park.

Home thoughts

The spadgers and titmice continue to make inroads on the feeders. It's sweet that the robin and the coal tit lurk in the bushes by my knee and shoulder respectively as I refill the big seed feeder. The spadgers hang back in the roses and the great tits chunner from the rowan tree until I move off.

The woodpigeons are still around but only fitfully: there'll be a dozen on the school playing field for half an hour, usually just before lunchtime, then nothing the rest of the day. The gulls are nearly always herring gulls and/or lesser black-backs with the occasional common gull or black-headed gull. We're very rarely getting the big gull flocks this Autumn.

I had some errands to run so I walked over to Humphrey Park Station. The usual sparrows were very quiet, there was only the rattle of magpies. The cause soon became apparent: a juvenile sparrowhawk was sat on the gate to the Liverpool platform. It silently flew off and silently disappeared through a hole in the hedge I'd think a blackbird could just squeeze through. It reappeared on the fence further down the platform, the magpies sitting in a tree keeping an eye on it. The late-running express to Liverpool passed through at speed, scaring the sparrowhawk off. I spent the ten minutes waiting for my train listening to spadgers and titmice making the roll calls in the bushes.

Sparrowhawk, Humphrey Park
Record photo taken from the phone at maximum zoom.

Mosses

Starlings, Cadishead Moss

It was a damp and overcast morning but the rain had passed so I decided to have a stroll over the Salford Mosses. I got the train into Irlam and walked over to Moss Road to kick off with a wander round New Moss Wood.

Cadishead Moss 

The fields across the road to the wood were heaving with birds — at least a hundred jackdaws, two hundred and more starlings, a few pheasants and rooks and carrion crows, a small flock of fieldfares, a mixed flock of stock doves and woodpigeons and a covey of sixteen grey partridges. The Lombardy poplars on the field margins were heaving with starlings, fieldfares, goldfinches and siskins. Winter's arrived with a bang!

New Moss Wood 

The wood was deathly quiet in comparison, just the sound of falling leaves and that quiet singing noise that damp soil makes when it's starting to dry out. Although it was lunchtime there were still wisps of mist about some of the ridings. Mixed tit flocks — families of long-tailed tits with blue tits in tow, some flocks with coal tits, some with great tits — fidgeted silently through the birch canopy. Even the magpies and jays went about their business silently. I'd lingered longer than I'd expected and I'd been traipsing around for over fifty minutes when I accidentally broke the spell by nearly treading on a wren that was rummaging about in the grass in front of me. This was the signal for a sudden eruption of singing robins, wrens and dunnocks.

Blue tit, New Moss Wood

A buzzard was eyeing up the dinner table on the motorway embankment as I passed over the bridge. I walked the length of Moss Road to the sound of pied wagtails, jackdaws and starlings and the distant croaks of carrion crows on the turf fields over by Astley Road.

Little Woolden Moss 

The sun came out at Little Woolden Moss and it turned into a very pleasant afternoon. There wasn't a lot about on the pools, just a pair of mallards and a handful of teal which flew off into the distance. There were a couple of dozen carrion crows on the bund and most of them were very interested in whatever it was the marsh harrier was eating in the long grass. Whatever it could have been wouldn't normally have attracted a couple of dozen crows, they'd congregated into a sort of adolescent gang prior to some or all of them pairing off and going their own way. It's a constant feature of Winter with the magpies round our way, I don't often get to see the carrion crow equivalent. It was just the marsh harrier's bad luck to have the hooligans readily to hand while it was having its dinner. A few common darters are my latest candidates for last dragonflies of the year.

Twelve Yards Road 

I headed down Twelve Yards Road for walking down Cutnook Lane into Irlam, a nice walk with the sun on my back. The birds were settling down for the night, woodpigeons clattering about in treetops, linnets and chaffinches calling quietly as they flew to roost, a pair of bullfinches whistling softly to each other as they passed. A kestrel prepared for the twilight shift by Four Lanes End, a great spotted woodpecker tapped at a dead willow further down the road, mixed tit flocks were silent bustling shadows in the depths of the hedgerows. As I reached the junction with Cutnook Lane another buzzard settled down in the trees to the North.

Cutnook Lane 

The walk down Cutnook Lane was a pleasant winding down. Mallards and cormorants left the fishery for the day, half a dozen blackbirds flew into the hedgerows for a late meal of haws before bedtime and a few black-headed gulls flew into the paddocks to join the carrion crows and jackdaws.

The 100 to the Trafford Centre was running very late (this has been a week full of 'The bus you've just missed was bob on time, the next one's running twenty minutes late') so I got the next 100 to Cadishead, got off at Irlam Station and waited a while for the train home. It had been a surprisingly pleasant and productive afternoon's wander.

Starlings, Cadishead Wood

Home thoughts

Collared doves
(The dead branches are a hazel I felled last Winter. I was halfway through chopping it up when I had to stop to avoid disturbing a nestbox. Which in the end got taken over by wasps so I'm waiting until Winter hits before finishing the job.)

It was a gloomy sort of morning and I was bleary-eyed after catching up with a week's sleep so I decided to thoroughly depress myself by listening to the cricket. Meanwhile out in the garden a couple of dozen spadgers made steady inroads on the newly refilled seed feeders with the help of a couple of the blue tits. 

I'd emptied the remnants of the cat's bowl onto a bird tray with some seed. The squirrels found it first, they were mithered off by a couple of magpies and they in turn were muscled off by four collared doves. Collared doves look sweet and peaceful but they're aggressive beggars and are only outranked by sparrowhawks, cats and foxes in the back garden pecking order. Even the carrion crows can't be doing with them, though if a couple caught a collared dove on its own in a tight corner I shouldn't fancy its chances.

Autumn is properly upon us and nearly all the leaves are off the rowan tree and I can see that all that shade I was worrying about is cast by two branches of railway embankment sycamore. I'll do a bit of trimming of the rowan myself, I'll have to get someone in to have at the sycamore branches (the trees themselves are Network Rail's). Although in many ways the sycamores are a damned nuisance they provide the local birdlife with a feast of insects. Enough of the leaves have dropped for me to be able to catch the goldcrests gleaning in the tops.

I bobbed over to the Trafford Centre to check out the gull roost on the vacant lot by Beyond. Just a couple of dozen black-headed gulls today and a steady passage of lesser black-backs overhead and not stopping.

Southport

Golden plovers, Crossens Inner Marsh

I'd kept promising myself a trip out to the Southport marshes so I thought it was more than high time I got my carcass over there. The trains in Manchester were not having a happy day but I arrived at Southport at the scheduled time and the uncertain weather we were promised after the morning's fog burned away turned out to be a glorious Autumn day.

Along the way in there were a couple of big (200+) flocks of black-headed gulls in the fields between Parbold and Burscough Bridge which I found reassuring after such a thin showing so far this Autumn.

I'd just missed the 44 bus to Marshside so I walked down to Lord Street and got the 40 which stops by the school at the corner of Marshside Road. This bus skirts part of the marine lake which today was busy with herring gulls and mute swans.

Curlew, Marshside

Walking down Marshside Road the school playing field was crowded with curlews, woodpigeons and black-headed gulls and the hedgerow was busy with house sparrows. The marsh on the right-hand side of the road was a lot quieter than usual (except for the spadgers). A herd of cattle were being put onto the marsh and most of the birds were keeping a distance until the cowherding had been done and dusted. Which meant that the marsh on the left-hand side of the road was carpeted with greylags, pink-footed geese, curlews and wigeon. As I passed the herd a stonechat bobbed up into the bushes to check me out before returning to whatever it was up to in the ditch.

Pink-footed geese, Marshside

The pool just beyond the Junction Pool was wall-to-wall black-tailed godwits and the Junction Pool was busy with mallards, teal and shovelers. As I was picking out the runners and riders and establishing that the distant white shape was a mute swan a bunch of migrant hawkers were whirring about the reedbed by the path.

Just before I got to Sandgrounders a Cetti's warbler jumped up to the top of a hawthorn bush and belted out its song before adding to my portfolio of places a warbler was a moment ago. Flocks of hundreds of starlings wheeled to and fro and every so often they'd be joined by hundreds of lapwings spooked off the marsh by some unseen predator.

Marshside 

The pools at Sandgrounders were busy with lapwings, teal and wigeon. There were hundreds of wigeon in the grass, the drakes still mostly in shades of ginger, the few drakes in full breeding plumage conspicuously bright silvery white in comparison. A small group of gadwalls cruised about, tufted ducks slept, shovelers dabbled and a pintail sat just at the edge of a mudbank to preen. Little egrets were few and far between and there were only a couple of Canada geese about. In contrast there were groups of dozens of greylags grazing beyond the pools. Coupled pairs of migrant hawkers whizzed about the reeds and a couple of females were laying eggs down in the reed roots.

Wigeon and tufted duck, Marshside

A chap was asking about merlins as he'd never seen one before. I told him that his best bet was to check out the ungrazed (by cattle, not geese) marsh on the other side of the Marine Drive and walk down towards the boundary fence between Marshside and Crossens as that's where they like to sit. I warned him that it was a 30% chance and that now I'd said it out loud I'd probably put the mockers on it. I always worry about giving people advice like this after I've been and gone and opened my mouth.

Marsh harrier, Marshside

I walked down Marine Drive to see what was about. I hadn't gone far when I started wondering what was putting up a cloud of skylarks in the distance on the outer marsh. Eventually a marsh harrier rose from the long grass and all Hell broke loose. A small cloud of starlings flew across the road, meadow pipits and skylarks went in all directions and the small pool hosting a little egret, a black-headed gull and a pair of mallards was suddenly full of teal and wigeon. The harrier floated around awhile, shadowed by crows and skylarks, before heading off towards the Ribble. A stonechat in the bushes next to me came out to see what the fuss was about then spent a minute checking me out before getting back into the depths.

Stonechat, Marshside

Things settled down then suddenly hadn't. The crows had returned and were giving something a hard time. The something turned out to be a male merlin that outpaced them and flew towards the road. I was hoping it had stopped for a breather on the fence below the bank but by the time I'd crossed the road there was nothing to be seen except the heads of pink-footed geese on sentry go. I hope wherever it went that chap saw it.

Pink-footed geese, Crossens Outer Marsh

Cattle egret, with cattle, Crossens Outer Marsh

It was all pink-feet, starlings and little egrets until I approached the grazed marsh on Crossens Outer. Two cattle egrets were doing what it says on the tin. It's amazing to see cattle egrets next to a busy road and not having a crowd of people staring at them, it just shows how their status has changed over the past few years. 

Cattle egrey, Crossens Outer Marsh

Merlin, Crossens Outer Marsh

I was taking photos of the egrets when a dark shape shot across the line of view. Merlins and cattle egrets still feel like an odd combination. The merlin, this one a female, sat on a fencepost as previously advertised.

Crossens Outer Marsh, Lytham in the distance 

I had a sit down for a breather and a drink and scanned the outer marsh. There were distant pinkfeet and beyond them waves of grey lines of unidentifiable geese shimmering in the haze. A couple of great white egrets towered over geese and little egrets were peppered over the landscape. The distant white dots were either wildfowlers' markers or little egrets. 

Lapwing and golden plover, Crossens Outer Marsh

Wigeon, Crossens Outer Marsh

Closer by yet more wigeon grazed the marsh and teal dozed on the pools with a handful of shovelers. I hadn't seen any golden plovers yet, it came as a bit of a relief to see a couple with the lapwings.

Crossens Inner Marsh 

Lapwings, Crossens Inner Marsh

Lapwings and golden plovers, Crossens Inner Marsh

Lapwings, Crossens Inner Marsh

I crossed back over the road and walked along the bund behind the marshes. Pied wagtails fussed about the water treatment works but the pool on this end of the marsh was empty. Until a merlin flew over and put all the waders to flight. The lapwings split up with one flock eventually settling on the pool near me, the rest going back onto the dry marsh with a flock of a couple of hundred black-tailed godwits and a similar number of golden plovers. Yet more wigeon and teal grazed and dabbled, black-headed and herring gulls loafed on pools and a flock of a hundred or so greylags quietly muttered as I walked by.

Greylags, Crossens Inner Marsh

Teal, Crossens Inner Marsh
Teal are very pretty ducks so I'm having to make a conscious effort not to take hundreds of photos of them. The light at this time of year brings them out a treat.

Wigeon, Crossens Inner Marsh
The head moult patterns on wigeon this time of year always make me look twice. Eurasian wigeon never get the faded straw yellow background colour on the head nor the dark green mask of an American wigeon. There are subtle structural differences which I admit have escaped me with the very few American wigeon I've seen.

Back on Marshside the cattle had settled on the marsh bar a bit of bellowing to let off steam and were accompanied by a flock of starlings.

I had five minutes to wait for the next bus which turned into half an hour, the 44 not being the most reliable service on the books. I got the stopping train back to Manchester, keeping an eye out for owls but only counting pheasants after an excellent afternoon's birdwatching.

Pink-footed geese, Marshside