Foulridge

Hoopoe
A pretty poor record shot but it's there.

It was a nice, sunny day so I thought I'd have a try at seeing the hoopoe that's been on Lower Foulridge Reservoir just outside Colne over the weekend.

Google Maps gave me all sorts of peculiar routes to take to get to the reservoir, all of them dead straightforward from Colne onwards. Getting from Manchester to Colne is a lot easier than Google thinks it is. Unfortunately, the way my trains into Manchester work I'm getting the Barrow train North and have the choice of changing at Bolton for the Blackburn train and missing the Colne train by five minutes and having best part of an hour's wait or staying on to Preston and missing the Colne train by five minutes and having best part of an hour's wait. So I went to Preston, got the York train, got off at Burnley and got the M3 bus to Colne. The M5 or M6 would take me directly to Foulridge but I had a wait for either of them. In the event the M5 passed me on Skipton Road just as I got to Upper Foulridge Reservoir. It's about forty minutes' walk from the railway station or just over half an hour from the Market Street bus stop I got off at.

Upper Foulridge Reservoir 

I had a look at Upper Foulridge Reservoir seeing as I was there. The far bank was lined with cormorants and herons, a couple of dozen Canada geese and a farm goose grazed the bank and thirty-odd lapwings wheeled about before settling into the grass. A bunch of black-headed gulls and jackdaws were bathing by the near bank. There were a few more black-headed gulls midwater together with a couple of great crested grebes and a couple of little egrets were grubbing about by the reservoir outlet channel.

The path to Lower Foulridge Reservoir 

Crossing the road I joined the path going clockwise round the lake. The hoopoe had been reported from the North side and I could have gone straight to the bunch of people with binoculars and telescopes but it was a nice day, I needed a walk and it was an unfamiliar landscape so I went the long way round.

Lower Foulridge Reservoir 

Carrion crow, teal and shelduck
Everything was keeping its distance.

The water looked low despite this year's weather. There was a wide expanse of exposed ground littered with distant teal and a single shelduck. A few mallards dabbled at the water's edge and four wigeon loafed on the bank. There were a few great crested grebes and a couple of tufted ducks out on the water.

Great crested grebe 

The path wound round between a couple of dry stone walls. For most of the way there was willow and alder scrub on the reservoir side, fields and oak trees on the other. Wrens and robins sang, jackdaws mooched around in the fields and I kept hearing hints of a mixed tit flock but could only pick up a couple of long-tailed tits and a great tit.

By Lower Foulridge Reservoir 

I bumped into a couple of blokes and one asked: "Have you seen the bird?" "I'm assuming it's with the crowd over there," I replied. "Aye, get round quick before someone or their dog spooks it." It turned out he was the one who found the hoopoe on Friday, I congratulated him on his find and moved on.

There were plenty of people out walking their dogs around the reservoir and all of them were polite and splendidly behaved. I wasn't so sure about the birdwatchers, every time I looked over they were further and further beyond the cover of the trees by the path until in the end they were clustered on the beach.

Lower Foulridge Reservoir, turning onto the Northern shore

I looked in vain for any wagtails, which is unusual on reservoirs in my experience. As I turned past the sailing club and started walking the North sure I could see a flock of linnets working the beach with a dozen or so meadow pipits. At this distance I was relying on the white flashes on the wings to identify the linnets, it was only as I passed a couple of bends and started being behind cover of trees I was getting close enough to identify the meadow pipits. I couldn't see any birdwatchers.

Lower Foulridge Reservoir 

I got to an open space and saw the knot of birdwatchers. They'd shifted round a good way. Then I saw why they were keeping moving…

Birdwatchers
A detail from the photo above.

There was one lady way ahead of the group who was trying to get a photo of the hoopoe and kept getting too close and flushing it. I got close enough to hear an exchange of pleasantries and in time the lady started walking back. I kept my distance and didn't get involved.

Hoopoe (on second big rock from the left) and carrion crow

The hoopoe was showing well but now very distant in the wide stretch of beach where I started my walk round. (I was spoilt rotten in that my first-ever hoopoe was on a cricket pitch in Collingham and wasn't much fussed by the people crowded round the boundary.) A couple of carrion crows fossicking around nearby provided a bit of scale, a hoopoe's a smaller, slighter bird than they look on their own in photographs.

Hoopoe (lower right) and carrion crows

I returned to the path and carried on walking. A little way along I was able to get a few record shots of the hoopoe through the trees. A bit further along there was a gap in the trees and I was yet closer to where I thought I remembered the hoopoe being (there was a convenient big rock to use as a point of reference) but I couldn't see it at all. There was a little path leading out to the beach here which I didn't take, the poor bird had had plenty enough disturbance.

Along the Northern shore of Lower Foulridge Reservoir 

I was standing by the church yard checking the bus times back into Colne when the bus went past so I had quarter of an hour to wait for the next one and missed the train back. By five minutes. No one to blame for that one but myself. I waited for the next train and changed at Blackburn for the train into Manchester via Bolton, the one via Todmorden being cancelled.

The Colne train's a stopper, unlike the York train I came over on. As we whizzed by Rishton Reservoir on the way up there was a great white egret lording it above the black-headed gulls on the near bank, on the way back it was a crowd of Canada geese and black-headed gulls.

Lower Foulridge Reservoir