Chelford

Coal tit, Lapwing Lane 

It was a cold and frosty morning and I was curious to see what I was going to do with it. Yet again the promise of sunshine early in the morning was replaced by a mild eternal twilight. It felt like goose weather so I headed for Chelford to see if I could find any of the white-fronted geese on Acre Nook Quarry.

Chelford, Alderney Edge in the distance 

Chelford was damp although it wasn't actually raining. A buzzard sitting in a tree by Knutsford Road supervised the jackdaws, carrion crows and woodpigeons foraging in the muddy fields. The light was so God-awful I gave up on trying to get a picture of it.

Sweet chestnuts, even the squirrels couldn't be bothered with them.

Holmes Chapel Road was busy with jackdaws and black-headed gulls and a small flock of redwings muttered its way through the roadside sweet chestnuts.

The hedgerows of Lapwing Lane were fizzing with titmice, the tutting of long-tailed tits following me all the way down. A few chaffinches showed well in the trees and hawthorns, a flock of tree sparrows flitted along the hedgerows like shadows.

Lapwing Lane 

Acre Nook Quarry 

The gate at the end of Lapwing Lane overlooking Acre Nook Quarry has been replaced by a fence and hawthorn saplings. There's a new gate a little way down where it won't upset the householders at the end, the view's not so good but there's still a view.

The coots and black-headed gulls were easily seen and heard, the teal were heard but a beggar to find, I couldn't find where the greylags were calling from. Mallards and tufted ducks bobbed by the sides, a few great crested grebes cruised midwater with a raft of lesser black-backs and a few cormorants hung their wings out to dry. 

Way over on the far bank four Canada geese hugged the bank but I wasn't seeing any potential white-fronts. Then I looked a bit further along and I could see two grey geese grazing high on the bank. I identified them by a process of elimination. They didn't have the heavy rectangular look of greylags and seemed to have longer wings and they were way too big to be tundra bean geese let alone pink-feet. It was vanishingly unlikely they'd be taiga bean geese but it still came as a relief when one raised its head and looked backwards and I could see a white flash at the base of its beak. It wouldn't be a white-front and a taiga, that would be too unlikely for words, so white-fronts they were. But which ones? At that distance in this light the bill colour was impossible. Going by the generally grey-brown look of the birds, with no dark oily brown overtones, I concluded they were European ("Russian") white-fronted geese. Fifteen of them had been reported earlier this morning, I started to look for the others as the weather closed it and it started to rain. The visibility dropped markedly so I gave it up as a bad job. I'd seen two of them anyway.

The Mosses

I headed for The Mosses, as much for the shelter as the walk, and the rain stopped as quickly as it started. Every stand of silver birches had blue tits and long-tailed tits bouncing round at the end of twigs. A couple of goldcrests added a bit of variety to one flock. Robins, wrens and blackbirds rummaged about in the undergrowth with the squirrels while carrion crows and woodpigeons clattered about in the oak trees.

The Mosses

Lapwing Hall Pool 

The visibility had improved but still wasn't good. About a hundred wigeon were scattered across Lapwing Hall Pool in groups of half a dozen or so. A raft of about a hundred noisy black-headed gulls stuck together. By the banks near The Mosses dabchicks and coots rummaged about while wigeons and mallards bathed and half a dozen goosanders cruised about apparently aimlessly. The great crested grebes out in the middle looked like shadows in the poor light. By the time I had walked round it was becoming properly twilight and the blackbirds and redwings were settling to roost in the brambles.

Lapwing Hall Pool 

The twilit walk back to the station was unremarkable save for how busy Holmes Chapel Road gets at four o'clock. Although it was still mild the damp was stiffening the joints. The Met Office is promising a lousy day tomorrow, I'll make a lazy day of it.