A Pennine tour

Jackdaws, Shelf

It's Monday so of course there were a slew of train cancellations to negotiate. I got the bus into Manchester and headed over to Victoria in the hopes that the Yorkshire trains weren't as badly affected for today I was off on a twitch. A scarlet tanager had been found in gardens in Shelf, in between Halifax and Bradford. It would be a nice addition to my British List and it's very easy to get to so off I went.

What started as a cool and overcast day became mild and sunny. I just missed the Leeds train at Victoria so I got the stopping train to Rochdale and waited for the next Leeds train there. This gave me the chance for a good look at the canal and the pool in the middle of the field just outside Mills Hill. The field by the canal had a couple of dozen Canada geese grazing on it. For once we went slowly enough past the pool for me to pick up more than just the usual crowd of coots and black-headed gulls, the pair of dabchicks made it easy by bobbing up and down midwater. The pools by Clegg Hall Road were stiff with coots.

As we crossed through into Pennine Yorkshire the jackdaws and carrion crows petered out. I was going to make the usual crack about Yorkshire being thin on birds but for once there were birds on the Calder as the train passed by: a cormorant South of Luddenfoot and a little egret just after Sowerby Bridge.

I got the 681 from Halifax to Shelf and got off at Bridle Stile. I crossed the road and wandered down to Bridle Dene where the tanager had been seen. I was already a bit nervous having seen the number of parked cars and more incoming. I turned the corner, walked down the road and saw a couple of hundred people laying siege to a cul-de-sac. Lots of people really enjoy the experience and sociability of a big twitch, unfortunately I'm not one of them.

The twitch

Word was that the bird had been seen an hour earlier but had gone into hiding. Not being one for pointing binoculars at houses I hung around on the periphery checking out the robins, dunnocks and great tits in the trees between houses. They and the jackdaws and the blackbirds bounced about but I wasn't seeing anything like a chunky lime green sparrow (only adult males in breeding plumage are scarlet and black).

After half an hour I asked myself how much I wanted to add this bird to my British List and the honest answer was: not this much. I gave it another half an hour and slinked off for the bus. It reappeared a couple of hours later and I'm happy that the people who had the patience for it got it. It just wasn't a situation I was comfortable with.

I got the bus back to Halifax then got the 587 to Rochdale, the better to enjoy the Ryeburn Valley in Autumn sunshine. I changed at Littleborough for the 458 to Wardle, I thought I'd have an afternoon stroll by Watergrove Reservoir.

Wardle from Watergrove Reservoir 

The jackdaws were already starting to read each other bedtime stories as I alighted the bus at the church and walked up to the reservoir. It was a very nice afternoon with that soft golden November light that's as precious as it is rare. 

Watergrove Reservoir 

Black-headed gulls and common gull

Lapwings 

I've never seen the reservoir as low as it was today. A couple of dozen black-headed gulls and a common gull bathed at the end of the spit, carrion crows rummaged about and forty-odd lapwings loafed on the mud. The low sun was so strong I had to use my binoculars to identify a bright, white bird that turned out to be a wet juvenile cormorant reflecting the light. I was surprised there weren't any ducks or grebes about. A whooper swan flew in, landed over at the far side of the reservoir and cruised about for quarter of an hour before flying back whence it came, followed a few minutes later by an immature mute swan I hadn't noticed in the far corner.

Watergrove Reservoir 

Watergrove Reservoir 

Watergrove Reservoir 

Grey wagtail 

I hadn't intended a walk across the tops to Whitworth today and to my surprise I didn't do it. I negotiated the muddy path around the South of the reservoir and joined the metalled path by the step bridge down to Wardle. A grey wagtail fossicked about in the overflow sluice before flying off down the slope. 

A tree full of small birds

One of the bigger trees down the step bridge was obviously a favoured pre-roost gathering spot. Goldfinches, chaffinches, greenfinches, coal tits and great tits were rummaging about in the remaining leafy twigs but it was the couple of dozen long-tailed tits that called my attention to the tree.

Sunset over the moor

About sixty jackdaws were noisily jostling about in the trees behind the church as I waited for the 458 into Rochdale. It wasn't a spectacular sunset, the sky was too clear for that, but there was a warm glow lingering in the sky while I waited for the train back to Manchester. I would have got the train home but, well, you know.

Rochdale Station