Woolston Eyes

Mute cygnet, Woolston Weir 

It had become a very muggy sort of morning and I didn't really want to trust my fate to much in the way of Monday trains so I had a ten-minute ride on the lunchtime train to Padgate and had a wander over to Woolston Eyes.

Spittle Brook 

I walked down to what I now know is Spittle Brook (the online maps have been no use but the notice board I found in the trees told me what I needed to know). Woodpigeons, blackbirds, wrens and robins sang, more blackbirds caught worms by the pathside, magpies fossicked about, a family of blue tits bounced through the trees and a chiffchaff and a blackcap sang in brookside willows. My first brown hawker of the year patrolled the reeds choking the brook, looking like a steampunk mechanical contraption built of brass and copper and sounding like one, too, whenever it flew nearby.

New Cut Trail

The clouds retreated and it became warmer but less muggy. The first of the day's many Cetti's warblers sang from deep in the nettles by the pond at the start of the New Cut. Had someone told me thirty years ago I'd be hearing ten Cetti's warblers for every sedge warbler over a Summer I'd have called for medical attention. The cut itself was bone dry, the haunt of robins, dunnocks and blackbirds. Great tits and wrens bustled about in the undergrowth, goldfinches twittered and sang in the treetops, there were literally no birds at all on the Grey Mist pool. More brown hawkers whirred past me as I walked down the path and a female banded demoiselle sunned herself on the top of a high garden wall.

River Mersey

Lesser black-backs 

A few tufted ducks drifted about on the river above Woolston Weir and a dozen lesser black-backs bathed. A couple of dozen mallards dozed under the gate and a mute swan escorted its cygnet as they fed by the near bank. At the fork of the river just above the Weir a pair of great crested grebes were re-occupying their nest, one bringing in new building materials while the other sat. I could see no signs of eggs while they were doing the renovations. A little egret found a convenient spot for a bit of midwater shrimping, another unlikely scenario thirty years ago.

Little egret 

Walking up the hill to the bridge

Chiffchaff

The walk up to the bridge across to No.3 Bed was accompanied by endless birdsong. Every dead tree had a singing chiffchaff perched like the Christmas fairy at the top. Wrens and robins sang from bracken, Cetti's warblers sang from the riverbank, blackcaps and blackbirds sang from leafy trees. Families of blue tits, great tits and long-tailed tits were furtive as they bounced through the trees. 

Azure damselfly 

I had been assuming that all the damselflies zipping round in the distance were common blue damselflies. My first ringlet butterfly of the year, a velvety dark brown lovely that picked a fight with a red admiral, made me notice a lot of dark damselflies lurking about in the bracken. It took me a while before I saw any of them well enough to be sure that they were female azure damselflies, and I freely admit that I had to use my 'phone to look up the identification features. A step up from the old days when I'd litter my notebooks with all the details except the ones necessary for the ID. My finally getting one in focus on the camera coincided with my first cuckoo of the year calling from somewhere on the other side of the bund on No.2 Bed. I honestly thought I wasn't adding cuckoo to this year's list, I've had no luck at all with them on the mosses.

River Mersey, at the bridge 

I had to tiptoe round tiny toadlets to get onto the bridge. Another cuckoo called from somewhere on No.3 Bed. A couple of drake mallards drifted downriver and another Cetti's warbler sang from the riverside bracken.

From the Sybil Hogg Hide 

First stop was the Sybil Hogg Hide to get a view of the pools and a general feeling of things. Things were busy. Nearby, some of the drake mallards sported patchwork quilts of greys and browns as they started to moult into eclipse plumage. A pair of dabchicks fussed about in the reeds margins and Canada geese clumped about. Out on the open water there were hundreds of gadwalls. They congregate here in big numbers for the annual post-breeding moult. In the reeds in front of the hide a reed bunting added its contribution to the songscape.

Shelducks and ducklings 

The walk round to the shipping container hide was accompanied by whitethroats, chiffchaffs and blackcaps. I was starting to get a bit anxious about the lack of swifts or hirundines but told myself I'd see some once I was looking over the open pools. Which I didn't. I did see more Canada geese and gadwalls, a pair of shelducks had two fluffy ducklings, and coots and greylags were lurking in reeds. The shelducklings spent most of their time diving, something I've never seen the adults do. There were black-necked grebes about but they were tricky to spot, nearly always they were quickly steaming their way across gaps in the reeds. Reed warblers sang in the reeds and I realised I hadn't heard any sedge warblers today.

Gadwalls and shovelers (second left)

Descent from the shipping container hide

I walked through the meadow to the Morgan Hide, small skippers bouncing through the Yorkshire fog and cocksfoot and my nostrils twitching at the grass pollen. Yet more whitethroats scolded and sang, I've no idea where the pheasants were calling from, "somewhere over there" being my best effort.

First-Summer dabchick

From the Morgan Hide 

Gadwalls and lapwing

There was more of the same at the Morgan Hide though with mostly closer views. A lapwing loafed with some gadwalls and Canada geese. I couldn't see whether or not a pair of oystercatchers had young but they were behaving as if they had. The nesting black-headed gulls definitely had young, some of them quite well grown. A drake shoveler hid in plain sight amongst the gadwalls in his eclipse mufti. I caught sight of the rear end of a water rail as it ran squealing into the reeds. I didn't have any luck finding any pochards or the garganey that's been reported here, there's enough reedy cover in the pools to hide regiments of both 

Giant hogweed doing as it says on the tin.
The big umbel of flowers at the top was twice as big as my head.

I checked the time and decided to call it quits. I'd get into Grappenhall too late for the last bus to Altrincham and would have half an hour for the next bus to Warrington for the train home (which had been cancelled anyway). I had a quick look at the Ship Canal where a pair of mute swans and their cygnets loafed on the bank upstream of a crowd of mallards as a pair of great crested grebes floated downstream and retraced my steps back to Woolston Weir.

Tufted ducks, Woolston Weir 

A nuthatch joined the warblers singing along the path back. A herring gull had joined the bathing lesser black-backs. If I walked into Martinscroft I could wait half an hour for the 100 into Irlam and wait fifty minutes for the next train home from there. Or, if I had the legs, I could walk to Birchwood and have about half an hour to wait for the train. I got into Martinscroft. The options were to walk down the verge of a dual carriageway or through an industrial estate, I was tired and neither prospect thrilled so I waited for the bus. I saw the first swallow (singular) as the bus passed a barley fields in Rixton and the first swifts as I waited for the late-running train at Irlam. By which time I was dog-tired and ready for my tea.