Woolston Eyes

Coot

My time's not really my own this week so seeing as it was scheduled to be a nice day I thought I'd best get that exploratory stroll round Woolston Eyes done and dusted. The penduline tit hasn't been reported for the best part of a week so there was no pressure to go hunting for it and I could just have a wander round to get my bearings.

When I've visited this area before I've walked the couple of miles down from Padgate. I wanted to put my energy into Woolston Eyes today so I got the train to Warrington and the 12 bus round to Thelwall Road and walked down from there. The knees wanted to stay on the bus.

Entering No.4 Bed

I went through the gate into No.4 Bed and started taking the path clockwise round. The path runs along a wide bund, the pools and reedbeds on the right-hand side and a wooded bank down to the boundary with the industrial estate on the left. Small mixed tit flocks bounced about the willow and birch scrub, robins sang and goldfinches twittered about the treetops. It took ages to find the great spotted woodpecker calling from the trees, the chaffinches pinking from the treetops were more obliging. A flock of about thirty redwings flitted between the trees by the path, pausing long enough for me to get the camera focused on them before fidgeting off to the next branch as I pressed the shutter button. It was nice to see a large flock of redwings, they've been pretty sparse this Winter. Fieldfares are even thinner on the ground.

One of the small pools

The titmice seemed to favour these scrubby areas

The main pool 

A couple of people were clearing scrub on one of the islands on the main lake. The coots and mute swans didn't seem to be taking a blind bit of notice but the gadwalls were sulking in the reeds. A dozen black-headed gulls loafed on the water with a small raft of tufted ducks on the far side, a few herring gulls and lesser black-backs dropped by for a wash and a preen but none of them stayed long. Way in the distance a marsh harrier was being given a hard time by a black-headed gull as it flew low over No.3 bed.

Cormorants 

The Northern edge of No.4 bed is the River Mersey. The path bends and follows the river and overlooks Paddington Meadows over on the North bank. Cormorants loafed and squabbled on the electricity pylons by the river, song thrushes and robins sang from the trees in Paddington Meadows. There were some teal calling on the river, three of them flew downstream. It's about forty years since I last visited the reserve proper and I hadn't recognised any of the topography so far but this stretch felt familiar though the landscape and vegetation were very different.

River Mersey

Inward of the bund this part of the bed was mostly thin willow and birch scrub interspersed with reeds . I was watching a large flock — more than two dozen — long-tailed tits bouncing through the trees when I heard my first Cetti's warbler and water rail of the year from the depths of the reeds. A buzzard called loudly as it drifted over the bed then wheeled round and headed over the river.

The path turned away from the river then dropped from the bund. I'd gone a hundred yards when the path became one big puddle. I waded ankle-deep through one rusty stretch of drowned grass beside the main pool, walked a little way and met a longer stretch of deeper water curving round a corner. There was no way of knowing what was round the corner, if I knew it was dry I'd have chanced the wade but as far as I knew it could go on for the next couple of hundred yards. I decided not to push my luck. I was about two-thirds the way round the bed, next time I come I'll see how far I get walking anticlockwise.

No.4 Bed

A scan over the pool found a common gull amongst the black-headed gulls and a great crested grebe drifted out of the reeds.

On the way back I found a path leading to a locked hide. I wasn't sure of the reason why it's locked, it might just be a precaution against vandalism, but I decided to leave well alone this time.

I checked to see if the path continued along the bund. It was evident that people had tried it before and, like me, gave up when they hit the impenetrable bramble patches.

No.4 Bed

I don't like doubling back on a walk but the weather was fine and it imprinted the landscape on me. As I was walking along the final stretch by the industrial estate a large bird of prey flew over the reedbeds. I thought it was the buzzard come back but as it got nearer I realised it was a very hefty female peregrine.

Same view three hours later

I wandered back down Thelwall Road in the company of an old chap and his very affable Romanian shepherd dog. I crossed over Latchford Locks and got the 5 bus back. For all the woodland walks I've been doing I saw my first jay of the year on the bus as it passed through Heatley.

Giant hogweed

Dreich

Amberswood 

A cold and windy night was followed by a cold and rainy morning. The sun poked through the clouds every so often, mostly when it was raining the heaviest. I'd already put today's plans on ice in anticipation of this weather and as it dragged on into lunchtime I came to the conclusion I wasn't getting a walk in today.

The birds in the back garden were in the same gloomy mood, all but the woodpigeons that obviously had had a rising of the fires in the blood. It's no wonder the fence panels are wrecked. The oldest of the spadgers appears to be the silver-cheeked male now entering his third year. I've not seen the venerable silver-cheek, at least five years old, for a few weeks. Now I've written that down he'll be back tomorrow.

The wind made the gulls on the playing field restless. A couple of dozen black-headed gulls fidgeted between the field and the rooftops where the dozen each of lesser black-backs and herring gulls loafed and preened ready for the lunchtime scrabble.

The weather cleared up at teatime. I was in the area and had half an hour to wait for the 132 bus so I decided on a dawdle along the cycleway at Amberswood. As I got off the bus by the Wigan Road entrance a raven flew low over the trees, over the road and up the Whelley Line Loop. Robins, song thrushes, coal tits and great tits sang in the hedgerows and blue tits bounced about the treetops. I'd decided to walk as far as the fork in the path and walk back again, not a bad idea as at that point it started raining.

I walked back in the rain, which didn't dampen the songbirds' efforts one whit. I crossed over to the bus stop and checked how they were running. I had quarter of an hour to wait for my bus, I could have a quick nosy on the Whelley Line path while I was waiting. It started teeming down. I took the hint.

The Wigan Road end of the Whelley Line Loop

I like sneaking in these little bits of birdwatching, they feel like minor victories which is no bad thing.

Mersey Valley

Willow tit, Sale Water Park 

I'd had an early start to the day then found I had unexpectedly got a free day after all. All my instincts were to go and get some sleep but it was a sunny morning with a hint of Spring about it and I didn't want to waste it so I sleepwalked my way over to Sale Water Park via Stretford Meadows.

The gulls were waiting for their lunchtime treat. A dozen black-headed gulls loafed on the school playing field, a dozen more sat on the roof of one of the school buildings with a similar number of lesser black-backs and rather more herring gulls.

It clouded over as I passed the allotments on Humphrey Lane. The hedgerow by the garden centre was busy with spadgers and long-tailed tits. I looked at the start of the path onto the meadows and decided it was too nippy for bog snorkelling so I stuck to the Transpennine Way path by the motorway. 

Stretford Meadows 

Robins sang, blue tits and great tits rummaged about and the pair of kestrels were back, the male sitting in the hawthorns on the Urmston side of the mound and the female in the hawthorns on the Stretford side. The parakeets flying about the cricket pitch were phenomenally noisy. There was a sporadic passage of gulls overhead moving on from the school playing fields to mooch on the farmland by the river or head over to Sale Water Park. I wondered if gulls go on school playground crawls the same way we go on pub crawls.

I wandered down to Stretford Ees still half asleep but kept on my toes by a mixed tit flock, a great spotted woodpecker and a lot of magpies. Oddly, I've yet to see a jay this year. And actually it was probably the calling of the parakeets keeping me awake. The Mersey was a lot calmer but there were plenty of signs of flood damage on the banks.

Black-headed gulls and common gulls, Sale Water Park 

There was a sailing class on the lake at Sale Water Park so the rafts of gulls were close to shore. There were a couple of dozen black-headed gulls in each together with a dozen common gulls by the near bank and half a dozen lesser black-backs and a couple of herring gulls in the raft by the far bank. The great crested grebe with the damaged wing was starting to look dapper as it was going into breeding plumage.

Common gulls and black-headed gull, Sale Water Park 

Last year I was falling over Cetti's warblers. So far this year, not a sausage. I was hoping the regular one by Broad Ees Dole would break the spell but it was nowhere to found.

Heron, Broad Ees Dole 

The water was still very high on Broad Ees Dole, the islands were underwater. A couple of herons loafed and preened and a couple of moorhens fussed about. A small group of mallards threaded their way through the trees and drains between Teal Pool, the main pool and the drowned willows beyond.

Coots and great crested grebes, Sale Water Park 

The usual gang of mute swans and Canada geese were mugging for scraps on the slipway and were being jostled out of the way by a flock of black-headed gulls. A few tufted ducks bobbed about with the coots and mallards. A couple of first-Winter great crested grebes had paired up and were doing a lot of synchronised head nodding before they got swept up by a flotilla of coots.

Willow tit, Sale Water Park 

I got myself a cup of tea at the café and sat and watched the willow tits on the bird feeders. There were quite a lot of people stopping by the feeders to look for the birds. Each time the great tits, long-tailed tits, coal tits, blue tits and nuthatches would scatter. And each time it was the pair of willow tits that were first at the table as the people walked away, they're more worried about being hassled by larger titmice than people.

Willow tit, Sale Water Park 

I decided I didn't have the legs to carry on either into Chorlton or on to Chorlton Water Park. I walked under the motorway and caught the 41 into Manchester, thinking I'd get off at Oxford Road and get the train home. We started to hit the traffic in Fallowfield and I didn't fancy sitting on the bus as it crawled through Rusholme so I bailed out at Platt Fields and walked through the park to get the 150 back to Stretford.

Platt Fields 

Song thrushes and robins sang in the park, parakeets screeched through the treetops and mallards were making baby ducks on the lake. I had a couple of minutes to wait for the bus and was glad of a pot of tea and a "Where do you think you've been?" from the cat.

Mosses

Little Woolden Moss 

It was a grey, cool Saturday and I had too many ideas for what to do with it, which nearly always ends up with me spending all day drinking too much tea while making a bog of unraveling my indecision. I dragged myself out for the lunchtime train to Irlam and had a walk over the mosses, which has become the Saturday default setting.

Walking up Astley Road there was plenty of birdlife in the garden hedges, most of it sparrows. This made it all the stranger than most of the hedgerows further along the road were dead quiet. There were handfuls of goldfinches and a few blackbirds by the Jack Russell's gate. A small mixed tit flock mingled with a flock of goldfinches in the trees by the farmhouse just after the motorway. A much larger mixed tit flock, including a couple of dozen long-tailed tits, mingled with another flock of goldfinches by the stables just before Four Lanes End.

The fields between Astley Road and Roscoe Road were busy with woodpigeons, mistle thrushes and starlings but no sign of the covey of partridges I've grown used to seeing here. Robins and blackbirds flitted about the field margins and a female kestrel sat in one of the trees.. As I looked back down Roscoe Road a pale-morph buzzard lumbered off a fencepost and flew off. I've not seen this bird before, a sandy-headed individual with a lot of white on its face. The fallow ground by Prospect Grange held a pheasant and a black and white cat playing tigers which explained why one of the trees in the far corner were full of blackbirds and redwings.

Astley Road 

A lot of magpies and carrion crows littered the turf field just North of the motorway but no sign of wagtails, lapwings or gulls, which is unusual. The turf fields further along were even quieter, a carrion crow or two over on the far side of the field. A bird sat on one of the telephone lines caught my attention and I struggled to identify it because I couldn't get a sense of scale and had nothing to compare it to. I wasn't getting a lot of clues by its being in silhouette. I finally identified it as my first meadow pipit of the year when it flew over, landing close to me in the field so I could get a good look at it then flew back to its wire, which I thought was very sporting of it even if it was camera shy. A couple of great black-backs flew overhead. Oddly the usual passage of herring gulls and lesser black-backs didn't happen.

I walked down Lavender Lane to Little Woolden Moss, scanning the fields either side for signs of birdlife. There were handfuls of carrion crows and magpies and a young kestrel sat on a telegraph pole. A small crowd had built up at the car park, people hoping to see any short-eared owls.

Little Woolden Moss 

It was an hour before sunset but Little Woolden Moss had a twilit feel about it. Carrion crows came in to roost on the far bank and mallards muttered amongst themselves in the pools. I was scanning the scrubby heath by the path when I had a five seconds glimpse of a short-eared owl. Luckily there's not a lot that has that high contrast look of black markings on an oak yellow background, off the top of my head a bittern would be the only other possible match but you'd have to work hard to confuse the two. It disappeared into the heather even fast than it had left it.

Twelve Yards Road 

I walked down Twelve Yards Road and onto Cutnook Lane in the gathering twilight. The last woodpigeons and jackdaws flew to roost. The male kestrel flew in to roost in an old nest. A couple of pairs of mallards quacked in the drowned willows in one corner of a field while a couple of roe deer grazed in the opposite corner. 

New moon and Venus,
Cutnook Lane 

My progress down Cutnook Lane was punctuated by the alarm calls of blackbirds.

It had been a nice, if quiet, walk and the pipit kept the year list ticking on to 114.