Foulridge

Goodander

A red-throated diver's been on Lower Foulridge Reservoir the past few days which gave me the excuse to visit part of Lancashire I've neglected this year.

At Preston Station 

I got the train to Colne, fretting about the connections until I realised I was on the right Blackpool train to make an easy connection at Preston with no fuss whatsoever. In the ten minutes at Preston it changed from being a mild, cloudy day to torrential rain and I wondered if I was being quite wise. It was still pouring down at Colne so I decided to get the bus into Foulridge rather than walking. Luckily the rain had blown over three quarters of an hour later when I started walking, the buses apparently having been diverted.

By Skipton Road 

The wind asserted itself as I walked up Skipton Road to the reservoirs and I was glad of the shelter of some roadside trees. Looking over to Upper Foulridge Reservoir I couldn't see much save a cormorant and a goldeneye on the water. On this side of the road every tree trunk had a squirrel.

Coming onto Lower Foulridge Reservoir 

I joined the path by Lower Foulridge Reservoir, disturbing a couple of mallards and a pair of teal as the path came down to the waterside. The last time I came here, last Autumn, the reservoir was barely half full with great stretches of muddy shore. Today it was full to the brim.

Robins and wrens sang and a couple of blue tits and a great tit bounced through the trees. They proved to be the rearguard of a mixed tit flock that would be accompanying me as I walked along the Southern edge of the reservoir. The long-tailed tits in the flock had no qualms about coming within arm's length but were off like a shot whenever the camera got their measure.

Long-tailed tit

Lower Foulridge Reservoir 

There were nearly a dozen great crested grebes out on the water, a couple of territorial males being very vocal indeed, barking at younger-looking birds they didn't like the look of. I could also find a couple of goldeneyes and a raft of black-headed gulls but no sign of any diver.

Lower Foulridge Reservoir 

I carried on looking through the trees as I walked along but I wasn't seeing even a likely candidate for a diver. I let on to a couple of local birdwatchers (I've an idea one was the chap who found the hoopoe last year) and they told me it flew off at dusk last night. Ah well, no matter, it was okay walking weather and it's a nice walk.

The path by the Southern margin of the reservoir 

This is the first time I've seen Polytrichum moss on top of a dry stone wall, though it was dry only in the sense of having no cement.

Goosander

Half a dozen redhead goosanders bobbed about by the sailing club. Midwater another redhead was accompanied by a drake. 

Goosander

The wind was blowing sun and showers at almost minute intervals. The blue tits and blackbirds in the hedgerow by the path kept to the depths, breaking cover only when the gaps in the hedge gave them no other option. A coal tit in a tree by the road was a little hardier but it dived for cover when a particularly heavy — but mercifully short — burst of rain passed through.

Incoming squall

One of the sunny spells

I completed the circuit of the reservoir and checked the buses. Had it been earlier in the day — or the year — I'd have taken the M5 to Barnoldswick and the bus round from there to Clitheroe, just to explore a bit. But it wasn't so I got the M5 to Burnley, the timings being such that I would have been kicking my heels for the best part of an hour waiting for the next train at Colne. It was a long journey home, made the longer and more wearisome by late and cancelled trains. I think I'll give them a miss this weekend .

Lower Foulridge Reservoir 

Etherow Country Park

Mandarin duck

I'd had one of those night's sleep where the sound of arrival of the bin men is the cue to finally doze off, which put the kibosh on the day's plans. I decided to bob over to Etherow Country Park for a look at the mandarin ducks and to see if I'd have any more luck with dippers than I have had lately. I got the train into town, the idea being to get the train to Marple and walk through Brabyns Park over to Etherow Country Park. The idea being. That train got cancelled a few minutes after it was due to leave, waiting until the train to Rose Hill Marple on the next platform had left so that anyone wanting to go to Romiley or Marple were out of luck. So I got the train to Stockport and the 383 to Compstall Village and walked into Etherow Country Park about ten minutes earlier than if I'd waited for the next Marple train.

Etherow Country Park, by the car park

The lake by the car park was busy with waterfowl. The usual gangs of coots, mallards and Canada geese were there but there were also more mute swans than I've seen here in ages and the tufted ducks were back. I could only see one of the usual pair of farmyard geese, the Canada x greylag hybrid goose was still about and there were moorhens everywhere. Add to that about fifty black-headed gulls and the usual crowds of pigeons and jackdaws and it was quite lively.

Etherow Country Park 

Walking down to the weir I kept bumping into robins and dunnocks in the pathside vegetation. Goldfinches twittered in the tops of alders, long-tailed tits bounced through hawthorns and mixed tit flocks — great tits, blue tits and coal tits — skittered about the beech woods. For some reason the long-tailed tits stayed in their family groups and didn't mix with the others.

It was a while before I saw my first mandarins of the day, a pair lurking with mallards under the bank of the canal. The crowds turned out to be on the mill pond at the head of the canal.

River Etherow 
The waterfall is the overflow from the canal

The river was very high and running fast. I looked for dippers or wagtails because you never know your luck but it was a fool's errand, there were hardly any rocks above water. A pair of mistle thrushes sat at the top of a bare tree by the weir.

Mistle thrush

Jelly ear fungus

Keg Wood 

Looking over towards Ludworth Moor

I hadn't been walking long in Keg Wood before my legs told me we weren't doing this. Up to then I'd only been seeing robins and woodpigeons in the wood. As I stood and debated whether or not to force myself on with the walk a mixed tit flock flew over to see what I was up to and to tell me to beggar off. The vanguard was a nuthatch with a couple of great tits. More great tits, blue tits and coal tits flew in and I took the hint and headed back. Which was as well as I was dead beat by the time I got to the bus stop. I don't know what was wrong with me today.

Etherow Country Park 

Along the way I encountered a big group of mandarins loafing in drowned willows on the canal. The drakes were doing a lot of puffed-up breasts and flaunting of orange sails for the ladies, which were all being suitably demure about it. All charmingly different to the rugby scrums the mallards were indulging in by the car park.

Mandarin duck

Mandarin duck

Mandarin ducks

Martin Mere

Pochard

Looking at the weather forecast, if I was getting to Martin Mere this week it would be best doing it today. It was a lovely day and managed to stay that way all day.

The trains behaved all the way to my stop at Burscough Bridge. Along the way I was seeing more woodpigeons than I had done on this route last week, just ones and twos at a time but fairly regularly. It was mostly black-headed gulls — scores of them — on the damp fields of West Lancashire and the few large gulls were all herring gulls. And it was nice to see a small raft of tufted ducks on the lake at Pemberton Park.

By Red Cat Lane

It was cool and sunny, very nice walking weather though the cold breeze wasn't for mucking about and went straight to the gusset. I was glad I hadn't had that second cup of tea. Jackdaws bounced about the rooftops and blue tits, robins and blackbirds fidgeted about in gardens.

Stock doves, black-headed gulls and common gulls

Rooks and woodpigeons fossicked about in the stubble field South of Red Cat Lane. The field to the North had been sown for Winter barley. Black-headed gulls, woodpigeons, stock doves and common gulls were dotted about and a group of them were having a communal bath in a large puddle. Way over the other side, within easy running distance of the hedgerow, a covey of red-legged partridges rummaged about in the furrows.

Approaching Crabtree Lane I kept hearing fieldfares but was only seeing blackbirds in the trees. I finally found one — just the one, again — in a hawthorn in the garden of the house on the corner.

The field of Winter barley next to Brandeth Barn had a few dozen loafing lapwings laid out in a rectangular grid about three yards apart. I can't imagine why other than because they could.

Mallards

Arriving at Martin Mere I went straight to the Discovery Hide. The mere was chock-a-block, mostly with mallards at this corner. The shelducks were back with a vengeance, the sheldrakes battling for the attentions of the ducks. There weren't a lot of whooper swans, a few dozen, and a similar number of wigeon but there are many square miles of damp Lancastrian fields for them to be grazing. I suppose the same can be said for greylags, they were very thin on the ground at Leighton Moss yesterday, there were none at all on the mere today. A mute swan and cygnet cruised about midwater. 

The testosterone was high in the mallards

Mallard

Whooper cygnet

Whooper and pochard

Wigeons, mallards, shelducks and wigeons

The supporting cast was made up of black-headed gulls, pochards, tufted ducks and pintails, cormorants loafing on the islands and the flocks of a hundred or so each of lapwings and starlings over on the far bank. Every so often the lapwings and starlings would rise and swirl in a panic and most of the time I'd look in vain for the cause. One time it was because a lapwing had flown in and landed clumsily, barging into a couple of loafing lapwings and this became a panic. Another time the starlings noticed that a kestrel had been hovering overhead for the past ten minutes. A ruff joined in that excitement, the only one I saw today.

Mostly mallards 

Sheldrake and shelduck 

Whooper swan and swansdown 

The sheldrakes were being a bit combative 

Mallards, wigeons, lapwings and a black-tailed godwits which I overlooked until I reviewed the day's photos.

Whoopers and pochards

Black-headed gulls 

Way over in the fields beyond the mere a small flock of pink-footed geese were feeding for a while before setting off for the farmland between here and Southport. The white objects left behind were a handful of cattle egrets which skittered about like clockwork. Closer by a great white egret hunted in the field by the far corner of the mere while a heron dozed on the bank further in.

The feeders by the Raines Observatory were busy with great tits and chaffinches. The colony of tree sparrows that nested in the boxes here and by the Kingfisher Hide as was is a thing of the past, sadly.

Wood blewit

Walking to the Ron Barker Hide 

Small mixed tit flocks bounced through the trees along the path to the Ron Barker Hide. Jackdaws called in the trees by the road and woodpigeons passed overhead.

From the Ron Barker Hide 

At first sight the marshes at the Ron Barker Hide were deserted. A few dozen wigeons dozed on the far side of the pool on the right. It was easy to not notice the dozens of teal on Vinsons Marsh to the left, even though the willow scrub that sprang up over the Summer has been removed there's still plenty of cover for them. It only really became apparent how many ducks there were here when a female marsh harrier flew low over and they all rose up in a panic. A more low key panic ensued when she was joined a little later by an immature bird and they both floated off over the reedbeds. A couple of little egrets shrimped in the brook, a couple of cattle egrets flew by and headed towards Windmill Farm. A dabchick was busy fishing in the sluice in front of the hide, spending more time under the water than above. The five Canada geese I could see in the tall grass over to the side were the only ones I've seen for nearly a week.

To the Mere View Hide 

Walking back I had a look at the Mere View Hide (which used to be the Kingfisher Hide). The views were splendid and a handful of greylags flew past.

From the Mere View Hide 

I walked round to the Janet Kear Hide, having another look at the mere from the screens as I was passing and noticing that some more wigeons had joined the crowds of ducks. The feeders at the Janet Kear Hide were busy with blue tits, great tits, goldfinches and chaffinches and moorhens lurked in the pool under the feeders ready to catch any falling seed.

It was quiet at the United Utilities Hide. About a hundred lapwings loafed on the field with a few dozen pink-feet and a similar number of black-headed gulls.

The collared earthstars had lost their collars

From the Harrier Hide 

I wandered round to the Harrier Hide where it was evidently nap time for the mute swans and black-headed gulls.

Lapwings

It was time to leave if I was to get the train back to Manchester from New Lane. I didn't have time to go the long way round so walked up a very busy Marsh Moss Road to the station, passing a little egret fossicking about in the land drains along the way.

I kept my nose pressed up to the window as I looked for owls in the failing light and giving it up at Bolton. The trackside eagle owls in their aviary don't count.

Martin Mere