Wellacre Country Park

Dutton's Pond 

I made sure I wasn't needed for an early morning errand and with a sigh of relief I caught up with my sleep, sleeping through what had looked likely to be a very pleasant morning. Twilight descended at lunchtime. I got the 256 into Flixton and had a wander round Wellacre Country Park anyway.

Wellacre Wood 

Wellacre Wood would have been quiet but the titmice were getting one last feed in before bedtime so the great tits and blue tits chiacked me on my way. A couple of parakeets made a racket as they went to roost in the trees behind the school. I'm still a bit boggled by having local parakeets.

Walking down to Dutton's Pond 

I decided to take the path to Dutton's Pond rather than go over to Jack Lane. Heaven knows what that path would be like. Small groups of carrion crows and magpies rummaged about in the fields, I wasn't sure whether the woodpigeon and magpie on the dung heap were looking for food or warming their feet. Black-headed gulls drifted overhead but didn't seem to have any consistent direction in mind. None seemed to be going to roost at Irlam Locks.

Wellacre Country Park 

The approach to Dutton's Pond came as a surprise. No matter how often I do this walk I have it in my head that the path goes straight ahead and turn right for the pond and every time I'm suddenly wondering what that pond is on the left side of the path. The curve of the path isn't so gentle as to explain the mistake. Old men forget. The reeds in the centre of the pond have been cut back a lot so the area keeps its value as shelter for young fish and doesn't become another island. Consequently there were a lot of moorhens out in the open, usually there's just two or three to be seen.

A quick look at Green Hill found me a mixed tit flock, or rather they found me. I got razzed by long-tailed tits then they bounced off with the blue tits and great tits into the brambles. Some of the woodpigeons sang in the treetops. A few goldfinches and chaffinches twittered about in the trees but it was otherwise fairly quiet.

Walking down to Jack Lane 

Turning back and wandering along the path by the railway embankment towards Jack Lane I wasn't sure if there were two mixed tit flocks or one very extended one. The family group of over a dozen long-tailed tits in the bushes near Dutton's Pond made themselves very conspicuous, the blue tits and great tits bounced through the hedgerows in silence and were easily missed. All the time I was distracted by the crunch, crunch, crunch of squirrels eating hawthorn berries, and blackbirds and redwings flitting between bushes.

The sun was nearly down when I got to Jack Lane Nature Reserve and the titmice and robins were settling to roost in the reeds. Somewhere in the depths a water rail squealed like a distressed piglet but otherwise even the magpies and woodpigeons settling into the trees were quiet. As I reached Jack Lane a flock of about thirty starlings flew in and disappeared into the reeds.

Jack Lane Nature Reserve 

Walking down Jack Lane I looked over towards Irlam Locks where another couple of dozen starlings were sitting on the electricity pylons. I could see no sign of gulls but about fifty magpies were bouncing round the water treatment works and the fields by Irlam Road. I wasn't tempted to walk round for a closer look at them, I turned the other way down Irlam Road and got the bus home.

Leighton Moss

Teal

It was a rainy start to the day with the promise of its becoming finer and it was very mild for the approach to mid-December. I thought I really should get out to Leighton Moss before another weekend's worth of yellow and amber warnings of heavy rain made itself felt so I took a risk and used another of my Delay Repay compo return tickets and, just for the record, today the trains behaved themselves.

I don't know if it's the mild weather or the Christmas spirit but there was a lot of billing and cooing amongst the rooks on the school playing field as I walked to the station.

I had wondered if I should set out early and go straight to Leighton Moss to try and catch the bearded tits, which generally abandon the grit trays and retreat into the reeds after eleven in the morning. I decided not, most of Leighton Moss is still underwater and impassable for visitors so I stuck with my usual routine of staying on to Ulverston and coming back to Silverdale to get a look over the estuaries and salt marshes on the Northern side of Morecambe Bay.

On the way up from Manchester it was as if the woodpigeons hadn't gone missing for most of November. They were in small flocks in fields, sitting on chimney pots, squatting on trackside equipment or swaying in the wind on telephone lines just like they'd never been away. There were plenty of carrion crows, jackdaws and magpies, too, Bolton was stiff with black-headed gulls and Preston with herring gulls and there were a lot of blackbirds in trackside hawthorns.

The coastal pools at Leighton Moss weren't crowded but there was a fair variety of birds out there. A few mute swans cruised about. Mallards, shelducks and teals dabbled in the pools, some groups of ducks in the distance may or may not have been wigeons. I registered but couldn't reliably identify the waders in the corners as we passed by.

On the way to Arnside

There was extensive flooding between thje pools and Silverdale Station, and even more along the stretch of line before Arnside. One large field which occasionally gets damp enough for a great white egret to potter about in was a lake with a couple of dozen greylags sitting on an island.

It was lowish tide as we crossed the Kent, the train disturbing a large flock of pigeons and the pigeons disturbing the redshanks feeding on the mud by the viaduct. A couple of curlews plodded about regardless. Shelducks and carrion crows dotted the salt marsh on the other side and a small flock of linnets passed us going the other way. The usually large crowd of black-headed gulls at Grange-over-sands was thinly dispersed across the mud. A raven flew by, flocks of jackdaws and starlings bobbed up and down on the salt marsh, little egrets stalked creeks and the train headed inland to Cark.

The fields were flooded on this side, too. One which usually has a crowd of rooks and jackdaws today had mallards and mute swans. A flock of fieldfares were panicked out of the trees by the passing train, which made a change as I've only been seeing them in ones and twos this Winter. The pools on the salt marsh by the Leven were full to the brim but the marsh was oddly empty of birds. Perhaps the flooded fields were providing richer pickings.

The Leven looked quiet, the eiders and redshanks had spread out with the ebbing tide. One of the channels had a flock of eiders lining one bank, each a yard apart from its neighbours.

Blackbird, Ulverston Station

I had twenty minutes' wait at Ulverston for the Lancaster train. The trees by the platform have been thinned out drastically but there was still plenty of cover for the robins and blackbirds to be bobbing in and out. Flocks of jackdaws tried to make themselves heard over the calling of herring gulls while rooks cawed softly in the treetops by the rookeries. It didn't really feel like the run-up to Christmas.

The train back was very busy, Northern's running a lot of short-form trains this week so travelers can get to know either as they stand in the aisles. As we left Grange-over-sands I noticed that a pond which usually has a few mallards and moorhens pottering about also had a great white egret doing an impersonation of one of those plastic herons that used to be so popular. Fifty-odd jackdaws bustled over the flooded fields of Meathop and dozens of teals dabbled in the creeks. 

Chaffinch

Leighton Moss was very wet. New arrivals were warned that there was a lot of splashing about to get to Lilian's Hide, the Skytower and the Causeway Hide and the other hides were inaccessible. And so it came to pass. I stopped off first at the Hideout to get my eye in and in the hopes there might be a marsh tit or two amongst the crowds. Chaffinches and coal tits were making most of the running on the feeders, a few great tits, blue tits and greenfinches got their turns and every so often a few goldfinches would bustle in, make a fuss and bustle out again. Robins and dunnocks fidgeted about and a couple of hen pheasants tidied up below the feeders. I didn't get to find a marsh tit but a female blackcap was a nice consolation prize.

Robin

A bit damp

The path by the Skytower was very damp and it was immediately obvious why the path into the reedbeds was out of bounds. Half a dozen mallards obligingly showed me the shallow bits of the path to Lilian's Hide while a Cetti's warbler exploded into song from the drowned willows alongside.

Gadwalls

At Lilian's Hide 

The water by Lilian's Hide was high and the pool was busy with ducks. Shovelers, teals and gadwalls dozed on the remaining islands, a couple of snipe keeping them company. More gadwalls swam with a raft of coots and tufted ducks or cruised about in amorous groups involving lots of soft quacking and vigorous head-bobbing. Mute swans drifted by the reeds, a heron and a greylag sat on the far bank and cormorants dried their wings in the trees over by the Griesdale Hide. I stayed a while in the hide enjoying the birds in the strong, low light.

Tufted ducks, coots, gadwalls, heron and greylag

The gadwalls were getting frisky

Coots

Shovelers and teal

Teal

Snipe and gadwall

I checked the time and decided to go for the train back home. It had been a short visit and I didn't venture far but there'd been plenty enough to see while I was here. On the way back I confirmed that there were wigeon on the coastal pools and we passed a flock of a couple of hundred pink-footed geese on Carnforth Marsh. I'd had a leisurely dawdle of a day out but still somehow totted up fifty-six species of birds along the way.

Shoveler

Hindley

Coal tit, Amberswood 

I've not been sleeping well lately but last night took it to extremes, the last time I remember checking the clock it was twenty past five. Consequently, when I woke up at five to nine I felt like human wreckage and knocked today's plans on the head. After a late breakfast and a re-filling of the bird feeders I went over to the Trafford Centre and played bus station bingo. Luckily for me the 132 to Wigan was first out so I had an easy afternoon walk round Amberswood and Low Hall.

I'd barely stepped through the entrance from Manchester Road when I bumped into the first mixed tit flock in the hedgerow. A dozen long-tailed tits skittered about in the hawthorns on one side of the path and a few blue tits bounced about in the trees on the other. Robins sang, goldfinches twittered and blackbirds flitted about in the undergrowth.

Walking in from Manchester Road 

I bumped into a small flock of redwings plucking berries from hawthorns. I was today years old when I first learned that redwings don't give a monkey's about old men bawling: "Hello! Are you still there?" down a 'phone twenty feet away. Having, eventually, established that the person who had rung me up had not died nor had urgent need of an ambulance but had merely put their 'phone down and wandered off for God knows what reason I composed myself and ignored the naked scorn of jays and magpies. I quickly bumped into another mixed tit flock, this one with its complement of great tits, and yet more blackbirds and redwings feeding on berries with a small flock of woodpigeons.

Amberswood 

As I approached the lake a photographer tipped me off that somebody had just filled the bird feeders. As it turned out I would have needed no tipping off, the trees and bushes in that corner were fizzing with coal tits. The great tits, chaffinches and blue tits were a bit more cautious of passersby and a calling nuthatch stayed in the trees. I almost missed the willow tits slipping in past the coal tits to snatch sunflower seeds.

Amberswood Lake

Invisible water rails squealed at each other in the reeds as I walked by the lake. The reed buntings I'd expected but hadn't yet seen or heard suddenly started alarm calling as a buzzard floated low overhead with a hostile escort of carrion crows. I was hearing coots and black-headed gulls before I was seeing them. As the view opened out I could see a pair of mute swans and a bunch of mallards over by the far bank. Looking round I could see no sign of the usual great crested grebes or tufted ducks.

Amberswood Lake

Low Hall 

I wandered over the road to Low Hall where blackbirds, robins and wrens fossicked about in the undergrowth and coal tits and woodpigeons fussed about in the trees. There were a couple of teal with the mallards on the pond, while I was checking them out a blackbird and a song thrush came over to pillage the hawthorn bush next to me.

The pair of mute swans were on the little dragonfly pool, they'd shifted over to the pond when I walked back. A rather disorganised mixed tit flock bounced through the trees, the long-tailed tits heading one way and the great tits and blue tits heading the other.

Low Hall 

The sun was setting slowly in the West so I moseyed back and walked into Hindley for the 132 back to the Trafford Centre. The long journey feels twice as long in the dark.

I'm on the train

Treecreeper, York

The yellow alerts for Storm Bram had retreated more than somewhat overnight but it was still looking like not being a nice day. It was dry and remarkably warm when I ran the morning's errands but the knees felt like they'd been set in concrete so I wasn't up for any fell-running. I'd already planned on using one of my Delay Repay compo tickets for a day out to York (there are three more in the post) so I headed into Manchester and got the Leeds train at Victoria Station.

I hadn't realised just how much I've been actively avoiding Manchester City Centre lately. It looks like the pigeons are doing so, too, as Piccadilly Gardens was bereft of them (there's usually a crowd of them hanging round from dawn to midnight).

The sky was black and the rain teeming down as we crossed the Pennines. The River Calder was in angry spate. Along the way woodpigeons, jackdaws and even carrion crows huddled in trackside trees and mallards dabbled in fields. The weather calmed down on the approach to Bradford and became settled grey and windy.

On a whim I got the train that goes the long way round to York. I recently realised that "the train to Poppleton" is the stopping train to York via Harrogate and Knaresborough and "the train to Burleigh Park" is the train back from York. I have friends in the area so I thought I'd do a reconnaissance to see how easy it would be to let on to them (the answer is it would be a doddle).

It turned out to be a very good whim indeed. I've never seen so many red kites on one journey. The idea of having red kites as garden ticks, as they evidently do in Weeton, makes my brain itch. Every so often the train would disturb one from a trackside tree and it would float off, its tail twitching in the wind. More often there'd be a slim form hanging on long wings high above rolling fields.

A day's worth of red kites

Arriving at York I had a short wander round. I've always dashed straight into the city centre so today I decided to approach it leisurely by way of the Memorial Park and the river. The singing robins and the mixed tit flock I bumped into in the park was a nice change of pace. 

Ouse Bridge, York

I've seen the river higher than it was today but it was quite high enough for me to worry about riverside occupants. When rivers are this high and fast the waterfowl move on to calmer waters and so it was today. I had a nice surprise as I was taking scenic photos when a treecreeper jumped onto the tree I was standing by. Getting such a fidgety bird into focus so close to hand defeated my photographic skills but it was good to see it. Treecreepers are one of those I know they're definitely around but I ain't seeing them birds, it's always a treat when they jump out and say hello.

I took the direct route back to Leeds. It doesn't take a lot to flood the fields around Ulleskelf so it didn't shock me to see a big flock of Canada geese sharing a pop-up lake with mute swans and mallards. I was surprised to see red kites skirting Leeds City Centre, mind. And a Mediterranean gull loafing on its own on a wet football pitch was a shock.

I picked out the woodpigeons, jackdaws and carrion crows best could in the failing light on the train back to Manchester where my train home was cancelled. It's a rare thing for me to use a Delay Repay compo ticket without ending up submitting Delay Repay claims for late and cancelled trains.

Clifton Country Park

Cormorant

It was the calm before the storm. I asked myself if I fancied starting the week by gambling that trains might run to schedule. I put the two new Delay Repay compensatory tickets into my wallet and decided not.

I went over to the Trafford Centre and played bus station bingo, which led to me getting off the 22 at Clifton Cricket Club and walking down into the country park. I was rather hoping the exercise would take the stiffness out of my knees but if anything the slope down to the railway underpass and the mild, damp air just emphasised it.

A mixed tit flock bounced through the trees by the underpass, a goldcrest passing me by at arm's reach. Woodpigeons and magpies clattered about in the trees and black-headed gulls passed overhead.

There were more magpies, woodpigeons and black-headed gulls by the visitor centre. A small flock of redwings, just half a dozen of them, flew into the treetops.

Mute swan

The lake was awash with waterfowl. Mute swans cruised about, the adults very definitely hinting to the cygnets that it's time to move on. Gadwalls outnumbered the mallards and tufted ducks two to one and there were nearly as many coots. There were surprisingly few Canada geese, I hope they've not all been hit by avian flu. The most numerous, and noisiest by far, birds were the black-headed gulls. Hidden amongst them was a rather small-headed subadult herring gull which I spent a few minutes trying and failing to turn into a Caspian gull. I think it was just a particularly round-headed young female herring gull.

Mute cygnet

Tufted ducks

Clifton Country Park 

I was alerted to the mixed tit flock amongst the squirrels when a goldcrest flew into a hawthorn bush just in front of my face. The great tits and blue tits made themselves obvious, the long-tailed tits took a bit of finding. Blackbirds and song thrushes fed on berries and one of the song thrushes broke into song. They've been very thin on the ground this half of the year.

River Irwell 

I decided the knees weren't up for the walk through the woods into Radcliffe. To be honest, they weren't up for the walk back up to the bus stop in Clifton. A glance over my shoulder suggested a reason: the weather blowing in from the South was filthy.

Goosanders

Mallards dozed on the sandbanks on the bends of the Irwell and a couple of redhead goosanders drifted lazily upstream. A cormorant held its wings out to dry and settled down for a comprehensive preen.

Cormorant

Cormorant

Cormorant

Red Rock Lane

I walked past Bolton Water Treatment Works into Ringley. A grey wagtail fussed about the sluice from the filtration beds which were very busy with black-headed gulls. The weather caught up with me at Ringley Bridge, I caught the 512 to Bury and got the tram back to Stretford, the rain streaming down the windows along the way.

Home thoughts

Spadgers making a start on the suet blocks

Sundays are traditionally dismal so I didn't mind that so much but the torrential rain was a mither. After venturing out on an errand I didn't much feel like walking abroad.

I'm going to have to get more supplies in for the birds after the sparrows demolished the suet blocks over a couple of days. They had help from the titmice and a goldcrest, and at least one passing starling. A pillar of suet and mealworms was quickly devoured by magpies and squirrels. 

There is a mixed tit flock that visits my garden but I don't often get to see them all at the same time. There are days, like today, when the blue tits drop anchor and don't stray far from the feeders for very long. The blue tit that had attached itself to the flock of spadgers over Autumn has peeled off and joined the tit flock. The great tits come in as a pair, it's not often both the coal tits are in at the same time and the long-tailed tits usually scamper out of the sycamores in ones or twos. Today's the first time I could count eight of them bustling their way through the spadgers to get the last of the suet. I think there's just the one goldcrest but they're such fidgets I may be missing more. And don't think I don't do long, hard looks for signs of one being a firecrest. 

• Black-headed gull 1
• Blackbird 1
• Blue tit 3
• Carrion crow 1
• Coal tit 2
• Collared dove 1
• Dunnock 2
• Goldcrest 1
• Great tit 2
• Herring gull 1
• House sparrow 19
• Long-tailed tit 8
• Magpie 2
• Robin 1
• Rook 2
• Starling 1

Late on, a dozen black-headed gulls flew over, heading for the Salford Quays roost while a handful of herring gulls headed, probably, for Woolston Eyes. More surprisingly, two dozen lapwings flew East (whence to where?) overhead at sunset, a new garden tick.

There are lots of surprises along the way in this birdwatching lark. One I absolutely hadn't expected was to find myself wishing I had a mangle. I have a couple of heavy, fleece-lined shirts that are great on cold, windy days. The only drawback to them is that they're drip-dry. It takes the best part of a week, even when I hang them on a radiator. Of course, if Santa did bring me a mangle I don't have the first idea where to put it, there's no room in the bathroom or kitchen for one. I'd have to build an extension to the washhouse. They don't warn you about stuff like this in the bird books.

Southport

Smew

I'd spent part of last night applying copious amounts of fabric freshener to the cap to try and knock back the strong smell of damp sheep. And then this morning I headed off in the teeming rain for a day at the seaside. This type of muck is balmy weather to smews. A redhead drake has been on Southport Marine Lake for a day or two so I thought I'd try to add that to the year list. I was also tempted by a possible "grey-bellied" brent goose¹ on Banks Marsh but I'd want the weather to buck its ideas up a lot before heading out that way later on.

The weather had brightened up as we approached Liverpool. The general rule of thumb, which followed through the whole day, was that the brighter the sunshine the heavier the rain.

On the train up to Southport I've become used to expecting a crowd of gulls on what I think is a recycling depot between Sandhills and Bank Hall. And so there was today. But there was something else, too. Had the train been travelling at speed I'd have dismissed it as a woodpigeon made to look very much bigger by a tree branch or some such. Luckily for me, the train can't get up much of a head of steam in the short distance between these stations. The bird really was very much bigger than a woodpigeon. It was a red kite. I think it must have been a young bird, it was reddish brown rather than foxy ginger and its head was only slightly lighter than its body. It was the deeply forked tail that clinched it.

Southport Marine Lake

The sun was shining brightly and my raincoat was earning its keep as I walked from Southport Station to the Marine Lake. Herring gulls and black-headed gulls wheeled about in the wind, which had a definite edge to it. There were more gulls on the lake, as well as a herd of mute swans and about three dozen dabchicks, which were very distracting as I scanned around for the smew.

Dabchicks

Over on the island the bank was lined with greylags, Canada geese, mallards and coots. Then I struck lucky: there was a smaller, paler object just off the bank with some mallards and tufted ducks. The mallards set off on a cruise by the lake, leaving behind a redhead smew. It quickly dived and I lost it, quickly convincing myself I'd been stringing myself along. Especially when I noticed a juvenile great crested grebe lurking in the vicinity.

Smew

Smew

I walked along the lakeside, scanning the lake all the time. The mallards passed by. And so did a smaller, pale grey object. For the next five minutes the smew gave me cracking views from not very far away, slowly drifting my way. It was about ten yards away when it bobbed back up to the surface and realised I was there. It looked round to see where the mallards had got to and flew over to join them. It was still showing very well near the island when I walked away.

Gadwall

I followed the mallards' example and did a circuit of the lake. A bit further along I noticed a redhead goosander dozing on this end of the island. I was feeling greedy so I started looking for red-breasted mergansers, a couple of them having been reported here yesterday. I wasn't having any luck until I realised that the weird grey shape stretched across a rock was two mergansers sleeping head-to-head. I might have assumed they were young goosanders rather than young mergansers if there hadn't been a goosander dozing a few yards away from them. While I was doing the compare and contrast the mergansers woke up and had a stretch, showing off their distinctly scruffier crests.

Goosander (left) and red-breasted mergansers, bonus dabchick in the bottom right-hand corner

Herring gulls, mute swan and coot

Further along a pair of gadwalls bobbed on the water near the promenade and half a dozen goldeneyes dipped and dived out in midwater. I tiptoed past the crowd of mute swans and greylags at the corner of the lake and carried on round the path. I was on a roll so I checked each and every gull to make sure there weren't any Mediterranean gulls or ring-billed gulls hiding in plain sight (there weren't). Greenfinches, robins and blackbirds rummaged about in the sea buckthorn scrub, carrion crows and magpies seemed not to be bothered that the berries had been frosted and were tucking in with gusto. A couple of handfuls of pink-footed geese flew inland from the salt marsh and headed for the mosses outside town.

Southport Marine Lake 

I'd rather hoped that any twites that were around might have been spending the high tide in the sailing club car park and had stuck around a while for a bath and brush-up. No luck today, I was going to have to search the salt marshes which is a significantly harder job as they can disappear into even tiny clumps of grass.

The salt marsh by Southport Pier

I crossed Marine Drive and had a look over the salt marsh North of the pier as the ebb tide beat a very fast retreat. Starlings and pigeons rummaged about on the near edge of the marsh, scores of shelducks in the grass on the far edge. It was notable that the shelducks were staying in the shelter of the grass out of the wind. A couple of flocks of wigeon wheeled around before heading North towards Marshside while cormorants and herring gulls flew South. A dark line halfway to the distant tideline was a group of cormorants and oystercatchers that had settled to loaf on the tideline five minutes earlier.

I was seeing no twites. Small birds would rise and fall from the marsh, getting my hopes up, but they turned out to be linnets or skylarks. I gave up and started looking for waders. Redshanks could be heard but rarely seen, they were over the far end with the shelducks. I wondered where the curlews were and finally found one stalking the edge of the grass. And was rewarded by four twites flying across my field of view. Not the eighteen near to the road reported earlier in the day but they'll do me.

Southport Pier

The knees, which had been very painful indeed as I walked round the lake, started to move freely. I was taking no bets as to whether that was down to the painkillers I'd taken, the exercise or that I'd lost all feeling below the waist. A walk along the beach as far as the Lifeboat station didn't find very much. I was hoping there were some dunlins and ringed plovers about but the only waders were a dozen oystercatchers huddled in the marsh. There weren't even many gulls, just a handful of black-headed gulls and a few passing getting gulls. A couple of pied wagtails fussed about and kept catching my eye as I looked round. I wondered if it was dreich enough for snow buntings to be around but if there were I didn't see any.

Oystercatchers

As I walked into Southport town centre it became apparent I hadn't lost all feeling below the waist and I rather regretted it. I decided to quit while I was a lot more ahead than I'd expected to be and got the trains home.

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¹ "Grey-bellied" brent geese breed in high Arctic Canada and may or may not be a subspecies in their own right. They certainly look different to the others, the differences are subtle and not always easy to define, which makes submitting a report on one a challenge, but they look "not quite right."