Spike Island

Ruddy shelducks 

After a ropey old night's sleep a cool, grey and miserable July day rather fitted my mood. So I went over to Spike Island to see if I could add ruddy shelduck to the year list.

I got off the 110 bus from Warrington, walked down the road and through the car park to the canal where a pile of pigeons clustered by the bank and a dozen mallards cruised up and down in the company of a couple of families of coots and a couple of Canada geese.

Ruddy shelducks 

I crossed over the canal onto Spike Island and looked down towards the estuary. The first birds I saw were a pair of ruddy shelducks dabbling in the mud.

Ruddy shelducks 

Ruddy shelducks 

Male ruddy shelduck

Female ruddy shelduck

Ruddy shelducks and common shelduck 

It was just gone low tide and there were plenty of common shelducks dabbling about in the mud. Small flocks of gulls — none more than a couple of dozen birds — sat on mudbanks, mostly black-headed gulls close to this side of the river, a mixture of herring gulls and lesser black-backs further out. Over by the far bank about fifty lapwings were spaced out on the mud like chess pieces on a board. A few redshanks rummaged about amongst them. Closer by, at the corner by Victoria Gardens, there were half a dozen waders with the loafing mallards on the rocks. I was about to give up on them when one bobbed up onto one of the rocks and showed a black belly. I know we can usually assume any group of small waders are likely to be dunlins but it's good to be sure of it. Cormorants swam in channels, carrion crows rummaged about in the mud, egrets were notably absent.

Coots

I took a walk round the island. A dozen mallards dozed and dabbled in the pond while a pair of coot kept their very young chicks well away from a heron. A single cob mute swan and a single drake tufted duck pottered about, hopefully a sign that their mates were sitting on nests somewhere. The drake mallards were in that motley phase of the eclipse moult where patches of brown feathers poked through the grey and vice versa. A couple of near full-grown ducklings were showing hints of green about their heads. Amidst this assortment of sizes and plumages I almost missed the pair of gadwall lurking by the reeds, the drake in his eclipse plumage looking very similar to the mallard ducklings.

A swarm of house martins were hawking over the path, some swooping down to ankle height. I spent ten minutes trying to get a photo of one or any of them. I don't know why I do this to myself.

Mersey Gateway Bridge 

Upstream near the Mersey Gateway Bridge a herd of about thirty Canada geese were grazing on the bank on this side. I looked in vain for any waders on the mud below the bank.

Walking through the trees to the canal I kept hearing robins ticking at me as I passed but couldn't find them. The singing chiffchaff and song thrush were equally invisible in the tree cover. A few blackbirds and moorhens feeding on the ground let me preserve a little honour.

It was way too cold for butterflies or dragonflies and the rain in the air was becoming ominous. I had one last look at the ruddy shelducks and went for the 110 back to Warrington and thence home.

Female ruddy shelduck