Starmount Lodges

Canada goose and dark-bellied brent goose

The morning calmed down after a ferociously wet night and became that mixture of sun, cloudy and showers that is the most uncomfortable option available to English weather. I was all for lolling about drinking tea and reading the personal columns of Ally Sloper's Half Holiday but I kept noticing the reports of a brent goose near Bradley Fold, just down the road from where I was yesterday. A brent goose in this region in June is unlikely. A brent goose in Greater Manchester any time of the year is unlikely. Together they proved irresistible. 

Hundreds of thousands of wild geese spend the Winter in the UK and there's always a few that miss the bus when they all leave. Usually it's due to an injury, when they recover there's no incentive for them to migrate so they mooch around waiting for the gang to come back next Autumn. Which is why it's not unusual to find an occasional pink-footed goose or whooper swan hanging out with the wildfowl over the Summer in Northwest England. I didn't have brent goose on my bingo card.

I got the train to Bolton and into the bus interchange. I'd just missed the 471 but the 511 was due in ten minutes and that suited me better, it goes round the houses a bit on its way to Bury and along the way it stops close to Starmount Lodges where the Brent Goose was hanging out with some Canada geese. It also meant I wasn't trying to cross Bury New Road on a Saturday afternoon.

I got off the bus at Bideford Drive. Across the road a gap between the houses was the footpath that would lead me to my quarry. It passed into some light woodland beside Blackshaw Brook and onto Banks Lane. Blackbirds and blackcaps and chiffchaffs sang in the trees and further down the brook a song thrush was drowning out all rivals. A family of long-tailed tits bounced about in the trees by the bridge over the brook. Dunnocks, wrens and chaffinches joined the songscape on Banks Lane where the robins silently rummaged about the verges. I caught a glimpse of one of the lodges through the trees, a pair of mute swans had cygnets still on the nest though looking ready for their first swim round.

The bridge over Blackshaw Brook 

Starmount Lodges 

I tiptoed past the house sparrows on Browns Road and entered the lodges. Moorhens, a couple of black-headed gulls and a mallard were keeping the anglers company on the nearest lodge but there was no sign of any geese. I followed the path and up onto the bund that contains the little reservoir there. There were a couple of dozen Canada geese, some with goslings, and there was the brent goose tagging along with a couple of Canada geese cruising round the pool. I've never seen the two species side by side before, I know brent geese are small geese but this really brought it home.

Canada goose and dark-bellied brent goose 

Dark-bellied brent goose 

Canada geese and dark-bellied brent goose 

I watched the performance for a few minutes then had a look down into the pool with the cygnets. The parents were obviously trying to coax them into the water and the cygnets were just as obviously reluctant. A family of coots fussed about in one corner, a pair of mallards with one young duckling in another. Just to demonstrate the bad temper of your average coot, one of the parents left the family gathering to go and bash a moorhen that had had the colossal nerve to walk down from the far bank of the pool for a swim.

Mute swan and cygnets 

Juvenile moorhen

Black-headed gull 

I walked back to Browns Road. A few black-headed gulls floated low over the lodges, a blackbird sang and spadgers fossicked about the hedge bottoms. Ordinarily I'd have taken this as an opportunity to walk over to Elton Reservoir for a nosy round but the weather was heavy and sweaty and the journey home would have gotten me embroiled in the crowds going to Parklife at Heaton Park. It made more sense to walk up to Bury New Road and get the 471 back to Bolton and thence home.

The weather cleared along the way. My train home wasn't affected by the tree that fell on the line, a coal tit was singing at the station. I spent half an hour looking for the cat only to find she'd been where she always is in the front garden but covered by grass and hardy geranium stems like Babes In The Wood. I had wondered why the young jackdaws and magpies were barracking on next door's fence. A cock sparrow brought the latest batch of spadgelings to the feeders in the back garden, the dunnock joined the wren, robin and blackbird in the songscape, a red admiral tried to chase a goldfinch off the seed feeders before going into battle with a rival over the blackcurrant bushes, it wasn't a bad end to the day.

Coots