Marbury and Northwich

Kingfisher, Budworth Mere 

After falling asleep over a tin of beans I got twelve hours' more or less uninterrupted sleep and woke up as stiff as a board but more compos mentis than i have been this past week. I decided I'd walk the stiffness out with a stroll across Marbury Country Park and into Northwich.

The train is scheduled to get into Warrington just as the Northwich bus leaves the station which is annoying but moot as the train's always been delayed ten minutes by late-running express trains. It worked in my favour, though as the next bus to Northwich was the Cat 9a which stops at the entrance to Marbury Country Park. There's not a right lot to do in Warrington if you've fifty minutes to spare (I want to give the exhibition of awful album covers at the Art Gallery a good going-over) so I walked down to Stockton Heath and got the bus there. There were plenty of black-headed gulls and lesser black-backs sitting on lampposts but only a moorhen on the Mersey and a coot on the Ship Canal.

Walking past Marbury Nurseries 

It's only half an hour on the bus to Marbury Country Park, the 9a's a straight run most of its length save a short detour to service Antrobus. I got off the bus and had a quick look over the road at Kennel Wood where the treetops were picked out with woodpigeons then walked into the country park following the path through the nursery car park then alongside the wall and on to the arboretum, for no other reason than I've not gone that way before. In fact it's the first time I've started a walk here instead of ending it and the change in perspective was interesting, and it gave me the chance to look at parts of the park I've skipped by in the past due to lack of time or energy.

Marbury Country Park 

Hawfinches have been being reported by the main car park and one had been reported again this morning so I wandered over to see if I'd have any luck. None whatever. I walked around the car park and the adjoining arboretum a few times but had no luck. There were a couple of big mixed tit flocks with lots of blue tits, great tits and long-tailed tits, a few coal tits and goldcrests and some very vocal nuthatches. Great spotted woodpeckers did the rounds of the bare trees. The chaffinches rummaging around in the beech leaves under the trees were nearly all females. But no hawfinches. "Are you hawfinch spotting?" asked a lady dog walker. "I'm hawfinch missing," I admitted. "There were a lot of people here yesterday doing the same thing. I don't know how many had any luck in the end." I'm not surprised. It was busy with dog walkers and picnickers and there was plenty of woodland in which the birds could lose themselves for as long as they wanted. I gave it an hour and moved on.

Walking over to Budworth Mere 

I wandered over to Budworth Mere. It had become a grey and cool lunchtime and it felt greyer and cooler once I got there. The feeders at the hide were busy with titmice, chaffinches and squirrels and a jay kept popping in to top up on peanuts.

Kingfisher, Budworth Mere 

A kingfisher sat in the drowned tree just in front of the hide, spending most of its time lurking in the branches then popping out to do a bit of fishing. It caught at least one minnow in the time I was there.

It's spotted something…

…and caught it, and has to hid behind the branches to spite the photographer.

Small parties of tufted ducks and great crested grebes drifted over the mere. Over on the far side a flock of black-headed gulls jostled for their turn to sit on top of the mooring piles the cormorants hadn't already taken. A pair of mute swans grazed at the water side with a few dozen coots and a dozen or so rather vocal curlews.

Budworth Mere 

As I walked down the path alongside the mere I bumped into small groups of tufted ducks and mallards mooching in the bankside willow roots.

Jay, Marbury Country Park 

At one point I had to wait a couple of minutes while a jay remembered where it had cached a couple of acorns on the path side.

Jay, Marbury Country Park 

Big Wood

I drifted into Big Wood (no, really) which was busy with chaffinches and mixed tit flocks. And randy woodpigeons. A flock of about forty lapwings silently flew low over the trees heading for the Northwich flashes. A couple of redwings I accidentally flushed from a bramble patch as I passed by turned out to be part of a flock of fifty or so of them. There probably wasn't far short that number of blackbirds but they were scattered around with never more than a handful of them at a time. There was a notable absence of buzzards, I usually hear them even if I can't see them round here.

Big Wood 

The light was already starting to fade as I crossed the Trent and Mersey Canal into the Northwich woodlands. A trio of bullfinches — two males and a female — were feeding in the treetops by the bridge. The woods on this side were very much quieter of birds, there were long stretches where I wasn't seeing anything.

Marbury Lane 

Haydn's Hide 

I walked along the canal then joined Marbury Lane and passed Haydn's Pool. I noticed the sign for the hide so I took the short detour and went up the steep and slippery steps with their rickety hand rails and had a look. I won't be bothering again.

The view from Haydn's Hide 

By Neumann's Flash 

A little further on I took the path to Neumann's Flash. The paths were busy with dogs and their walkers but they were no trouble.

Mallard, Neumann's Flash 

Neumann's Flash 

Mallards, moorhens and Canada geese pottered about by the causeway to the hide on the South side of the flash. Out in midwater was a raft of sixty-something shovelers and a pair of mute swans, behind them a few dozen wigeon and a couple of pairs of gadwall. Beyond them unidentifiable duck-shaped objects lurked in the willows and reed margins. I kept hearing teal but could only find a couple with a group of mallards hunkered in the reeds on one of the little islands on this side of the flash.

Canada goose, Neumann's Flash 
When the photographer doesn't notice twilight creeping up on him.

I wandered down the bund in the gathering gloom then round Ashton's Flash to the exit onto Old Warrington Road. Robins and wrens were having one last song before bedtime and blackbirds chunnered in the hedgerows. 

I decided not to rush and try and get the train to Manchester, getting the Cat 9 back to Warrington instead which in theory gives me a good ten minutes to walk across the road for the direct train home. Warrington's traffic being as it is I jumped ship at the river and walked up to the station and had five minutes' grace for buying my ticket. My bus was still stuck in the long queue trying to get into the bus station as my train arrived.

By Neumann's Flash 

There was a mid-afternoon report of three hawfinches in the trees by the car park. I don't care, I'd had a good day out.