High Rid Reservoir

Greylags

It was a bone cold, wet and grey day. Gull-watching weather, I told myself. I've not had a look at the gull roost on Salford Quays yet this year but it felt like a bit of a glum sort of walk for a wet Wednesday. So I went over to High Rid Reservoir for a bit of gull-watching instead. Don't worry, it doesn't make any sense to me either.

I got the 576 from Bolton, got off at Ox Hey Lane and walked up Fall Birch Road. It was grey and wet and miserable and the robins and song thrushes were singing their hearts out.

Fall Birch Road 

Approaching the reservoir I started seeing black-headed gulls and lesser black-backs drifting by overhead, probably on their way to the roost at Rivington.

High Rid Reservoir 

Goldeneye

Mallards

Dabchick 

I was glad of the big coat on my walk around High Rid Reservoir. Grey wagtails skittered round the bank and a dozen mallards quacked and courted on the corner by the gate. A couple of pairs of goldeneyes drifted about with a pair of tufted ducks. I could only see the one dabchick and the one great crested grebe.

Greylag

A lone greylag was calling from the reservoir and getting answers from somewhere. It was only when I was halfway round the reservoir that I could pick out that they were calling from over the little hill in the field with the two trees in it. I was over on the far corner of the reservoir when the mixed flock of greylags and Canada geese flew over the brow of the hill, half of them settling in the field and the other half joining the bird on the reservoir for five minutes before they all flew over and joined the others.

Black-headed gulls 

There was a constant stream of gulls, both on the reservoir and flying overhead. The black-headed gulls loafed and preened, socialising in rafts and on the reservoir architecture. The lesser black-backs kept to a raft in midwater, most of them busily bathing and preening. A couple of the subadults were very dark indeed with sooty heads. A couple of the adults didn't have a lot of contrast between primaries and the rest of the wing but just enough to rule out intermedius. The herring gulls dropped in, bathed and moved on without lingering long. A couple of the adults looked to have relatively dark grey upperparts, I concluded it was a trick of the poor light as in every other respect they were textbook herring gulls. Similarly a couple of pale sandy first-Winter herring gulls were pale sandy first-Winter herring gulls.

Lesser black-backs 

Lesser black-backs, herring gulls and black-headed gulls 

By the time I finished the circuit all the herring gulls had flown. Overhead there was still a stream of black-headed gulls and lesser black-backs heading for Rivington. On the time-honoured basis that any lone bird that should be in a flock is worth a second look I took a quick glance at the juvenile herring gull passing high overhead. Luckily there were no small dogs about to hear my reaction when I noticed the bird had pale sandy coloured flight feathers. A first-Winter Iceland gull has been reported on an off all Winter on the reservoirs at Rivington, this was probably the same bird. I wonder where it was coming from.

High Rid Lane

I knocked on the head any ideas about carrying on down Old Hall Road into Doffcocker, it was too cold and damp to be much fun and the bird life would soon be shutting up shop for the day. I walked back down to Chorley Old Road, got the 575 back to Bolton and thence home. All the way back my knees reminded me they don't like cold, damp weather but the rest of me felt the better for a bit of exercise. And a bonus Iceland gull is no bad thing.