Thwarted

It was going to be a wild and woolly day after a wild and woolly night. A perfect excuse for staying at home and drinking far too much tea. A white-winged black tern — a lifer for me — had been delighting observers at Marshside yesterday so I decided to head out that way. There was a high probability that with birds on the move and high winds on the go the tern would have moved off overnight but you never know your luck. And if, as likely, it had moved on I could still have a nosy to see what was about.

The train journey to Southport was spot on. The wind and rain kept most birds under cover but there were jackdaws, crows and woodpigeons in the fields and the damp fields just outside Parbold had scores of rooks and black-headed gulls.

Arriving at Southport I crossed the road and waited for the 44 bus. And waited. I checked Arriva's live bus tracker, buses were coming but they never came. They're every quarter of an hour. I gave it fifty minutes and gave up. I could have walked to Marshside in that time, though in this weather there's a world of difference between doing that and toddling down to the end of Marshside Road from the bus stop.

I had a bit of a wait for the train but for once it was sitting there with the doors open so there wasn't a rush to get on and I could have a sit down. What to do next? I could get off at Burscough Bridge and walk down to Martin Mere, there's a lot happening there at the moment what with a glossy ibis being there the past few days and a possible crane being reported this morning. Of course, walking to Martin Mere in this weather would be at least as bad as walking to Marshside and I'd be walking into the wind all the way. Still… 

The train chugged along, the trees bent, the rain fell, I went home.

The tern didn't reappear today. I'd have been gutted if it had.

Mugshots

Blue tit

This feathered hooligan is very given to tapping on windows to catch spiders. At the moment all the spiders' webs are on the outside because I had a passing moment of housekeeping.

Blue tit

The same bird as above a bit more relaxed so the feathers on the head aren't so fluffed up. The moult into fresh Autumn plumage isn't quite complete, there are still white feathers to come behind the eyes.

Great tit

The great tits always announce their arrival. The blue tits and spadgers can be around for ages before any of them make a sound. The usual first sound from the spadgers is the senior bird calling everyone back to cover.

Spadgers
For some reason this reminds me of that famous photo of Butch Cassidy and The Wild Bunch.

The two old troupes have split up and coalesced afresh so this group includes both silver-cheeked and tawny individuals. The three cocks left of centre are a couple of years old and come from the tawny troupe. They have a yellowish cast to their lead-grey underparts and cheeks. The cock in the bottom left-hand corner shows the bright light grey underparts that was a feature of the silver troupe. The variations in the hens are a lot subtler, the silver troupe had a tendency to include paler birds with more uniform upperparts and occasional white tail feathers (there was one I've not seen for a while that had one half of its tail white). The uniformly beige hen sparrow that was around a few years ago was in this group. Old silver cheeks is top centre with his back to us.

There's a gratifying number of young birds here. The bird third left is a juvenile cock moulting into first-Winter plumage, he's got his grey cap and his black bib is limited to his throat. Older cock sparrows get bigger bibs. There's a very young-looking hen sparrow to the left of old silver cheeks, the last batch of fledglings turned up last month.

Some of the other birds from the two old troupes have joined the group based at the station. That seems to include the two dark iron-grey cock sparrows. It's quite a fluid situation still and the territories, insofar as they bother having them, overlap at the station entrance. I've still not worked out if the birds near the bus stop by the old library are a separate group to the one at the station. I suspect they are but they're more often heard than seen so I've not been able to try and identify any individuals.

Damp Saturday

Irlam Moss

The plan was a good plan and probably would have been a successful plan but for me and the weather. The rot probably set in when I checked the tide times and concluded I'd best get the lunchtime train to Liverpool to get to Hoylake about an hour before high tide so I could catch the waders coming in and, perhaps, if I was very, very lucky, there might be the chance of a passing Leach's petrel. It was a good plan, it wasn't its fault I felt lukewarm about travelling far on a Saturday. Once I got going it would be different. On the plus side it was a sunny morning. And continued to be so right up to the point I arrived at the station. There's even less shelter at the station than there used to be as the rickety metal shelter thing with no sides fell to pieces a month ago. When the train arrived the best part of quarter of an hour late I was very, very wet and thoroughly demoralised.

I was on the train, where was I going? The good thing about having no ticket facilities at the station is that you don't have to commit yourself to going anywhere until you do. After much havering about I got off at Birchwood. It had stopped raining but still looked ominous, I'd have a quick nosy at Birchwood Forest Park and get a train back. At least that way I'd get some exercise and a bit of birdwatching in.

Woolston Moss 

As the train pulled into Birchwood Woolston Moss was peppered with woodpigeons and black-headed gulls. There were plenty of woodpigeons grazing the grass verges of Birchwood, mostly accompanied by the rattle of magpies and the songs of robins in the trees.

Birchwood Forest Park 

Birchwood Forest Park was quiet of people and busy with birds. Blackbirds scuttled about the verges, magpies and woodpigeons seemed to be everywhere and there were some fair-sized mixed tit flocks about. I was alerted to their passing by the calls of great tits but none of the birds, even the coal tits, were particularly shy. I was trying to get photos of the second, larger, flock and was being defeated by their being so busy and the leaf cover so dense when they all went quiet and hid. Overhead, at treetop height, two magpies escorted a sparrowhawk off their patch. The tit flock re-emerged and was joined by a handful of chaffinches which set about the cones at the top of an alder.

When I got back to the station the sun came out so I decided to get off at Irlam and go for a walk on Irlam Moss. If weather and mood allowed I could carry on onto Chat Moss but I was dubious of both.

Irlam Moss 

It was cool but sunny as I walked down Astley Road and there was a definite edge to the wind. A chiffchaff sang in the church garden as I passed by. The Zinnia Close spadgers muttered in the hedgerows and robins and woodpigeons sang in the trees. The fields of turf were empty, or so I thought until a cock pheasant walked into plain view then disappeared into a clump of cow parsley at the field edge. A cock sparrowhawk soared overhead and drifted over into town. His departure was the cue for a flock of goldfinches to fly up twittering into the trees.

Astley Road 

The wind got up and I was showered by conkers. It was blowing for rain and I could smell rain in the air so I had an idea it might rain. Which it did do when I got to the Jack Russell's gate. It was a sudden downpour which stopped as abruptly as it started. The male kestrel on his usual perch on the telephone wires above the field looked browned off with the weather, too.

The weather brightened considerably as the rain clouds scudded over towards Urmston. There was a passage of swallows, all of them heading West. A scan over the rough pasture between Prospect Grange and the motorway didn't even find me any woodpigeons. There were plenty of starlings on the communications tower by the motorway bridge, though, and a handful of house martins flew West over the road here.

Roscoe Road 

I decided not to cross over and walk over Chat Moss. The knees were creaking and I had a feeling I might be pushing my luck. I turned and headed down Roscoe Road. There were woodpigeons and carrion crows aplenty on the fields beyond the turf fields but literally nothing on the turf itself. A few black-headed gulls flew over, accompanied by a handful of very vocal jackdaws. I wondered why everything was flying West. The fields between Roscoe Road and Astley Road were a little better, robins and dunnocks in the rough pasture at the junction, chiffchaffs and great tits in the trees, and magpies rummaging about in the field stripped of turf, but again the fields covered in turf were barren.

I can forgive myself not spotting this grey partridge first time

I scanned all the field margins for any grey partridges and found none. I was disappointed but not surprised, there was plenty of cover for them. I'd almost reached the housing estate when I stopped to try and work out what a crowd of carrion crows and jackdaws were doing in the far corner of a field of barley stubble. It turned out they were having a bath, though they spent more time striking poses and bickering than bathing. The light was interesting so I got my camera out to take some landscape photos and in doing so I noticed a dark lump in the field about ten yards in front of me. The grey partridge looked up, looked at me and put its head down and pretended to be a rock.

Irlam Moss from Roscoe Road 

A few more swallows shot past as I reached the housing estate. I walked down to Liverpool Road and got the 100 back to the Trafford Centre and made an easy connection with the 25 for once. I'd just brewed a cup of tea when the thunderstorm started.

Wellacre Country Park

Swallow

It was another of those sunshine and shower days, though without the thunderstorms. Each time I put my boots on to go out the sunshine faded and it started bucketing down. It might be my age (it can't be, I'm Peter Pan), it might just be that I revert to sluggardly ways without the late cat spurring me on to beggar off out of her house so she can get some kip, whatever, I'm struggling to motivate myself to get out for a walk in lousy weather. In the end I got stir crazy and went out for a walk in Flixton and didn't get wet at all.

Spadgers
It's quite intimidating when they tool up en masse like this.

The spadgers were in the garden in numbers. They and the titmice did an efficient job of demolishing the fat balls I put in the feeders this morning. 

Notable absentees lately have been blackbirds. This time of year I'd usually have a few taking up residence in the rowan tree denuding it of berries. As it is even the magpies have got a bit bored with them as they've been splitting their time gorging on the whitebeam berries on the other side of the school and establishing the group dynamics of the Winter gang on the playing field. I did wonder if the blackbirds had all decamped to feast on what has been a very good year for haws and elderberries but I've been seeing lots of berries and scant few blackbirds.

Grey squirrel and woodpigeons
They sat like this for ages. There's obviously a backstory.

River Mersey at Flixton Bridge 

lI got the train into Flixton and walked down to Flixton Bridge to see what was on the river. A dabchick bobbed about in the current upstream of the bridge. I caught a drake teal disappearing into the cover of the willows on the bend downstream of the bridge. It's the first teal I've seen here. There's no reason why they shouldn't be here, I just haven't seen them. As I was looking to see if there were any more a kingfisher shot upstream and under the bridge. It's been a very good month for kingfishers.

Common darter 

I walked down and joined the path onto Green Hill. From this side it's easy to follow the path to the top of the hill without noticing the climb so I did that. Robins and woodpigeons sang in the trees and there were the calls of magpies and carrion crows in the fields but it was otherwise quiet. A couple of buzzards quietly circled the overgrown lagoons below the hill then drifted off towards Carrington Moss. Common darters zipped around the paths in the open ground on the plateau.

Pincushion galls on oak

Green Hill 

I'd seen plenty of large whites and speckled woods on the brambles at the foot of the hill. Up on the open scrub red admirals and painted ladies fed on the Michaelmas daisies and the last of the thistles.

Painted lady

I walked down into the patch of woodland where goldfinches twittered, great tits and chiffchaffs squeaked and squirrels bounced about in the canopy. 

Ducking under the railway I was confronted by temporary fencing and machinery, the gas mains running by Dutton's Pond are going to be dug up. There was repair work being done on the pond so it was fairly quiet. The coots were out in the open but the mallards and moorhens took some finding.

Dutton's Pond 

A nuthatch was calling in the trees as I set off towards Jack Lane. The mixed tit flocks in the trees on the embankment were hinted at rather than seen, occasional contact calls by blue tits and great tits and the bouncing of leaves.

Walking to Jack Lane 

The pools on the nature reserve were dry

There was more of the same at Jack Lane, with chiffchaffs and dunnocks joining in and even making an appearance by the pathside. Despite the recent weather the pools were just wet mud, some places for robins to skitter about. A handful of house martins hawked at treetop height over the reedbeds and were joined by a few swallows.

Swallow

Swallows were swarming low over the fields the horses were grazing. You never know when the last encounter with Summer migrants will be, I debated whether or not to have one potentially last go at getting swallows in flight and in the end caved in to the impulse.

Heron

I walked down Jack Lane into Town Gate and walked down Irlam Road to the locks. The house sparrows were busy in the hedgerows and the first starlings were turning up to the pre-roost on the electricity pylons. A heron sat on the opposite bank when I got to the canal. A few mallards drifted about listlessly on the water, fifty-odd black-headed gulls split their time between bathing in the canal, squabbling about getting splashed by new arrivals' landing on the water and loafing on the lockside with a few lesser black-backs and herring gulls. The pigeons were already roosting on the big lock gates.

Black-headed gulls 

A few more black-headed gulls fed on the filtration beds with a crowd of magpies and a grey wagtail.

Downstream of the locks cormorants loafed and preened on the lockside or fished in pairs by the gates. Three great crested grebes slept midwater and mallards hugged the banks. For once there was no sign of any mute swans.

Cormorants 

I wandered back and got the bus home from Town Gate. For all the wind and clouds it had kept fine after all.

Cormorant 

Rainy days and butterflies

A mixed tit flock has been visiting the garden this past couple of days, the first proper one of the Winter. The fat balls have enticed the long-tailed tits out of the sycamore trees and they've been spending the sunny spells asserting a monopoly on the feeder in the blackcurrant bushes. The great tits, blue tits and at least one coal tit have been splitting their time between the different feeding stations depending on how crowded with house sparrows and/or the squirrel they are. The dunnocks are showing themselves again and spend most of their time fussing about on the garden chair. The impulse to investigate is tempered by the concern that I might not want to find out. 

Then come the showers and all they disappear into cover. If it's a light shower the spadgers hop up into the higher reaches of the rambling rose for a quick bath. There haven't been a right lot of light showers today. The thunderstorms (plural) put me off going for a walk.

Butterflies

The weather reminded me of last year's Summer, which in turn reminded me that Butterfly Conservation had announced the results of The Big Butterfly Count for this year. Unsurprisingly the results are markedly better than last year, which was a shocker. I'm also not at all surprised that large whites had their best year in the survey, they've accounted for over 60% of my sightings this year, last year it was just over half and the years before that about 40%. Speckled woods are the butterflies I see next most often (not least because they're a fixture in my back garden from April to October) and this year has been no exception. It's also difficult to walk down any woodland path or ride without bumping into some of them. The holly blues are fixtures in the back garden, too, but a lot less conspicuous than the speckled woods as they don't have their combative nature. I don't see them nearly often enough elsewhere.

Large white, Wellacre Country Park 

I had a bad year for small tortoiseshells last year and this year was looking like a repeat performance up to mid-August when they started showing up in any sort of numbers. Commas and red admirals were slow burners, too, with red admirals exploding in numbers in August. Peacocks, on the other hand, were almost ubiquitous up to the end of July then dwindled. Its been a good year for painted ladies, too.

Painted lady, Grange-over-sands 

For me orange tips and brimstones are butterflies of Spring and meadow browns, ringlets and gatekeepers high Summer. The pattern's persisted this year though ringlets have been few and far between.

Back in the days when there was "waste" ground aplenty and the Trafford Centre was dairy pasture I used to see lots of small coppers and green-veined whites locally. I have to go further afield these days and don't see so many even then.

I don't know if it's been a bad year for skippers or if I've just not had my eyes open. Perhaps I just timed my walks through meadow lands badly this year.

Rain (and train) stopped play

The weather forecast looked decidedly iffy, to put it mildly. Not a day for walking abroad half an hour or more from public transport. I decided I'd get an old man's explorer ticket [1] and ride round to a few places close to railway stations so I could beat a hasty retreat when the rain hit but still try and fill in a few gaps. 

Normally when I'm planning on hit-and-run birdwatching like this I aim for Leighton Moss and the Furness Line but I did that last Thursday. I decided to head South instead, the plan being to go down to Stoke for half an hour's wander round the nature reserve at Staffordshire University ten minutes' walk from the station then get the train across to Crewe (a journey not covered by the explorer ticket but not expensive) and either visit Sandbach Flashes or, more probably, Mere Farm Quarry at Chelford. The flashes would be pushing my luck with the predicted weather but you never know for sure with fast-moving broken shower patterns so I had them pencilled in as a possible. Then I'd go as the spirit bade me.

I set off on a sunny but cloudy morning got to Stoke and wasted ten minutes by leaving from the wrong exit and having to walk round. It made no odds in the end but it's a daft mistake. I walked down to the bridge where, a couple of years ago, I was five minutes too late to see or hear a marsh warbler. It's late in the year for hearing most warblers but there was the reassuring squeak of chiffchaffs in the willows. There was also an incessant clatter and rattle of woodpigeons and magpies in the trees about.

The River Trent by the bridge

And downstream

I followed the path beside the River Trent. At the bridge it was a sluggish, turgid stream, twenty yards downstream it abruptly became a bubbling brook. I couldn't see the reason for such a sudden transition. A few dunnocks and great tits rummaged in the undergrowth, a party of long-tailed tits bounced through the hedgerows and family groups of goldfinches twittered through the treetops. The only swallow of the day twittered as the breeze carried it quickly overhead.

I was thwarted in my attempt to visit Manorfield Pools, the path was blocked by construction work on a new bridge. I turned back and took a looped walk along the fields and back down to the bridge, passing robins, squirrels and blackbirds along the way and disturbing a lot of speckled wood butterflies.

Canada geese at Hanley Park 

I had time before my train was due so I walked over the rugby pitches to the main road, crossed over and had a look round Hanley Park. I'm a great believer in urban parks as wildlife oases though they tend to be most productive in late Winter and Spring. Still, this time of year anything can be anywhere, especially young birds on their first migrations, and don't look don't see. In the event the small birds were very thin on the ground, or in the bushes. A gaggle of Canada geese knew which were the best benches for the best views of the lake and stationed themselves accordingly. A crowd of mallards loafed under trees, mute swans and coots cruised the lake, moorhens rummaged on the banks and magpies rummaged on the lawns. An unspectacular visit perhaps but reassuring in its way.

It had clouded over so it wasn't surprising that it started raining soon after the train passed through Etruria (the station trains never stopped at now being a figment of history). The rain got heavier at Alsager and the sky was black at Crewe. Sandbach Flashes were off the agenda. I checked the trains and the weather. Chelford was off the agenda, too. I'd be best sitting on the train counting the woodpigeons in the fields on the train back to Manchester then go on from there. Despite the weather there were plenty of woodpigeons, crows and rooks along the way. The surprise of the day was a red kite floating its way overhead just before Wilmslow.

The train had a long stopover out of the pouring rain at Manchester Airport (if you ever wonder why the journey between Styal and Heald Green, two miles away, takes twenty minutes). I looked at the options and concluded it wouldn't be a bad idea to get the train home from Manchester, get a pot of tea and something to eat and then head out for a second outing. And it wouldn't have been a bad idea had the train home from Oxford Road been cancelled with the next one due an hour and a half later. I looked at the options and byconceded defeat. I made my way home as best could and arrived about a quarter of an hour earlier than if I'd sat at Oxford Road for an hour and a half.

[1] A Northern Explorer 55 West. I think the code is N5W.

Pennington Flash

Long-tailed tits 

The robin started singing five minutes before dawn. Yesterday had been a long and tiring day, I was exhausted when I got home then had to run an entirely unnecessary errand, and I'd had a fitful night's sleep so I wasn't feeling at what passes for my best. Then the sneezing started. I galloped my way through the hypochondriac's lexicon while I made a pot of tea then looked out of the window and saw they were mowing the school playing field. It was a bright, sunny day, I decided on an afternoon dawdle round Pennington Flash.

The changes to the timetable for the 132 and 126 have settled down now. The 132 is scheduled to leave the Trafford Centre at five past and thirty-five minutes past the hour and the 126 at ten to the hour, except the times when they don't. I can sort of see the rationale for the fidgeting the times about but it plays hob with planning a journey. Anyway, I got the 132, got off at Sale Lane and got the V1 to Leigh, arriving two minutes before the 126 I'd have had twenty more minutes' hanging around the Trafford Centre bus station to get. 

There was still at least one house martin flying about the Sale Lane bus stop. This time of year I don't expect to see much down the V1 guided busway besides the magpies and woodpigeons on the grass verges. The hedgerows alongside are pretty dense, the leaves hiding all the small birds in there. A flyover raven as we passed through Tyldesley was a nice surprise. It looked to be heading for Cutacre. 

A bigger suprise came further along as we skirted Lilford Park. The bus had had to slow for a crossing point, as we passed a large tree in the hedgerow a small brown bird flew out from a branch, caught a fly and settled back on its branch. Which is how spotted flycatcher got added to the year list. I was almost as surprised at immediately recognising it as seeing it, they just have a completely difference jizz to our other birds but I see them so rarely these days I forget that. Back in the days when they were a regular, if uncommon, feature of my birding year the mantra was always: "Look for the interface between dark and light." Sitting in the depths of a well-covered tree next to a brightly sunlit busway would be spot on.

Pennington Flash Country Park 

I got the 610 to Pennington Flash and walked in from St Helens Road. As I got off the bus a buzzard floated slowly overhead, shadowed by a couple of black-headed gulls. A mixed tit flock rummaged through the hedgerow by the meadow, a couple of goldcrests popping out of the hawthorns to let me know they'd seen me before getting back to the business of gleaning insects from the leaves. The brook looked in a healthier condition than on my last visit and a bunch of mallards were fussing about by the bank.

Black-headed gull and mute swans

Tufted ducks 

The flash and the car park were busy. Nearly all the birds on the car park were Canada geese, most of the mallards preferring to sit in crowds under the trees and most of the mute swans herding together at the head of the brook. The usual sundry collection of black-headed gulls, moorhens and coots loafed by the bank. Out on the water there were large rafts of birds: tufted ducks fairly close in, coots further to the opposite bank and large gulls, mostly lesser black-backs, out in the middle. A few great crested grebes cruised about and a fishing party of a couple of dozen cormorants steamed out into the middle just short of the gulls. It's a long time since I've seen more than a handful in one of these groups. I couldn't see what they were catching but it looked like they were pretty successful at it. I'd heard a few chiffchaffs on the way in, a not-quite chiffchaff squeak in one of the bushes made me stop and I found a willow warbler in nice, clean yellow Autumn plumage rummaging about in the twigs.

Cormorants 

A couple of black terns had been reported on the flash. I assumed that's what the guys in the F.W. Horrocks Hide were looking for. I didn't expect to have much luck with the terns so had a look round to see what else was about. The lapwings were more easily seen than heard as they were hidden by vegetation on the bank of the spit. A few cormorants and herring gulls loafed at the end, mallards and gadwalls dozed, a chiffchaff fussed about in a bush by the hide and a Cetti's warbler sang from the scrubby undergrowth beyond. Way out, over towards the rucks, a few swallows were hawking over the trees and beyond them a hobby was soaring and swooping. It didn't look like the hobby was taking swallows, it was more likely catching dragonflies. As I looked down from the hobby to the flash I noticed a small, dark tern on a buoy. It was probably a black tern, the bird swooping around it was most definitely a juvenile black tern. They were both distant but showing well and I spent five minutes watching them. I told the other guys that if they waited a few minutes after I left the black terns would come and sit on the signpost in front of the hide. I rather hope they did, it would be a nice photo for somebody to have.

Hawthorn 

I walked down to the Tom Edmondson Hide past more chiffchaffs and mixed tit flocks and migrant hawkers hunting along the edge of the tree canopy, almost a reverse strategy to the spotted flycatcher. The warming-up exercises of the drake gadwalls on Pengy's Pool as they practiced their canoodling whistles sounded uncannily like the wheezes of bullfinches, the illusion spoiled by the complacent quack at the end. The Cetti's warblers were unmistakable. Reed- and scrub-cutting was in progress in front of the hide, the only birds to be seen were a couple of dabchicks that were studiously ignoring the work and a flock of long-tailed tits flitting between the willows at the back.

At Ramsdales Hide 

The reeds at Ramsdales Hide had been cut a couple of weeks ago. The water's so low most of the pool's dried out and is a sea of corn mint. Teals and shovelers loafed on the relict gullies and inlets, brown hawkers and migrant hawkers patrolled over the mint which was in full flower and full of insects.

Blue tit

Great tit

I walked round to the Bunting Hide. I was very conscious I'd not seen any finches and hoped for at least a chaffinch or two to fill the gap. No such luck. There was, however, a crowd of great tits, blue tits and coal tits which happily ignored the family throwing nuts to the squirrels at the other side of the hide, the great tits bobbing over every so often to see if there was anything they could grab. The dunnocks and long-tailed tits were a bit shyer but not by much. As I left the hide I noticed a couple of Southern hawkers flying high in the tree canopy. The butterflies were few and far between, mostly speckled woods with a couple of large whites and a red admiral.

Blue tit

Long-tailed tit

From the Charlie Owen Hide 

The pool at the Charlie Owen Hide was a shadow of its former self and mostly filled with mallards and gadwalls. A couple of herons loafed on the edge of the extended island and teals and dabchicks kept out of their way.

Pennington Flash Country Park 

It had been a very productive potter about but the tiredness was catching up on me and the joints were suggesting there'd be rain before nightfall. So rather than toddling back to the bus stop and getting a bus back into Leigh I walked up to the canal and walked down the towpath into Leigh. There are times when I don't know who's making these decisions, I'm just along for the ride. I was glad of it, though, as three or four kingfishers zipped up and down the canal as I walked along. I suspect one of the ones that headed into the trees looped back and came round a second time. It's getting to be a good Autumn for kingfishers.

Leeds and Liverpool Canal

I did okay by buses back and got to the front gate just as it started raining.

Along the Mersey

Black-tailed godwit, West Bank

A report of a couple of scaup at Moore Nature Reserve was a reminder that I've not been there in ages so I got the train to Warrington and walked down. It's been so long since I've done this walk that despite its being a dead straight run from the station to the river and along the river down Chester Road I hared down the wrong road from the big roundabout. Twice. Still, third time lucky.

River Mersey, Warrington 

A pair of buzzards circled low over Warrington town centre, upsetting the pigeons and lesser black-backs. It was a bright, sunny morning with enough cloud about for me to take heed of the weather forecast and carry my raincoat. The river was high but still nowhere near the tidemarks on the bank from the New Year floods. Cormorants and mallards gently drifted downstream. I heard an unfamiliar call from the far bank but my efforts at identifying it were thwarted by the delivery of a load of asphalt to a road-digging gang. The first of the many mixed tit flocks of the day bounced through the trees by the river.

I dropped down onto the Transpennine Route and followed it along the old canal cut. Back gardens abut the other side of the canal. Fancy having Cetti's warblers as a garden tick! Mallards dabbled about in the canal and one pair of moorhens had young chicks. Another couple of mixed tit flocks bounced through the trees, each time it was a struggle to pick up many of the runners and riders and I was going by hearing more than by sight. The long-tailed tits were obvious enough but the blue tits, great tits and chiffchaffs were actively furtive.

The Mersey Viaduct 

At the railway viaduct I joined the path into Moore Nature Reserve. Wrens, robins and more mixed tit flocks moved through the trees. Robins, blackbirds and dunnocks rummaged in the verges while woodpigeons and magpies barged about the treetops making as much noise as possible. Perhaps in protest at having a buzzard sitting in one of the trees.

Moore Nature Reserve 

Pumphouse Pool 

I looked over Pumphouse Pool from the charred stumps that used to be Colin's Hide. I'd been seeing a few dragonflies along the way — migrant hawkers patrolling the hedgerows and the occasional common darter sunning itself on the path — but nothing like what there was here. Common darters swarmed over this end of the pool. There may have been ruddy darters out there, too, I can't tell them apart at any distance. All the darters close to the bank were common darters. A broad-bodied chaser shot across the pool, I was surprised as I'd have guessed it was late to be seeing those.

Heron

Small groups of mallards and gadwalls lurked around the edges of the pool while coots, tufted ducks, great crested grebes and dabchicks puttered about in the open water. A couple of cormorants loafed on sticks. Black-headed gulls flew over but didn't settle. I walked round to the Pumphouse Hide where I picked up a couple of shovelers amongst the mallards. A large mixed tit flock which almost had as many chiffchaffs as blue tits bounced around in the trees round the hide.

Birch Wood 

I walked through Birch Wood. Chiffchaffs squeaked, wrens and robins sang, there were yet more mixed tit flocks, every one a challenge to pick through as they bounced through the leaves and twigs. It looks like it had been a good year for both blue tits and long-tailed tits.

A flock of Canada geese sitting on the island on Birchwood Pool were in a grumbly mood. The island was fringed with gadwalls, mallards and tufted ducks.

There's a feeding station by the path to the car park. I hadn't realised this, I just wondered why there were so many small birds fussing about in the hedgerows and had stopped to let them move ahead of me which they definitely weren't doing. Great tits, chaffinches, coal tits and blue tits flitted to and fro. In the end I had to make my apologies and walk by, which didn't much fuss the great tits and coal tits.

Gadwalls 

It started to rain and I put my coat and cap on. I walked down the road and joined the path to the Lapwing Pool. This is where the scaups had been seen over the weekend. There was a chap there having no luck with them, he told me a chap who'd been in earlier had had no luck and I had no luck with them either. So I had to content myself with watching a kingfisher zip across the pool a few times while a crowd of gadwalls felt the fires in the blood welling up inside them. A couple of migrant hawkers kept tempting me to point a camera at them as they patrolled the nearby reeds, darting off at abrupt right angles whenever the possibility arose. The chaffinches, robins and great tits rummaging about by the hide were too close and too fidgety for photographs.

Moore Nature Reserve 

The showers had passed over and it was sunny as I walked down into Moore. I checked the mallards on the Ship Canal to make sure the scaups weren't hiding in plain sight. I had ten minutes' wait for the X30 to Chester, changed at Murdishaw for the 79C to Liverpool and got off just over the river by the bridge on West Bank.

Silver Jubilee Bridge from West Bank

The wind got up as I walked down into West Bank Docklands Park and the clouds and light were ominous. The high tide was starting to ebb and already on the far bank there were lines of redshanks and shelducks on the tideline while crowds of herring gulls and lesser black-backs loafed on the mud behind them. 

Redshank 

I walked round into West Bank and the rain started, big blobs of water at first then it became biblical. I tiptoed past pied wagtails on the path and watched the mallards, black-headed gulls and waders on the rocks and mud beneath the seawall. Redshanks skittered about and godwits probed the mud. The first godwit I saw was a bar-tailed godwit so I assumed the next one was until I got closer and saw it was a black-tailed godwit. All told I saw six godwits, all of them on their own well away from the others, and four were black-tailed, two bar-tailed. Which I suppose is a lesson to me to keep my eyes open and not make assumptions.

Black-tailed godwit

Redshank and black-tailed godwit
The godwit seems to have caught the grandfather of all ragworms.

Bar-tailed godwit 

Way over a mudbank not far downstream from the Millennium Bridge was awash with large gulls. Even from here in this light I could pick out the lesser black-backs and very occasional great black-backs. There were darker objects that may have been young gulls or lumps of wood. And there was one very bright ginger object with a paler head. So the ruddy shelduck was still about.

Herring gulls and ruddy shelduck 

I carried on walking onto Spike Island. The ruddy shelduck still stuck out like a sore thumb even though the crowd was dispersing as the water retreated. Teal dabbled in the mud by the locks with a couple of dozen redshanks.

The canalside was awash with pigeons and magpies and there were plenty of Canada geese and mallards but, strangely, no mute swans or coots. A pair of mute swans and their couple of full-grown cygnets loafed with a few mallards and moorhens on the large puddle that's usually a pond.

Herring gulls, lesser black-backs, carrion crows and cormorants 

I found a seat overlooking the mudbank for a closer look at the ruddy shelduck and it had gone. All the dark objects were young gulls or curlews. There was no ginger object. I'd convinced myself that I'd hallucinated it and somehow taken a photo of the hallucination when I found the bird in a crowd of black-headed gulls on this side of the bank though just as far away as before. At this point I realised I'd been holding my breath.

Black-headed gulls and ruddy shelduck 

A perfectly-staged rainbow appeared over the Millennium Bridge, the wind dropped and the rain died down. I pottered about Spike Island in the sunshine without adding anything to the day's tally.

Millennium Bridge 

The thing I always forget about getting the 110 back to Warrington from Widnes, besides their being every forty minutes, is that they arrive at Warrington Bus Station five minutes after the 100 to Manchester has left and with two minutes to run across the road for the train back home or to Urmston. There was an hour's wait for the next 100 and Forty minutes for the next train to Urmston. By the time I'd walked home from Urmston or waited for the bus and walked home from the Urmston Hotel I could get a shop in, get the next train to Oxford Road and stay on it because it becomes the train home. Which I did.