Mersey Valley

Mallards, Jackson's Boat

Yesterday at dawn there were 79 black-headed gulls on the school playing field, today there were just sixteen. If there's a pattern to their occurrence I'm not seeing it.

The early morning's errand done I got an hour's kip, filled myself up with an unseemly amount of tea and toast and took advantage of the bus strike being called off to get the 25 into Chorlton and walk home via a circuitous route.

Hawthorn Lane

I got off the bus at Ryebank Road, crossed over, nipped through Meadow Court and onto Hawthorn Lane into the woods by Turn Moss and thence into Ivy Green. It was a grey morning threatening to become a sunny lunchtime and there were plenty of people — and their dogs — about. As I walked along there was a clattering about by woodpigeons and magpies, squirrels and jays dropped acorns on my head and there was a screeching of parakeets. That last would a constant feature of the walk together with the songs of robins and wrens. There were blue tits and great tits about but they weren't organised into mixed flocks, they were still going around in pairs. Magpies and carrion crows rummaged around in the meadow on Ivy Green and a pair of mute swans flew overhead heading for Sale Water Park.

Chorlton Ees 

Chorlton Ees was similarly busy with people and shy of birds, though they were about if you looked hard enough for long enough. Again the titmice weren't flocking, unlike the goldfinches working their way through the alders and birch trees fringing the hay meadow. Woodpigeons pillaged oak trees, magpies and blackbirds gorged on haws, squirrels filled their cheek pouches with anything going. Chaffinches and nuthatches called in the trees and a great spotted woodpecker flew overhead into the thick woodland. I thought it was too cool for butterflies and a speckled wood proved me wrong as it foraged for honeydew on the leaves of a sycamore tree.

It was all go on the river at Jackson's Boat, there were almost as many mallards as people. Dunnocks joined the tutting chorus of robins, wrens and great tits as I walked past the car park to the path alongside Barrow Brook. A passing buzzard was barracked by a crowd of jackdaws feeding on the field on Sale Ees, they couldn't be bothered taking flight to badger it.

By Barrow Brook

There was plenty enough water on Barrow Brook for a crowd of mallards, the surrounding woodland would have been quiet but for the parakeets and a pair of nuthatches.

Sale Water Park 

The target birds for the walk had been long-tailed tits and moorhens and I'd somehow contrived to see neither until I got to Sale Water Park. The moorhens were puttering about by the islands on the lake. The long-tailed tits were in the only mixed tit flock of the day bouncing through the willows and dogwoods on the bank. Over on the slipway a large herd of mute swans were mugging for scraps, muscling out any Canada geese, mallards or coots similarly on the cadge. On the water every buoy had a black-headed gull on it and the pair that are joined together to form the starting point for canoe races also had a couple of common gulls on the crossbar. The pontoon was standing room only, there was barely enough room for the cormorants to flex their wings. A few black-headed gulls cruised about on the water with the great crested grebes which were staying over that side away from the Saturday anglers. I was surprised to see speckled woods flying across the lake to the islands, I don't often see them out in the open like that.

The willows have sprung up in front of the hide on Broad Ees Dole, scanning the pool with the binoculars was a lot like looking through a series of keyholes. Shovelers and teal loafed and preened on the islands, a few more shovelers and a lot of moorhens rummaged channels through the duckweed. It took me a while to find a dabchick, it was dozing by one of the islands in the middle of a group of teal. The only heron of the day was stalking the reedbeds on the far side. For once there was literally nothing on Teal Pool and my hopes that the Cetti's warbler might have returned came to naught.

Stretford Ees

Stretford Ees was remarkably quiet. Jackdaws and woodpigeons passed overhead and a couple of parakeets called from the trees by the river but even the great tits, wrens and robins I saw going about their business in the undergrowth were staying silent. Unlike the pigeons under the tram bridge by Hawthorn Road that were enthusiastically working at making baby pigeons.

I walked along Kickety Brook onto Stretford Meadows. There didn't seem a lot about in the hedgerows but what was about was making plenty of noise whether it was the woodpigeons and jays in the trees, the great tits and coal tits in the bushes or the jackdaws passing overhead. One feature of the walk was the number of cyclists who were considerate of pedestrian traffic on the paths and said thank you when I stood to one side. It really shouldn't be remarkable but it is and I'm grateful to them all for restoring my faith a little.

Hemp agrimony 

Stretford Meadows 

It had become a warm, sunny afternoon. I freely admit that I was flagging by the time I got to Stretford and heading straight for the steep slope of the mound didn't even seem a good idea at the time. Still, it gave the system a good workout and the knees took it remarkably well. On the plus side it meant that it was a long, gentle coast down to Newcroft Road. There were a remarkable lot of birds about and they were nearly all woodpigeons, upward of two hundred and fifty of them scattered through the hawthorns and young oak trees. Every so often a flock would clatter into flight as a walker or a dog got too close, or in one case when the usual buzzard passed low overhead calling all the way. Aside from the woodpigeons there were a handful of magpies and a couple of singing robins. In terms of diversity it was very below average but I've not seen as much tonnage of bird flesh on here for a very long time. While all this was going on a migrant hawker was zipping around hunting flies over the large stands of Michaelmas daisies.

Parakeets and spadgers called from the hedgerows as I popped into the garden centre for a nosy. I was planning on buying some pansies for the pots by the front door, was very tempted to buy a load of hellebores for non-existent gaps in a couple of borders and ended up buying lavender and catmint for an old strawberry planter I've got by the kitchen door. I probably will buy a load of hellebores anyway.

I had an errand to run at teatime (I got drenched last week and my 'phone's none the better for it). On the way back I stopped off at the station to look at a pretty sunset. Just as I was wrong to think it had been too cool for butterflies I was wrong to think it was too cool for bats. The usual soprano pipistrelle was dancing over the field by the station, and very nice too.

A Humphrey Park sunset

Amberswood

Goldcrest

It was another eye-blastingly bright grey day and cool with it. I seriously considered making an early day of it, getting the train at the crack of dawn, but as by that time I had literally not had a wink of sleep I wondered if this was wise. I fell asleep soon after and got a good hour and a half in before the first 'phone call of the day. Thus refreshed, I drank rather a lot of tea and set off to play bus station bingo at the Trafford Centre. Which is how I ended up on the 132 to Wigan. The options were: get off at Sale Lane and get the V1 into Leigh and thence Pennington Flash, get off at Tyldesley or Atherton and walk over to Cutacre or stay on to Hindley for a wander round Amberswood. The last was the easiest option so that's the one I took.

I got off at the Gregory Street bus stop and joined the path into Amberswood. Robins sang in the hedgerows and woodpigeons clattered about as they tried to pluck acorns from the ends of twigs in the oak trees. At first I thought it was going to be another uncannily quiet walk then I started to pick up an occasional house sparrow or goldfinch in the bushes. I was about a hundred yards down when I started to hear long-tailed tits in the trees. I was in luck, they were coming my way and they stopped to look and tell me what they thought of me. It turned out that they were the rear end of a mixed tit flock consisting of a few great tits, a couple of very elusive blue tits and there was another family of long-tailed tits in the vanguard. I wasn't sure whether or not the willow tit churring at me from a gorse bush was one of the flock or a random bystander,

Amberswood
The path from Manchester Road 

There's a willow tit in there somewhere 

I bumped into another mixed tit flock as the path approached the lake and this sort of merged into the flurry of activity at the lakeside feeders. The most conspicuous bird was a male coal tit that spent most of its time striking poses and calling then ducking under cover whenever the camera got into focus. I decided that I didn't have a chance with the siskins that were bouncing round in the alders then a group of them went down for a drink and I managed a couple of photos with birds in them. A goldcrest was a lot more obliging.

Siskin

All the while a Cetti's warbler was singing in the reeds near by. I'd walked down a little to try and get photos of the long-tailed tits that were swinging about in a willow tree when the warbler jumped up into view, sang, then disappeared back into the reeds. The photo I snatched in response won't win any prizes but it's nice to be able to prove that there is a bird involved rather than some taped replay hidden in the depths for a jape.

Cetti's warbler

Amberswood Lake 

A couple of minutes later there was further surprise when the latest candidate for the last dragonfly of the year turned out to be a Norfolk hawker of all things. It obligingly settled down for a moment before getting back to patrolling the reeds, every so often dashing by me at eye height but not stopping to eyeball me like Southern hawkers do.

Norfolk hawker

Jays screeched and magpies rattled in the oak trees. More siskins flew about, a flock of goldfinches passed overhead, chiffchaffs and chaffinches squeaked from the trees while wrens and robins sang from the undergrowth, A nuthatch called from somewhere, its call oddly echoed by the Cetti's warbler. I'd walked about a hundred yards when I bumped into another Norfolk hawker. This was involved in a dogfight with a Southern hawker over a midgey puddle of a pool by the pathside. The Norfolk hawker disengaged first and flew off over the reeds leaving the Southern hawker as the latest last dragonfly of the year.

Two pairs of great crested grebes cruised the lake. A few black-headed gulls bathed and loafed and a pair of mute swans loafed on the mown grass at the far end. It took me a while to find any coots and quite a bit longer to find the mallards, moorhens and the lone drake tufted duck. A heron lurked in the corner where the path splits for Platt Bridge and Liverpool Road.

Heron
We pretended we hadn't noticed each other.

Most of the fire in the landscape was provided by oak trees

Amberswood lake

Low Hall

I headed for Liverpool Road, crossed over and had half an hour's wander round Low Hall, taking the path that meanders round the pond. There were more mallards on here and they weren't lurking under the banks. A pair of mute swans had parked themselves there to have a preen. I'd hoped there might be some teal on here but not today. A skein of pink-footed geese flew high overhead, calling all the while.  

Honey fungus (Armillaria)

As I walked around I bumped into another mixed tit flock, a family party of long-tailed tits with half a dozen blue tits and a pair of great tits. A migrant hawker became the last last dragonfly of the year of the day.

Amberswood Lake 

I walked back to Amberswood and completed the circuit of the lake, disturbing a water rail which was feeding in one of the gaps in the reeds. It flew like a shot into the depths of the reeds and made pig noises at me. I took the paths taking me up towards town centre end of Liverpool Road, bumping into another mixed tit flock along the way, and didn't have long to wait for the 132 back to the Trafford Centre where a skein of seventy pink-feet passed overhead as I waited for the bus home.

Salford Quays

Black-headed gull, Salford Quays

It was another of those days with little light but plenty of glare. I'd caught up with my sleep and while still not my usual frisky kitten self I could at least pass as human. I thought I'd have a look at my local patch then go over to Salford Quays to see how the gulls were doing.

Lostock Park 

I had a phenomenally quiet walk through the park — even the magpies and woodpigeons weren't much in evidence. There's a sweet chestnut on the corner that looks great but produces thin, spindly chestnuts. For once I found a plump chestnut big enough to eat, I found a place that could use a sweet chestnut sapling, planted the nut and wished it luck.

Mute swan

I got the 250 to Wharfside and had a wander along the Ship Canal at Salford Quays. Mute swans fed in the shallows by the embankment. Out on the water most of the gulls were lesser black-backs, a few dozen of them, with fewer black-headed gulls and a handful of herring gulls. A couple of cormorants were fishing and the Canada geese that were making all the noise were over in Central Bay.

The subadult lesser black-backs kept picking up stray bits of flotsam and carried them about for a minute of two before dropping them. I'm still not sure if it was a desperate search for food or some sort of play.

Lesser black-back

Herring gulls

Most of the gulls around South Bay and Gnome Island were black-headed gulls, with a few herring gulls and a couple of young lesser black-backs. Coots and moorhens pottered about, magpies and pigeons joined them on the mud and cormorants loafed on the sides. 

Cormorant
It would be easier to see if it held its head straight but the angle of its throat pouch shows it to be a sinensis bird.

South Bay

One of the gulls in a dark corner of Clippers Quay had me scratching my head. It looked okay at first sight for a big second-Winter herring gull, I put the darkness of the grey on its back and wings down to the gloom of the corner and the fact I only had silvery-white black-headed gulls to compare it with. The wings didn't seem right, though, they were a bit long for a herring gull and there was a lot more grey than brown feathering. The head wasn't right, either, the streaking was very light with just a bit of eye shadow. A couple of second-Winter herring gulls joined the crowd and immediately confirmed I was right to wonder. So it must be a second-Winter lesser black-back then. A particularly chunky lesser black-back. With a pale head. And mantle and wings a couple of shades too pale for a lesser black-back. I don't have an instinctive eye for yellow-legged gulls, I always end up realising what I'm looking at by a process of elimination when one of the crowd looks more than normally different. In my defence, this one didn't look to have completed its wing moult so there was a bit more brown than I might have expected.

Mute swan

The walk down to Pomona was accompanied by black-headed gulls, mute swans and moorhens on the water and robins and wrens in the vegetation on the embankment. A grey wagtail saw me before I saw it and it flew into the cover of an overhang.

You can't walk down to Cornbrook any more and I didn't fancy walking down the Bridgewater Canal into Manchester so I walked over to White City for the bus home. I'd had my bit of exercise and an early bit of Winter gull bafflement.

The difference a spot of rain makes

Greylags, Crossens Inner Marsh 

A grey, cool and murky Autumn morning turned into a grey, cool and murky Autumn day. I'd headed for Marshside, if the Ross' goose was still about I'd add it to the year list, if not there should still be plenty about. A skylark flew low over the school playing field as I walked to the station and I took this as a good omen.

I'd had a rough old night's sleep, having an early night, getting to sleep sometime after half-ten, waking up at what I thought must be about two o'clock and finding it was twenty-five past eleven. The start of the journey to Southport boded very dodgy indeed but once the train escaped the badly congested rail network of Greater Manchester things went smoothly and we only arrived five minutes late. The official reason for the long stop at Wigan Wallgate is the train crew changeover, in practice it builds a bit of slack in the schedule to catch up for delays.

The walk down Marshside Road was a bit different to a few weeks ago. The land drains were full of water and the marshes were lush. Greylags and Canada geese grazed, small flocks of starlings flew about. Skylarks were nicely in evidence, flying about in ones and twos over the road between the marshes. A handful of ruffs scuttled about a hundred or so loafing lapwings. And Junction Pool had water.

Black-tailed godwits

It was high tide and a couple of hundred fidgety black-tailed godwits roosted by the poolside. Small parties of them fed on the marsh. Mallards, shovelers, teal and a few wigeon dozed on the water. The Ross' goose had been reported here yesterday, the only white birds were a little egret and an Aylesbury duck. A black swan cruised about one of the smaller pools further out in the marsh. I don't think they nested successfully this year. The light was so poor and the godwits so densely packed even the least-worst of the photos rendered them as dark clouds on the marsh.

At Sandgrounders 

A Cetti's warbler sang about I walked down to the hide. The pools by Sandgrounders were nearly full of water. They weren't nearly full of birds, they'd taken the opportunity to spread themselves across the pools and drains across the whole marsh. Family groups of pink-footed geese grazed on the marsh or flew overhead. The wigeons were numbered in dozens rather than hundreds and the drakes were all in their ginger eclipse plumage though a few had already moulted a lot of their head feathers and were showing a yellow flash on their foreheads. The peculiar bubbling effect on the larger of the two islands in front of the hide was a couple of dozen very active meadow pipits scuttling about in the muddy grass.

Pink-footed geese 

I walked down to Crossens Marsh, staying on the inside of Marine Drive. Over on the outer marsh I could see flocks of skylarks and mipits bustling about as they flew between patches of marsh and every so often a party of pink-footed geese would be betrayed by one of the sentries poking its head above the long grass. Kestrels hovered over the marsh and a marsh harrier floated over the distant salt marsh.

Marshside Outer Marsh 

Walking down to Crossens Marsh 

The inner marsh hosted a lot of Canada geese and greylags and a few pink-feet. A pair of carrion crows harassed a buzzard on the boundary fence to Crossens Marsh.

Crossens Outer Marsh looked deserted, nearly all the geese were way out on the salt marsh. A handful of pink-feet pottered about closer to hand. Crossens Inner Marsh was heaving with geese, most of them greylags. There'd been a report earlier that the Ross' goose had been seen down here. The white object I'd kept my eye on walking down turned out to be a domestic farm goose.

Not a Ross' goose
Greylags

The Ross' goose was still about, though. It was with a group of pink-feet grazing on the outer marsh near the river over from the wildflowers' pull-in.

Ross' goose (white dot) with pink-feet (grey dots and smudges)

The murky light turned crowds of loafing lapwings and golden plovers into blobs of charcoal. Even the bright chestnut tones of the wigeons didn't survive much distance. Shovelers and mallards dabbled in monotone, black-headed gulls, little egrets and herring gulls looked flat grey, herons and flocks of teal merged into the background. Only the mildness of the weather told me it was still only early Autumn.

Wigeons

The bund at the back of the marshes

The footpath was being dug up by the waterworks so instead of walking into Crossens for the bus back into Southport I walked down the bund back into Marshside and got the bus there. Along the way an immature kestrel did that daft thing birds do where you try not to disturb them as you pass them sitting on a fencepost so they fly two posts ahead and wait to be disturbed again. And repeat. I'd walked most of the length of the bund before it tired of the game. 

Immature kestrel

The journey home was mercifully uneventful. The geese on the marshes were in their hundreds, there'll be tens of thousands by the end of the month and picking out any waifs and strays will be decidedly more difficult. Something to look forward to.

Teal

Wellacre Country Park

Moorhen, Dutton's Pond 

It was a dim and cloudy morning and I had errands to run that kept me busy well into lunchtime. Then it became a very lovely afternoon, tired though I was I wasn't for wasting it so I had a potter round Wellacre Country Park.

Wellacre Wood 

I got the 256 to Town's Head and walked into Wellacre Wood. Robins sang and wrens chaffed in the undergrowth. Nearly all the movement in the trees was squirrels or woodpigeons. A couple of blackbirds were good to see, they've been in short supply lately.

Wellacre Country Park 

I emerged onto the paths between the fields. Goldfinches and blue tits bounced about in the hawthorn bushes, carrion crows and magpies fossicked about in the fields and there was steady traffic overhead with woodpigeons flying in from Irlam and black-headed gulls flying over to the locks. The swallows have been and gone but the absence of starlings came as a surprise. The latest candidate for last dragonfly of the year, a Southern hawker, zipped across the fields to Jack Lane where the usual crowd of house sparrows were making a racket in the hedgerows.

Jack Lane Nature Reserve would have been very quiet indeed were it not for a couple of magpies in the trees and an invisible water rail about six feet away from me in the reeds. It came as a relief to see some water back in the pools. 

A little water back in the pools

Things picked up as I walked down the path by the railway line. Blackbirds, robins and wrens were busy in the pathside verges, chiffchaffs and chaffinches squeaked in the trees and a good-sized mixed tit flock — a large party of long-tailed tits with a few great tits and blue tits — cascaded through the drowned willows at the base of the embankment.

Mallards, Dutton's Pond 

It was a lazy afternoon at Dutton's Pond. The mallards dozed, the moorhens pottered about and the coots were notable by their absence.

I was dead on my feet, a week's lack of sleep and a couple of busy days had caught up with me so I called it quits and got the trains home from Flixton. It's a daft thing that although it's three stops down the line I have to get the train into Manchester then stay on it and get off at Humphrey Park on the way back. It's even dafter when the train driver has the wrong sheet in his cabin and sails past every station up to Urmston and you have to wait for the Manchester train at Urmston to get home.

Missing

It's an odd thing. Usually, whenever there's wind and rain and the whole shebang there'll be a crowd of gulls on the school playing field dancing for worms at sunset. Tonight, not a sausage.

Intimations of mortality

I had thought I'd get up early and go out to Marshside before the storm broke proper to get that Ross' goose onto the year list. Luckily it was bucketing down at daybreak so I thought better of it. I say luckily, mid-morning it joined up with a flock of pink-footed geese and decamped to Banks Marsh, joining the regular Todd's Canada goose that's come back for another Winter. Banks Marsh is a delightful walk on a fine day, and can be very productive even on a grubby day. It isn't the place to be during an Atlantic storm.

I got to thinking about this year's birdwatching stats, after doing the numbers the other day. I seem to be seeing a fair bit more than I was last year and the year before. Even better than my peak year to date which was 2022. I might do the same again next year. Or not. At some point I'll be recording my decline. I won't be hitting my usual targets. Then I won't be hitting the new ones I set myself. And so on. It's a sobering thought, just the sort I visit on myself on rainy days with my nose pressed against the window.

Whatever the numbers, and however I choose to obsess about them, the important thing is that the birdwatching's keeping me active. If I ever get old enough to qualify for a free bus pass — I'm in that age cohort where the State Retirement Age is always two years away — I'll be the old bloke on the bus from God Knows Where to Who Knows Why counting woodpigeons.

West Kirby

Redshank

I thought I'd best get a walk in before Storm Amy hits so I headed over to West Kirby to see if the Slavonian grebe was still on the marine lake.

Black-headed gull 

Hilbre

It was a nicely uneventful train journey to West Kirby. The weather was fine, a bit of cloud, a stiff but warm breeze, nice walking weather as I wandered down to the marine lake. It was low tide so there weren't many birds about this end of the lake, a light smattering of herring gulls, black-headed gulls and pigeons. Out on the sands there was a procession of walkers over to Hilbre, a few more gulls and some carrion crows.

West Kirby Marine Lake 

Then I noticed the chap with a big lens lying on one of the piers. I looked over to where the lens was pointing but could see nothing. It was only when I walked past him that I had a clear view of the stretch of water he was looking at but I was none the wiser until the Slavonian grebe bobbed up about twenty yards from shore. And immediately disappeared again. I stood and waited, they can stay underwater for ages. Again it bobbed up, took a couple of breaths and was underwater again. This time I got a photo of the water just after it had submerged. I was surprised to see it at this end, whenever I've seen divers, grebes or diving ducks on here it's either been midwater or over towards the Southern end of the lake. The grebe's brief reappearance coincided with the arrival of a mob of herring gulls and it made a quick exit. 

I spent a few minutes hoping to see it reappear but had no luck so I decided to do a circuit of the lake. I might see where it had got to, or it might double back and be fishing here again when I returned.

Carrion crow 

West Kirby Marine Lake  on the left, the Dee Estuary on the right, North Wales straight ahead

I'd started an anticlockwise walk so I decided to finish it, walking along the path between the lake and the Dee Estuary. Gulls bobbed about by the path. Packs of teenaged carrion crows strutted and barged each other about on the mud. Older carrion crows went about their business in ones and twos. I kept scanning the lake for the grebe but only found gulls and cormorants until I noticed a redhead red-breasted merganser fishing just off the main promenade. There seemed to be a passage of rock pipits, at least four of them flew past me over the lake within five minutes' walking.

Dee Estuary, Birth Wales in the distance 

The River Dee was a distant line of silver. It wasn't until I was about three-quarters along the path that any of the small silhouettes resolved themselves into cormorants, oystercatchers and shelducks. Curlews called but I couldn't find them. A little further on and I could easily pick out the shelducks and even the flock of dunlins that flew across the mud. One group of "shelducks" stayed dark even at this angle, they were about half a dozen brent geese but from this range I couldn't tell if they were light- or dark-bellied, I could only pick out that the undersides were greyer than the blackish upperparts.

Dee Estuary 

The path turns sharply round at the Southern end of the lake. Shelducks dabbled in the mud in the mid-distance and oystercatchers and redshanks loitered in the creeks, taking a break after frantically feeding on the ebb tide.

The same creek.
What I thought was a mud formation was a couple of dozen redshanks.

Away down the estuary, a mile or more distant, clouds of pink-footed geese rose and fell over the salt marshes.

There's a viewpoint on the main promenade by the lake and the breakwater rocks here are a favoured roosting place for waders. Sure enough there was a mass twittering of turnstones on the tops of the rocks, within reaching distance of the people leaning on the railings, while the surprisingly quiet redshanks preferred to be out of harm's way.

Turnstones
They were very vocal today.

Turnstones

Turnstone and redshank 

Turnstones 

Redshanks 

Herring gull 

Turnstones 

Redshanks 

Turnstone isometrics 

I completed my circuit. The Slavonian grebe had gone back to the shallow end of the lake but was further out this time, keeping out of the way of windsurfers.

Slavonian grebe 

Slavonian grebe 

On a whim I got the 22 to Chester, I could use one of my complimentary single tickets to get a train home from there. It was an opportunity to remind myself that I should visit Parkgate and Neston again this Winter. As the bus travelled along The Parade at Parkgate wave upon wave of skeins of pink-footed geese passed overhead. I definitely need to make a visit.

I was most of the way to Chester when I saw that a Ross' goose had turned up at Marshside. I had to concede, reluctantly, that a mad dash up there wasn't really sensible. I got the train back to Manchester. It will come as no surprise to the reader to find out the train home from Oxford Road was cancelled. Not that the buses were much better, either.