Martin Mere

Ruff and pintail

It was a milder, cloudy day and all of a sudden it was like the woodpigeons on the school playing field never left. This year's November exodus wasn't as marked as earlier years, and a pair bred locally, but the numbers have still been well down. There was also a fair old sprinkling of them along the trackside as the train took me to Burscough Bridge.

I'd been woken early by the hairy alarm clock which was unfortunate as the last time I'd checked the time before I finally got to sleep it was ten to five. I assumed she wanted her breakfast, it turned out she just wanted the bed to herself so for once I had some tea and toast before setting out early.

Red Cat Lane 

From Burscough Bridge I walked down Red Cat Lane to Martin Mere. Once I got out into the open farmland I started feeling the cutting edge of the wind. The calls from skeins of pink-footed geese flying overhead made it feel colder. Black-headed gulls skittered about the fields, common gulls and woodpigeons foraged on the ploughed land, rooks and jackdaws made a racket in the trees. Ones and twos of fieldfares flew across the road and over the fields, a couple each of redwings and corn buntings kept their distance in the hedgerows over the other side of the fields. Beyond them a tractor sent up a crowd of unidentifiable small birds. I kept hearing pink-footed geese on the ground but couldn't see them.

Pink-footed geese 

As I turned the bend of the road just after Crabtree Lane I spotted a couple of cattle egrets in the field of sheep by the paddocks just before they spotted me and flew off into the next field. I still can't get my head around cattle egrets being regular parts of the Lancashire birdscape. I found the pink-footed geese, they were a couple of fields away on my side of the road. What appeared from a distance to be a very roughly ploughed field was about five hundred geese.

Goldfinches

A mixed flock of goldfinches, blue tits and long-tailed tits bounced about in the alders along the pedestrian entrance to Martin Mere while great tits and chaffinches busied themselves in the undergrowth. I spent some time checking for siskins, redpolls or bramblings, just in case, and didn't find any.

The mere

The mere was heaving with wildfowl and waders. Just in front of the Discovery Hide there were dozens of whooper swans, mallards and greylags and smaller numbers of shelducks, tufted ducks, pintails and pochards. Further out there was yet more of the same, swans and greylags in their hundreds, together with wigeons and shovelers. 

Whooper swan

Mallards, pintails, shelducks and black-tailed godwits

Pintail

Pochard

Greylag and whooper cygnet

Ruff

Ruff

Black-tailed godwit

Ruff

Lapwing

Ruff

Ruff, the same bird as in the last picture, just to prove there's a front end to it

Over on the far bank hundreds of wigeons jostled with hundreds of lapwings and the field just beyond was a sea of pink-footed geese. Ruffs and black-tailed godwits ferreted about on the bank in front of the hide or dozed on the islands with assorted ducks and lapwings. On one of the islands far out a great black-back dwarfed three cormorants — the books tell you that the cormorant is bigger but most of its length is neck and tail, most of a great black-back is hefty fuselage.

Pintails, black-tailed godwits and shelducks

Ruff and black-tailed godwit

I looked around for the snow goose that's apparently still hanging around. I got a bit giddy at the sight of a big white farm goose but put it down to pack of sleep. The snow goose was hiding in plain sight way over on the far bank.

Heading for the Kingfisher Hide as was

A sken over the mere from the Raines Observatory added nothing to the day. Crowds of whoopers, greylags and pintails were gorging themselves on potatoes at the Hale Hide and it was dead quiet at what used to be the Kingfisher Hide.

Teal

It was busy with people and birds at the Ron Barker Hide. The draw for the people was the ring-tailed hen harrier spotted first thing in the morning and the owls and raptors that have been a feature of this week's afternoons. The birds were a hundred or so teal on the pool in front of the hide, a little egret in the sluice in front of the hide, a great white egret in the drain that runs off to become Langley's Brook and a dozen Canada geese feeding in the long grass. A male marsh harrier rose up and floated over the distant reeds, a couple of female/immature marsh harriers floated in from the fields beyond  to join it.

Little egret

The sun had flirted with the idea of coming out to play but it was now becoming a very dull and cloudy afternoon. I wandered back, looked at the trains and decided to take the long walk around the perimeter of the reedbeds and thence to New Lane. My knees weren't convinced but the new boots needed christening. The finches and tits were still in the trees by the entrance and a grey wagtail preceded me along the muddy path.

Reedbed walk 

Pink-footed geese

The hoped-for reedbed birds turned out to be blackbirds, black-headed gulls and dunnocks. It was a bit late and gloomy to expect to see much by the water treatment works fence but at least I added a chiffchaff to the day's tally. Another was calling insistently from the trees by the path further along. Hundreds of pink-feet passed overhead heading for feeding time on the mere.

Leaving the reedbed walk 

I left the reedbeds and walked along the footpath round the rough grazing to the railway line. I hadn't gone far when a ring-tailed hen harrier floated across the field and over the reedbeds. I traced its progress by the lapwings it was setting up into flight. After a couple of minutes every lapwing on the mere was up. The harrier must have carried on its way as the lapwings started to subside, and were immediately back up as a marsh harrier came at them from the opposite direction. The marsh harrier rose and headed my way, joined by two others. Two female/immature birds and a male spent some time circling each other high over the fields before going their separate ways. They were presumably the same harriers I was seeing from the Ron Barker Hide. As I approached the stonechats' collapsed shed I noticed a pair of kestrels hunting over the field near the farm.

Heading for New Lane

I crossed the line and headed for New Lane Station. A few hundred pink-footed geese were congregating noisily in the field behind the wood, all the more noisily as a walker and his dog headed for the farm. A patch of star jelly by the path caught my eye. It's as unwholesome as it is mysterious.

Star jelly

Even late on a cool and gloomy afternoon there was a wonderfully exotic smell from the field of fennel. Hundreds of black-headed gulls squabbled over the water treatment works or loafed on the ploughed field with the dozens of lapwings. As I approached the station a dozen chaffinches took exception to me from the hedgerows before settling back into roost.

Approaching New Lane

The knees were sore, the boots were muddy and I had the good fortune to get a seat with plenty of leg room on the train back to Manchester. Which was a good end to an excellent day's birdwatching.

Salford

Goldeneyes, Lower Broughton 

It was a bright, sunny morning with a heavy hoar frost and I didn't want to do any of the walks I'd planned as options for the day, partly because I didn't fancy sliding about on icy pavements, partly because I'd had three hours' sleep but mostly because I'm bone idle. I had an early lunch and set off for a midday dawdle.

I got the train to Salford Crescent and wandered down to Peel Park. I didn't manage to see any goldeneyes on this stretch of the Irwell earlier in the year, I thought I'd see if I could do any better this time.

River Irwell, Peel Park 

The Canada geese, coots, mallards and black-headed gulls on the river were entirely to be expected. The male kestrel that flew in and sat in a tree in the park wasn't. I don't think of kestrels as city centre birds but there's no reason why they shouldn't fare as well as the peregrines, sparrowhawks and tawny owls (well, perhaps not the tawny owls, the one that regularly haunted the MacDonalds on Chepstow Street having long since become but a memory). For once there weren't any mute swans on the river, nor any dabchicks or goosanders, and no goldeneyes either.

The Meadows

I crossed the river and had a wander round The Meadows. It seemed quiet at first, just magpies, robins and blackbirds. A blue tit and a long-tailed tit bounced about in a birch tree. I supposed that technically it was a mixed tit flock but it was underwhelming. A few minutes later it became apparent that these were just a couple of stragglers, the main body of the flock was in the trees at the end of The Meadows where the river meets The Crescent. A coal tit was the first I saw, followed quickly by blue tits, long-tailed tits, great tits and goldcrests. And possibly a chiffchaff, I had a fleeting glimpse of something the right size and shape for one silhouetted amongst a lot of ivy. I paid a lot of attention to the smaller birds but couldn't turn any of them into firecrests or yellow-browed warblers so I enjoyed them for what they were.

Weir, River Irwell 

The stretch of the river by The Meadows and up to Adelphi Bridge was bare of birds for some reason. Downstream of the Adelphi Bridge it was a different matter.

Kingfisher, Lower Broughton 

The first bird I saw was a fishing kingfisher on the far bank. Truth be known, the first I saw of it was a series of splashes followed each time by a blue blur heading for the bank. As I got nearer I could see that at some of these dives were successful, a couple of times it dashed a small fish's head against its perch. It was too far away for a decent photo but I tried to get some record shots. Most turned out to include an indistinct blue blur barely indistinguishable from the litter and detritus on the riverbank. The kingfisher's hunting wasn't disturbed any by a blackbird flying down for a bath, probably it helped scare the fish out of hiding.

There was a kingfisher there a moment ago

There was a group of five female goldeneyes on the river where it ran over the shoals. They went in for a lot of synchronised diving before flying upstream to Adelphi Bridge and drifting back down again with the flow.

Goldeneyes, Lower Broughton 

Goldeneyes, Lower Broughton 

Goldeneyes, Lower Broughton 

Goldeneye, Lower Broughton

There were just four Canada geese dozing on the river bank with the black-headed gulls and pigeons. The rest of the flock had taken over the Lidl car park across the road.

Moorhens, Clowes Park 

Clowes Park isn't far away so I had a nosy round there. The grass was carpeted with moorhens while squirrels and mistle thrushes rummaged in the leaves under the trees. There was a crowd of black-headed gulls on the lake, crowding out the mallards, Canada geese and coots hustling for scraps from passing strangers. A pair of tufted ducks seemed undecided whether or not they were part of the crowd.

Clowes Park 

I moved on, thinking I'd finish with a stroll over Kersal Dale. I quickly found that the school run was already kicking in even though it wasn't much after lunchtime. The school run, like half term and commercial Christmas, has become so protracted it becomes necessary to identify and treasure those shrinking windows when it isn't. I decided I couldn't be doing with it and got the 52 back to the Trafford Centre and thence home.

I bought a new pair of boots on the way home.

Etherow Country Park

Female mandarin duck 

It was a grey and cold start to the day but by the time the day's errand was done and dusted it had become bright and sunny, albeit still on the cool side. I headed over to Etherow Country Park to look at mandarin ducks.

I got the 25 over to Stockport and didn't have long to wait for the 384 to Compstall, it was late lunchtime when I walked through the car park to the lake.

Mallards, black-headed gulls, Canada geese and coots

The lake had a full complement of black-headed gulls, Canada geese, moorhens and mallards. A few tufted ducks kept themselves to themselves and the mute swans seemed to be stalking the anglers on the causeway.

Black-headed gull

Mallards

Etherow Country Park 

The footpath between the canal and the river was closed for repairs so I had to walk down the road to the weir, which was okay as it wasn't particularly busy today. 

Mandarin duck

A few mandarins pottered about with the mallards by the canal bank but most of the mandarin action was going on amongst the drowned willows in the pool by the weir. A couple of dozen of them had congregated there so the lads could show off to the ladies and bark at their rivals. (Most of the time mandarins have a nice gentle whistle but the drake's bark sounds like a Brussels terrier with a sore throat.)

Mandarin ducks 

Mandarin duck 

Mandarin duck 

Mandarin duck 

Mandarin duck
This chap had just finished a sustained bout of barking at his rivals which is why he is so fluffed up with flags and whiskers bristling.

River Etherow 

The river was very high and the weir was a sheet of water. A few rocks were still exposed downstream but I looked in vain for dippers or grey wagtails. I haven't seen a dipper on the Etherow all year, which I'm hoping is just my bad luck.

Keg Wood 

I had a bit of a wander round Keg Wood despite my knee's suggesting let's not and pretend that we did. The fact that the jays were the most conspicuous birds illustrates how quiet it was. Blue tits and great tits bounced about in the bushes, blackbirds, carrion crows and woodpigeons clattered about in the trees, while robins and wrens fussed about in the undergrowth. I couldn't find where the nuthatch was calling from.

Keg Wood 

Keg Wood

Mandarin ducks 

On the way back I checked the river just in case and only found a fishing cormorant. The mandarins obviously had designs on a busy evening so I made an excuse and left. A raven cronking in the trees over the other side of the river was good to see, as was the family of long-tailed tits flitting about the dead leaves on a beech sapling by the path.

Etherow Country Park 

I got the 384 back to Stockport and we wandered into the sunset after another very pleasant walk. (My boots have suddenly become very comfortable, this is usually a sign that they're going to fall to bits any day now.)