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