Pennington Flash

Reed bunting

It was more than high time for the year's first visit to Pennington Flash. I got the 126 over to Leigh, struck lucky with the number 10 and only took just over an hour to get over there. It was a grey, breezy sort of a day but fine enough for pottering about with.

The footpath into Pennington Flash 

The path into Pennington Flash from St Helens Road was as atrocious as ever and the piles of hardcore cutting off the free parking looked even higher than they did last time. The water was a lot lower, with the brook receded from the banks and some of the Horrocks spit above water.

Crossing the brook I bumped into a mixed tit flock in the trees including my first treecreeper of the year and a couple of goldcrests. Oddly enough, no great tits.

Black-headed gulls

The wind was brisk as a crowd of mallards, black-headed gulls and Canada geese loitered in the car park with a couple of Muscovy ducks. There were more black-headed gulls nearby on the flash with a raft of tufted ducks and a couple of drake pochards. There were more tufties further out with a couple of dozen goldeneyes and a few dozen large gulls, roughly equal numbers of herring gulls and lesser black-backs and half a dozen great black-backs. There was another large raft of mostly unidentifiable large gulls way over at the sailing club side, there looked to be a few great black-backs in there, too. Oddly enough I couldn't see any great crested grebes about today, it's not often I don't see any here. There might have been a couple of hundred coots. I was trying to work out whether three black blobs bobbing about in the distant waves were coots or goldeneyes caught in silhouette when two of them raised themselves up to shake the water off their wings and let me identify them as drake common scoters.

From the Horrocks Hide 

Lapwings, cormorants, Canada geese and herring gulls

At the Horrocks Hide about half of the spit was exposed but only half of that was occupied, almost exclusively by lapwings and cormorants though the car park oystercatcher managed to muscle its way into the crowd. An incoming great black-back spooked the lapwings and they wheeled around for a good five minutes before settling back down. All the while the wind was getting up and the sky getting darker so I decided to make tracks for some more sheltered birdwatching.

Lapwings 

Lapwings 

I could hear teal on Pengy's pool but could only see mute swans, shovelers and gadwall through the hedgerow. There were half a dozen teal on the pool at the Tom Edmondson Hide together with more tufties and gadwall and a pair of mute swans. A couple of buzzards flew over the trees, sparring and tumbling before flying off over the golf course and beyond.

At the Tom Edmondson Hide 

Tufted ducks 

I definitely felt the wind blowing in at Ramsdales Hide and so did the crowd of teal, most of which were hugging the banks of the pool and islands for a sheltered doze (teal and shovelers seem to sleep almost as much as the cat I live with). A couple of herons stalked the far bank and a drake goosander escorted two lady friends out into the bight. It took me a while to find the dabchicks hinneying in the reeds.

At Ramsdales Hide

As I came out of the hide two willow tits popped out of the dogwoods, gave me the once-over, made disapproving noises and joined a family of long-tailed tits in the willow scrub. A couple of dozen goldfinches twittered in the tops of the alder trees by the path, I'm going to have to wait for my first redpolls of the year.

Great tit

I'd worried that the feeding stations at the Bunting Hide had been abandoned after last year's avian flu outbreak but they're back in business with the blue tits, great tits and reed buntings on the feeders, the squirrels and robins raiding the sunflower seeds in the pieces of hollow branches and a dozen moorhens clearing up after them all below.

Grey squirrel 

The wind had blown the rain in so I made tracks for home. When I got into Leigh I had three-quarters of an hour to wait for the 126 so I got the 35 to Manchester thinking I could get one of the buses to the Trafford Centre from Monton, something I've done umpteen times before. Today this turned out to be a huge mistake (think of something huge and make it bigger). All went well until we passed through Worsley when we hit a gridlock. An hour later we'd made the three hundred yards to Monton Circle, the driver managed to negotiate a path through the gridlock onto Monton Road which was dead clear on our side of the road (and going nowhere on the other) and then got a call ordering him to chuck us all off and go back to the depot. In the end I walked into Eccles, got a bus to the Trafford Centre, another into Urmston and walked home. I'll steer clear of Monton and Swinton for the foreseeable until the roadworks season is over.

Despite the weather and the buses it had been a good afternoon's birdwatching bringing the year list up to 116.

By the Bunting Hide 

Leighton Moss

Female ring-necked duck, tufted ducks and gadwall in the background

The weather forecast was uncertain but it was a bright, mild start to the day so I headed off for the wander round Leighton Moss I didn't do last week.

On the way up there were signs of flooding, mostly abated. A few fields still had bits of standing water and the canals and rivers were high. It was likely to be a bit damp at Leighton Moss. There were no waders on the coastal pools, just rafts of greylags and shelducks and crowds of teal and shovelers dozing atop submerged islands.

I got off the train at Silverdale and walked round the corner to the visitor centre. Robins and blue tits sang in roadside trees. The feeders at the Hideout were busy with chaffinches, blue tits and great tits while dunnocks and mallards hoovered up any fallen scraps.

Tufted ducks, coot and ring-necked duck

The water was well up at Lilian's Hide. The relict islands near the hide were occupied by teal and shovelers dozing in the sun. A big raft of coots, gadwalls and tufted ducks stretched across the opposite corner. It took me a while to pick out the pochards, goldeneyes and wigeon in the crowd. Mute swans and mallards cruised about while more teal and mallard loafed with Canada geese at the base of the reedbeds on the far side.

Canada geese 

A female ring-necked duck has been on this pool for the past week so I kept an eye out for it. And couldn't find it until I realised I was looking too hard: it was distant but dead ahead of me. In my defence, it was very active and spent twice as long on each dive as the tufted ducks nearby.

At Lilian's Hide 

A couple of marsh harriers floated over the distant reeds. A passing carrion crow took exception to one of them and harried it down into the reeds. Tables were quickly turned and the crow beat a hasty retreat.

Walking down to the reedbeds

The path down to the reedbeds was fairly quiet despite there being plenty of birds about. Blue tits, robins and blackbirds rummaged about, a small flock of starlings fed amongst the sheep in the field and I had to stop every so often to let mallards cross the path.

The path into the reedbeds

The paths in the reedbeds were damp with some stretches underwater but nowhere more than a few inches deep. I stood by to allow a returning couple negotiate the deepest stretch of water, a couple of mallards swam round their ankles to encourage them.

At the Tim Jackson Hide

Yet more shovelers and teal dozed at the Tim Jackson Hide, the drake cinnamon teal x shoveler hiding deep in the crowds with his beak tucked in his back feathers.

Robin

As I walked over to the Griesdale Hide the air was still and the only birds overhead were a couple of greylags. It occurred to me that the usual black-headed gulls were entirely absent. Robins and blue tits fussed about in the willows and pairs of mallards dabbled about the roots of drowned willows.

At Griesdale Hide

Teal

There were still more teal and shovelers with the mute swans and mallards at the Griesdale Hide. A great egret flew out of the reeds and over towards the causeway.

Mute swan

Walking back I tried, and failed, to find any sign of the usual pair of marsh tits in the willows along the drain by the path. There were plenty of robins and blue tits but no marsh tits. I carried on past Lilian's Hide where a water rail made a cameo appearance on the path, squealed and scuttled off into the reeds. A song thrush fossicked about at the base of the trees by the dipping pool while nuthatches and goldcrests foraged in the treetops. A pair of great black-backs flew in and landed on the pool at Lilian's, calling loudly as they settled. I got to the corner of the path and heard a distinctive sneeze, a marsh tit was bouncing around in the hedgerow by the golf course.

Marsh tit

I got to the boardwalk and another marsh tit came and sat on a willow branch by my shoulder. It obligingly moved a couple of branches down so I could take a photo.

I moved on and got the Barrow train to Ulverston to see what was about on the estuaries and salt marshes. The flooding was a lot more extensive North of Silverdale Station with mallards and little egrets paddling round waterlogged fields. A couple of dozen redshanks flew from the viaduct piers as the train passed by. The salt marshes between Meathop and Kent's Bank were busy with shelducks, carrion crows, little egrets and black-headed gulls.

More carrion crows and shelducks foraged on the salt marsh on the Leven with a few mallards. The river was high, curlews and redshanks roosted on the banks and three dozen wigeon clustered near the viaduct. There's usually a few eiders on the river but not today. As we were approaching Ulverston the train scattered a couple of dozen greylags on the banks of the Back Drain.

I only had ten minutes to wait for the Manchester train, when it arrived I settled down on the inland side to see what I'd missed on the way up. There were more wigeon on this side of the Leven and the pools and drains between the river and Cark had flooded into the fields to make one big pond. Dozens of teal clustered about in the drains while a few mallards and a mute swan drifted about the edges of the permanent pool. The golf course at Grange-over-Sands was inundated, the only birdies (sorry) a couple of dozen teal and a few little egrets. The tide was on the turn and about fifty redshanks started fidgeting on the mudbanks at Arnside. A great egret watched the train go by as we passed the coastal pools at Leighton Moss.

Leighton Moss 

The days are lengthening so I watched the jackdaws, carrion crows and woodpigeons coming in to roost nearly all the way back to Manchester after a very nice day's pottering about.

Stretford

Kestrel, Stretford Meadows

It was a grey but surprisingly mild day with a promise of the rain we're told to expect tomorrow. Still, it held off so I went for an afternoon wander round Stretford Meadows after kicking myself for not waiting until today's crowd scenes for the Big Garden Birdwatch.

Stretford Meadows
The traffic cone marks the palette that sometimes dips under the mud.

The spadgers in the hedgerows by Newcroft Road were very frisky and noisy, not the only signs of Spring as blackbirds, song thrushes and robins were belting out their songs. It's been relatively dry lately so I took a chance and went for a walk out in the open meadow. It was muddy underfoot in places, particularly on the higher reaches of the mound, but nothing too dreadful. The major discomfort was caused by my dressing for yesterday rather than today and being uncomfortably warm.

Great tits called from the trees by Newcroft Road, dozens of woodpigeons loafed in the treetops and half a dozen ring-necked parakeets wheeled around them. There was a steady passage of lesser black-backs and jackdaws overhead.

It was just as busy out on the open meadow. The robins, wrens and reed buntings were tricky to pin down in the brambles. The magpies gamboling about were rather a lot easier, as were the three jays retrieving acorns from their caches. The female kestrel hunted from her favourite hawthorn, when she wasn't being harassed by carrion crows. I've not seen her mate for a while.

I dropped down the hill to the main path and walked along Kickety Brook to Stretford Ees. Blue tits, great tits, dunnocks and robins foraged in the trees, keeping well out of the way of the magpies in the treetops.

Mallatds, Stretford Ees

Blue tits, great tits and long-tailed tits bounced about the scrub on Stretford Ees. Blackbirds, a mistle thrush and a song thrush sang in the trees along Hawthorn Road. The pond at the beginning of Kickety Brook was very high, half a dozen mallards loafed and dozed in the half-drowned reeds and flag irises. A cormorant was fishing in the river just by.

Hawthorn Road 

I walked through Turn Moss for the bus home. All the gulls had moved on to gather before their roosts, leaving a few magpies and carrion crows behind. A coal tit joined in with the robins, great tits and blackbirds singing in the trees.

Stretford Meadows 

My BirdTrack year

Each January I get an email from BirdTrack providing a summary of my previous year's activity and a bit of wider context that I wouldn't get just by looking at my own stats.

My 2023 BirdTrack year

Home and the sites nearby are, naturally, the most recorded. I submit records for home and the school playing field at least daily. If I've been out I'll record them as begin and end points. There are also a lot of dawn chorus records and nighttime records of mammals, particularly the hedgehog that comes to the front doorstep for meals.

I record what I'm seeing as I travel around. Some of my train journeys jump out from the map.

May 22nd, which included a trip out to Martin Mere, was the day when I saw the most species: seventy-four. May's a productive time of year as the days are long, leaf cover's not quite full and there are plenty of birds making themselves conspicuous by song. Martin Mere was also my most productive site, I saw 106 species there last year. There were seventy-one days when I recorded at least fifty species.

I'm frankly amazed I'm the only person to have submitted records for the 10km square including Ravenglass in Cumbria.

Stretford

Barton Clough 

I fooled the birds and did the Big Garden Birdwatch today, the day I refilled the bird feeders. Usually I wait until the day after, to give them the chance to pass the word round there's eats to be had.

I was puzzled by the bird that flew in with a couple of blue tits. It looked about twice the size. Eventually it settled on a rowan twig to deal with a sunflower seed and proved to be another blue tit. It was paler than the others, which is usually a sign that it didn't get a lot of caterpillars in its diet prior to moulting, and looked enormous because for some reason it had all of its feathers fully fluffed out. It was good to see the long-tailed tits, I know they're about but I don't often catch them passing through.

• Black-headed gull 2 overhead
• Blackbird 1
• Blue tit 3
• Carrion crow 1
• Coal tit 1
• Collared dove 1
• Dunnock 1
• Goldfinch 1
• Great tit 2
• House sparrow 15
• Jackdaw 1
• Long-tailed tit 4
• Magpie 1
• Robin 1
• Starling 3
• Woodpigeon 1 

I'd spent the day pottering about but didn't want not to do some birdwatching on a mild, if cloudy, day. I bobbed over to my local patch late afternoon and had the first properly productive visit in a long time.

• Black-headed gull 11 overhead
• Blackbird 1
• Blue tit 6
• Carrion crow 4
• Chaffinch 1
• Dunnock 1
• Feral pigeon 2 overhead
• Goldfinch 27
• Great tit 3
• Herring gull 1 overhead
• Lesser black-back 17 overhead
• Magpie 10
• Robin 3
• Song thrush 1
• Starling 1
• Woodpigeon 3

The usual crowds of magpies have been preferring the schools to the park lately. We haven't had any redwings here this Winter.

I got the 250 bus and went over to Salford Quays for a bit of a gull watch, viewing from Wharfside. I just missed one bus so I was later than planned, consequently I missed nearly all the lesser black-backs and a good number of herring gulls, I saw a lot of them flying South on the way over. 

• Black-headed gulls c.150, about half of these lingered after the herring gulls left.
• Herring gulls c.120 — including two argentatus birds, an adult and a third-Winter — all gone before dark.
• An adult yellow-legged gull was in one of the last groups of herring gulls to leave.
• Two lesser black-backs were amongst the first gulls to leave.

I hadn't twigged this phased leaving the pre-roost here before though I've seen similar on the school playing field and not really registered it because the numbers are so much smaller. I'll have to bear this in mind in future to see if it's a consistent pattern.

Salford Quays

Morecambe

Glossy ibis, Middleton

It was a gloriously sunny morning so I got an old man's explorer ticket and headed North for Leighton Moss. I'd wondered about taking a side trip out to Middleton, just outside Heysham, to see the glossy ibis that's been there the past week but it's a fair wait for the Morecambe train from Lancaster. As it happened, we got into Lancaster late so I decided to go for it.

Waiting for the signal outside Bare Lane Station

It's not a long trip out to Morecambe and I only had ten minutes to wait for the number 5 bus so it was late lunchtime when I arrived at the stop on Middleton Corner. According to Birdguides the ibis was on the field behind the parish hall, just a five minute walk. I got to the field marked on the map and my heart sank. It was a playing field and a very frisky and friendly border collie was having a romp with its owner. There's no way an ibis would be on there.

And no, it wasn't. I walked over to the parish hall, noticed a path by the side, followed it and found myself looking over the gate to a muddy field by the Middleton Road stud farm. And there, in the next field, was the glossy ibis. Glossy ibises either stand out in the open yelling: "Look at me!" or they're so deep in cover you only see their backs, this one was a "Look at me!" It was feeding in the far corner with a small wader and a bunch of pied wagtails.

I took a few record shots of the ibis then spent a while trying to work out what the wader was. Later in the year I'd have twigged it as a common sandpiper almost immediately but they're off my radar this time of year, they were Summer visitors when I first started birdwatching.

I no sooner finally identified the common sandpiper than the glossy ibis took flight. "That's your lot!" I told myself. Then it landed a hundred yards closer on the field. It showed exceptionally well and was too busy feeding to be bothered by onlookers.

Glossy ibis, Middleton

Glossy ibis, Middleton

Glossy ibis, Middleton

I sent Birdguides an update with the correct position marked, I haven't seen it showing on the app.

I had half an hour to wait for the bus back. I checked the train times from Morecambe, Lancaster and Carnforth and knocked the idea of a visit to Leighton Moss on the head, there was no way I could get there before twilight, I'd probably even be too late for the starling murmurations. I decided to stay on the bus and get off at Carnforth Station, I'd have ten minutes to wait for the last train direct to Manchester Airport before the late afternoon gap which leaves me kicking my heels at Lancaster for an hour.

The tide was on the ebb as we passed along the prom at Morecambe. The town was full of herring gulls but most of the gulls on the tideline were black-headed gulls, mostly loafing with oystercatchers waiting for the tide's retreating from the mud banks.

I felt a bit guilty about not having done more of a walk in this splendid weather but not enough to think I shouldn't have gone to look at a glossy ibis.

Etherow Country Park

Mandarin ducks, Etherow Country Park

It was a grey day with bits of might-have-been blue sky poking through some of the corners. I took myself off to Compstall for a wander round Etherow Country Park to take pictures of mandarin ducks in the rain. 

I got the train over to Marple, noticing along the way that the recent storms had blown down the magpies' trial nests at Trafford Park Station and one was starting again from scratch; a buzzard hunting in the railway yard just before Ashbury's; and a couple of goosanders swimming down the river as we passed over Reddish Vale Country Park.

I've tweaked a muscle in my ribs, one of those ridiculously inconsequential yet painful injuries you do to yourself when you forget you're no Spring chicken, bend over and pick up a carrier bag the wrong way. Luckily it's one of the mid-range intercostals so it only hurts if I cough or take the wrong type of deep breath, like when I'm hauling up a steep gradient. Which is why I decided to have a quick potter about Brabyn's Park then get the 383 up to Compstall. It's only three stops but the walk up Compstall Road isn't one of my favourites.

Brabyn's Park
(Yes, the trees do lean all over the shop)

A flock of siskins flew overhead as I entered Brabyn's Park, they headed for the tall trees beyond the railway line. A couple of moorhens skittered about the pond and half a dozen squirrels bounded round on the grass by the car park. Further in, blackbirds and great tits were throwing a lot of leaf litter about while blue tits, robins and a couple of nuthatches rummaged about in the conifers. There was a steady passage of jackdaws overhead as they gave up on the day and went for an early night.

Arriving at Etherow Country Park a flock of pigeons on the car park lay siege to a couple of tiny tots with birdseed until a crowd of mallards and Canada geese barged them aside. Even one of the mandarin drakes muscled in on the action.

Coot, Etherow Country Park

I wandered down the path. A flock of a couple of dozen redwings flew over and headed for the trees by the church, about fifty black-headed gulls headed the other way, probably to roost on the reservoirs near Glossop. The mallards and mandarins hugged the near bank, the mallards were mostly paired up while the mandarins were still thinking about it with a lot of head-bobbing and whistling. The pairs of coots have established their territories and woe beside any passing coot or moorhen taking any liberties.

Mallard, Etherow Country Park

Mandarin duck, Etherow Country Park

Mandarin duck, Etherow Country Park

Mandarin duck, Etherow Country Park

Mandarin duck, Etherow Country Park

The river had dropped enough for it to be worth my while looking for dippers and high enough for me not to be disappointed in my birdwatching skills when I didn't find one. A grey wagtail whistled as it flew downriver.

Heron, Keg Wood

I said a very quick hello to Ernocroft Wood and an even quicker one to Keg Wood. Walking up a couple had asked me if I'd seen any herons. I hadn't at the time. About ten minutes later I found one on the river just upstream of the weir, I could see another on the bend of the river visible at the start of the path into Keg Wood, and I was to bump into another downriver of the weir on the way back.

Mandarin duck, Etherow Country Park

The sun set as I wandered back and got the 383 into Stockport where I arrived just in time to have to wait half an hour for the next bus home.

Mallards, Etherow Country Park
One of the photos where I was playing with manual settings.

Using the camera was a little bit easier today, I didn't find myself moving my hand to counterbalance a long, heavy lens that wasn't there and I'm starting to get the hang of the zoned auto focussing which felt a lot random yesterday. I was struggling when I was trying to take photos in really poor light, and this showed when I reviewed the results at home. By pure dumb luck the photos taken with manual settings were the least worst. Bridge cameras aren't as amenable to pushing your luck in lousy light as DSLRs but I think there's a hell of a lot of potential for doing tons better than I have done so far. There's a lot of experiment and practice needed there.

A wolf moon