Elton Reservoir

Lapwings

It was a dull, grey day that wasn't sure if it was going to be mild or not. I was going to get up early and go on an adventure but I'd already been awake for hours so decided to postpone it. You need all your wits about you if you're doing anything involving Transpennine Express on a Monday morning. I had myself a pot of tea and some toast and headed over to Elton Reservoir, one of way too many places I've not got round to yet this year. I decided that the flock of goldfinches on the sunflower seed feeders in the back garden was a good omen.

I got the train to Bolton and the 471 towards Bury, got off at Powell Street and walked down to the reservoir. Robins, wrens, chaffinches and great tits sang in the trees by the hospital. The trees and hedgerows by the car park were heaving with birds, the feeders being many and plentiful. There were dozens of goldfinches and greenfinches, plenty of great tits, chaffinches and blue tits, a few reed buntings and coal tits and a flock of house sparrows in the hawthorns in the corner. I was hoping a few redpolls might turn up, I've seen none this Winter (I was falling over them last Winter), but after half an hour I had to concede I wasn't going to have any luck with them today. Woodpigeons, collared doves and moorhens hoovered up any food that fell to the ground. There were a lot more woodpigeons clattering about in the trees beyond.

Greenfinches

A gang of mallards, coots, mute swans and Canada geese congregated on the reservoir by the car park. They were easily outnumbered by black-headed gulls and there were yet more out on the water, perhaps a couple of hundred of them. Oddly enough there were only two herring gulls, both first-Winters, and no lesser black-backs. A pair of oystercatchers called noisily at each other on the jetty by the sailing club.

Black-headed gull and oystercatchers 

Black-headed gulls 

I decided I'd risk walking over towards the creek despite the path's looking like a couple of track bikes had been ploughing through the mud. A raft of a couple of dozen tufted ducks drifted across the mouth of the creek and there were a dozen goldeneyes bobbing up and down amongst the black-headed gulls midwater. A heron flew low over the water and headed off towards Withins. Remarkably there wasn't a great crested grebe to be seen all day. 

Black-headed gulls, tufted ducks and goldeneyes 

Wrens, robins and blue tits sang and flitted about in the trees by the creek. There's been a lot of chopping back done, clearing the creek which had got badly overgrown, but there's still plenty enough cover for the small birds. And the larger ones like the pairs of teal and mallards.

Easy going 

Much to my surprise the path further along was passable and — by its standards — easy going with it being easy to tiptoe round the worst of the mud and most of it dried to a plasticine-like consistency. Walking through thick clouds of hawthorn flies was a taste of things to come (luckily they don't bite). There were more robins, wrens, great tits and reed buntings and my first singing chiffchaff of the year. 

Pied wagtail 

A few lapwings bathed on the bank of the reservoir and a lot more were in the field behind the hedgerow, including a couple of pairs calling to each other and performing display flights. There were also a dozen or so pied wagtails and a few meadow pipits. One of the pied wagtails had a considerably paler back than the others, almost light enough to be a dark white wagtail in this gloomy light; its smudgy grey flanks prevented my getting too giddy and misidentifying it.

Elton Reservoir 

Walking down to Withins Reservoir the air was filled with the songs of greenfinches, robins, a skylark and a particularly loud song thrush sitting on top of the hedge by the path. The reservoir was bare of anything save a couple of carrion crows, it's been drained for repairs though it doesn't look like anything very much is happening.

Withins Reservoir 

I walked back then joined the path past the stables into Radcliffe, the goldfinches and greenfinches in the hedgerows giving way to spadgers and dunnocks.

The 98 bus service isn't the most reliable so it's not a bad idea to position yourself by the Pelican crossing on Ainsworth Road and keep an eye on both ends of the road for either the bus into Manchester or the bus into Bury, whichever one turns up. I had ten minutes to wait for the Manchester bus and twenty minutes later got the bus into Bury and thence home.

Manchester, Bolton & Bury Canal and Railway Company 1842
Elton Reservoir is the feeders for the canal.

Radcliffe Old Hall Farm