Third-quarterly review

Stonechat, Marshside 

The hot Spring gave way to a hot July with interludes of steamy armpits weather and a distinctly Autumnal beginning to August which was the curtain raiser to the umpteenth heat wave of the year which in turn gave way to what should have been steamy armpits weather but for the wind, followed by a dry, largely grey September with bursts of May about it. In short, whatever you put on to wear in the morning would have been dead wrong at least twice in the day throughout this period.

As usual the dog days were quiet, the small birds retreating into cover for a rest after what must have been a tricky breeding season given the weather, and the ducks retreating while they moult their flight feathers. Domestic circumstances had me not travelling far for a few weeks though there was plenty to see locally if I worked at it.

It didn't feel like a bumper breeding year all round though Canada geese and great crested grebes seemed to have done well. Little terns did badly at Hodbarrow and had given up on the season by the time I paid it a visit. I haven't seen crowds of young starlings locally either, which is a worry. 

And as always the feeling of not getting to All The Places and seeing All The Things haunts me though by any rational measure I'm covering plenty of ground and visiting lots of interesting new places along the way.

The year list ticked over at a steady rate and the life list had Montagu's harrier and white-winged black tern, both at Marshside, added to it. Neither of these were on my radar at the beginning of the year, which is part of the fun.

Mandarin ducks, on the Mersey by Stretford Ees

Lapwings, black-tailed godwits and dunlin, Marshside

Stock dove, Pennington Flash 

Moorhen, Pennington Flash 

The year list to date is 208

Totals of recorded species by BTO recording area:

• Anglesey 42
• Carmarthenshire 17
• Cheshire and Wirral 114
• Cumbria 88
• Denbighshire 34
• Derbyshire 57
• Flintshire 31
• Greater Manchester 125
• Lancashire and North Merseyside 163
• Staffordshire 24
• Yorkshire 92

It's been an interesting start to the Autumn, even if most of the excitement is going on elsewhere. I think the rest of my year's going to be aimed at filling in some of the gaps. There are a few species I really should have picked up at the beginning of the year and I absolutely shall have to get out to Frodsham.

Coots and juvenile great crested grebe, Moses Gate Country Park 

Moorhen, little egret, mallard and black-headed gull, Pennington Flash 

Wheatear, Meols

Gannet, Bempton 

Mosses

Fly agaric 

A cold morning became a warm sunny lunchtime. After a long day yesterday I settled on a potter over Chat Moss. I got the 100 from the Trafford Centre and had to walk up Cutnook Lane from Liverpool Road due to roadworks. As I crossed the motorway onto Chat Moss the clouds drifted in and it became a mild and a bit heavy afternoon.

The paddocks by the motorway were full of black-headed gulls, woodpigeons and carrion crows. The turf field on the other side of the road was peppered with magpies and crows. Robins sang in the trees but the other small birds were keeping a low profile as I walked down Cutnook Lane.

Twelve Yards Road 

I crossed Twelve Yards Road and walked through the trees to Croxden's Moss. It was very quiet. A mixed tit flock — a large family party of long-tailed tits with a couple of blue tits in tow — bounced by in uncharacteristic silence. At last a robin and a wren could bear it no longer and simultaneously broke into song.

Walking up to Croxden's Moss 

Croxden's Moss 

Croxden's was big and apparently empty save the caws of invisible carrion crows and the lesser black-backs flying by in the far distance. It seemed like lifetimes ago I was trying to find a hooded crow out here in the murk.

A rent in the path
Sallow leaves for scale.

Another wren started singing as I turned back and took the rough path parallel to Twelve Yards Road. Which was even rougher than usual as the abnormally dry Summer has dried the peat out so much it's split the path down the middle, with some of the gaps a foot deep and several inches wide. It continued to be a very, very quiet walk. I could hear the wings of black darters hunting midges in the sallows. I was surprised to be looking up at black darters, I'm too used to seeing them sunning themselves on warm days. A couple of common darters flashes by and a few speckled woods fluttered about the verges.

Marsh harrier 

I emerged into the open just in time to see the end of a dog fight between a male marsh harrier and a carrion crow with both combatants flying off to neutral corners. The brouhaha unsettled a few woodpigeons, linnets and a couple of skylarks that had been feeding in the field.

Chat Moss 

About a dozen teal were dozing on the pools North of the birch scrub. Just as I saw them the marsh harrier came flying over at treetop height, too fast for me and my camera. The teal panicked into a pool closer to me then they saw me and panicked back. I retreated into the scrub and regained the path and let them get their breath back. A family of long-tailed tits came over to see what all the fuss was about and decided I wasn't interesting.

A very noisy buzzard was sitting on one of the telegraph poles on the lane back to Twelve Yards Road. The hedgerows were busy with chaffinches and reed buntings. And something else. A couple of linnet-like birds flew over but their quiet chattering calls were of something else besides. I started walking down the lane and heard some more of the same and found a dozen redpolls fidgeting in the trees before they followed the birds I'd just seen flying whence I came.

Chat Moss 

Walking down Twelve Yards Road to Four Lanes End I noticed a flock of large thrushes in the trees. It was way too early for fieldfares (and they hadn't been much in evidence last Winter) so my head told me they must be mistle thrushes. My confidence in that identification was undermined when a lone redwing flew overhead. It came as a relief when they barracked a passing kestrel, unmistakably mistle thrushes. When I turned onto Astley Road there was another dozen of them sitting on the telephone lines in the middle of the field. I had to look three times to be sure I wasn't seeing things.

Linnets 

The fields further down were littered with woodpigeons, linnets and pied wagtails. One flock of linnets was more than fifty strong. On the telephone wires what wasn't swallows was linnets or starlings and swallows skimmed low over the fields and lanes. There were more linnets on the field by the motorway, they rose up and flew over to join the big flock. I thought there were more in the far corner of the field but they turned out to be a couple of dozen meadow pipits.

By the Jack Russell's gate 

On Roscoe Road 

It was a busy walk into Irlam with the school run bringing the kids back to the farms meeting the late afternoon commercial traffic leaving them. Tractors were mowing turf and disturbing pheasants which wandered out onto the newly-mown grass and started fighting, like you do. The Zinnia Close spadgers were packing it in for the afternoon and so did I.

Bempton

Gannet

I thought I'd best use up one of those return ticket to anywhere on the Northern network passes as there's more coming in the post. It was going to be a nice day so I headed for Bempton.

The connection with the Sheffield train at Manchester's a bit tight but usually there isn't a problem. Today my train into Manchester was late so I missed the connection. Rather than waiting another hour I bought a single to Leeds, caught the train from there to Hull and picked up the train to Bempton I'd been aiming for in the first place.

It was a nice day and I was dressed for the cold morning I'd set out in. No matter, it wasn't uncomfortably warm and there was a nice light breeze to keep everything fresh. The rooks in the fields by the station were extremely noisy, the great tits and robins in the hedgerows made themselves known and a collared dove sang by the village pub.

Cliff Road 

The hedgerows just outside the village were stiff with house sparrows. Further down a few chaffinches and a couple of yellowhammers flitted about in the trees down a side lane. It had become a day warm enough to have red admirals sunning themselves on the footpath.

Tree sparrow 

Approaching Bempton Cliffs I could hear tree sparrows. When I arrived they were chasing each other around the telegraph poles. The Dell had been hosting a pretty collection of passage migrants last week. Today it was "just" fizzing with tree sparrows, chaffinches, blackbirds and blue tits. Many of the tree sparrows were fussing around the nest boxes in the Dell and on the visitor centre.

Tree sparrow 

Bempton Cliffs 

It was a much quieter walk down to the cliffs than on my last visit. All the auks, fulmars and kittiwakes had gone but there were plenty of gannets about and there seemed to be a passage of herring gulls all flying South. The sea was peppered with gannets, nearly all of them adults. Every so often I'd think I'd found a diver and it would be a juvenile gannet recently left the nest. It was worth the looking round anyway as a couple of common dolphins were swimming just offshore.

Gannets

Gannet

Gannets 

Gannets 

Jackdaw

I had a pleasant wander round, watching a kestrel hovering over the fields, hearing the jackdaws and crows, and wondering if I kept seeing the same three pigeons flying around and why they weren't with the crowds on the cliffs.

The view inland from the cliffs

I had another scout round the trees and bushes round the car park and the Dell. Greenfinches and goldfinches had joined the chaffinches and a mixed tit flock included some very confiding goldcrests that allowed me to take some there-was-a-warbler-there-a-moment-ago photos.

There was a goldcrest there a moment ago 

As I walked back to the station the starlings were flocking onto the chimney pots of Bempton, the rooks were calling and a chiffchaff at the station threatened to sing.

I got the train to Sheffield and thence home. Along the way I became so used to seeing pairs of roe deer in fields I almost didn't realise the figures in a field outside Driffield were a couple of red deer hinds.

Gannets
There were still a few youngsters on the cliffs.

Home thoughts

It's an odd thing: I haven't seen a single sparrow in the garden this weekend. I'd let the feeders lie empty for a couple of days at the end of last week but it usually takes less than a day for them to twig they've been refilled. 

They haven't been much in evidence in their other usual haunts locally, either. They've been very quiet at the station this week and the usual mutterings in the privets by the bus stop weren't to be heard. I was rather relieved when one chirped at me from a privet hedge as I walked home at sunset. 

A few minutes later I walked on down to the station thinking it was a bit of a cool evening for bats but it's worth five minutes' having a look. There were two soprano pipistrelles flying round the field at head height. One flew off towards the school, the other continued flying figures of eight around my head. I stood there for five minutes and bade it good luck and goodnight. It's a rum do when you're seeing more bats than spadgers.

Friday toddle

Juvenile moorhens, Brabyns Park

I was evidently tired after the past couple of days and a serious case of oversleeping knocked the day's plans for a trip out to Bempton on the head. A bright sunny day clouded over so I headed off to Etherow Country Park to have a look at the mandarin ducks.

Moorhen

I got the train out to Marple rather than drag the afternoon out with two bus rides. From the station I walked down the road and turned into Brabyns Park. A heron on the pond spotted me before I spotted me and it was off sharpish. Unlike a family of moorhens — the two adults and three full-grown juveniles — that emerged out of hiding and started pottering about the water lilies.

Brabyns Park 

I walked through Brabyns Park up into Compstall, a gentler suite of inclines than Compstall Road and a lot more picturesque. The mixed tit flocks in the woodland were accompanied by very vocal nuthatches and robins sang every hundred yards. Crows and jackdaws called from the parkland and ring-necked parakeets screeched their way around the mature oak trees. 

The last time I walked this way the iron bridge over the Etherow was closed for repairs so I ended up walking up Compstall Road anyway. I crossed it today and walked up Rollins Lane, passing the community woodland with its magpies, titmice, chiffchaffs and robins.

Canada x greylag hybrid goose

Crossing the road I walked up to the car park at Etherow Country Park. This end of the lake was a mass of Canada geese, pigeons and jackdaws with a few mallards and mute swans fitting in as best can and a tufted duck looking lonely on its own. A ghostly edition of a Canada goose — the product of a furtive pairing with one of the greylags stationed on the island — drifted over and hauled itself up onto the side, standing out in the crowd.

Tufted duck

I walked down the path alongside the canal. There were plenty of mallards, Canada geese and coots about and moorhens, pigeons and dunnocks fossicked about along the banks. A blue tit flying across the path and disappearing into the bushes was followed by a parade of long-tailed tits. I walked down to the weir without seeing any mandarin ducks. Nor were they on the river.

They'd all gone to bed early. There were whistles from the depths of the trees upstream of the weir and a dozen were asleep in the drowned willows at the top of the canal by Weir Cottage.

The mandarins had gone to bed

Keg Wood 

I had a quick look at Keg Wood, the knees suggesting that we might not enjoy a long walk. Titmice bounced noisily through the trees and a squadron of Canada geese passed by at treetop height.

Etherow Country Park 

The walk back down was fairly quiet. The jackdaws were flying in to roost in the trees by the courtyard and more Canada geese were flying in from parts unknown. I'd looked in vain for grey wagtails on the river, one flew over the bus stop as I waited for the 384 to Stockport and the bus home.

Holyhead

Shag diving for dinner

I had an embarrassment of complimentary travel vouchers burning a hole in my pocket so I used half of them for a day out to Anglesey. It's a lot late for the nesting seabirds at South Stack so I decided I'd have a proper explore of Holyhead Harbour and the breakwater.

Newton-le-Willows was a new addition to my list of railway stations what have a buzzard sitting in a tree, a chunky, earth-brown bird that glared at the train as it left the station. It was a day for seeing buzzards, there were a few more in the Cheshire countryside and yet more flying low over the fields of Anglesey.

It was a lovely day for a train ride along the North Wales coastline. The tide was high, there was just enough mud left for a few shelducks and a big flock of black-headed gulls on the coast just North of Mostyn, beyond that the waves lapped seawalls. Little egrets and herons haunted salt marshes, carrion crows, jackdaws and rooks rummaged in fields, herring gulls and woodpigeons sat on chimney pots and starlings on wireless antennae. Mute swans and little egrets peppered the big island on the marine lake at Rhyl, a crowd of little egrets clustered by the viaduct over the Clwyd.

Crossing over onto Anglesey the flocks of rooks became more frequent as the train passed through sheep farming country. A big flock of greylags grazed near Llyn Coron just after Bodorgan Station, there was a bigger one near Rhosneigr Station.

The Old Harbour 

I got off the train and wandered over the Old Harbour into Holyhead. I stopped for a look round, as well as the inevitable herring gulls and pigeons there were a couple of shags and a sleeping guillemot. Black guillemots frequent the harbour and I got my hopes up but this bird had all dark upperparts so was definitely a common guillemot. (In Summer, black guillemots are black top and bottom with big white patches on their wings, in Winter they're nearly all white with flecks of black on their backs and a broken black margin to those white wing patches.)

Instead of my usual walk across the town centre and out for South Stack I walked beside the harbour along Victoria Road. At the top of the road there's a gap by the houses looking over an inlet of the New Harbour. Herring gulls and oystercatchers dozed on rocks, a heron was asleep on an island and a couple more shags were out fishing in the water.

Rock pipit

I carried on round the road and dropped down to the promenade next to the Maritime Museum. The sea was lapping at the seawall and a rock pipit was skittering over the rocks by the seawall. One of the shags was fishing close enough to try and get its photo. Unlike the only black guillemot of the day which was out in midwater by the boats. It was in Winter whites, the first time I've seen this plumage, and at first I took it for one of the little buoys marking the harbour pathways. Then I realised what it was then convinced myself I was right first time and was only sure about it when it dived underwater and bobbed back up again fifty yards further out.

Shag 

Holyhead Mountain from the marina 

A nosy round the marina found a lot more herring gulls and a few black-headed gulls and carrion crows, and redshanks and oystercatchers dozed in pairs on the rocks. A way over I could see people walking the length of the breakwater (it's about a mile and a half long). I reckoned I could try a bit of seawatching on there so I took the path to Breakwater Road.

Along the way I took a detour. A rough path led into some woodland so I followed it, adding chiffchaffs and titmice to the day's tally. Then I got to a bit where the path had collapsed down a bank. I'd have crossed the gap in younger, dafter days but I decided not to risk it on untrustworthy knees and turned back. Along the way I spent a while trying to get a photo of an ichneumon wasp that was hunting on a bit of stone wall.

Ichneumon wasp 

The path had evidently been a private road to the castellated Victorian ruin on Breakwater Road. Parts ran along high banks thick with ivy, hart's tongue ferns and polypody. Elsewhere there were high walls thick with ivy and fizzing with insects. Commas, red admirals and speckled woods feasted on the ivy flowers, bees and hoverflies buzzed, Southern hawkers snatched small flies out of the air in passing. It felt very much like Summer.

Red admiral 

Comma

Goldfinches, great tits and robins flitted to and fro between the trees on either side of the road.

Goldfinches
When they sit still it isn't easy to pick out goldfinches from dead leaves but as they never sit still the problem doesn't arise.

A picturesque ruin

The breakwater, the New Harbour on the right, the Irish Sea on the left 

I had hoped that when I got onto the breakwater I'd get a closer look at the black guillemot and perhaps find some more but no luck in either case. In fact nearly all the birds were more distant than they had been from the marina. The seawatching was the typical combination of optimism, patience and frustration tempered by a couple of moments of triumph. Nearly all the birds I could see were gulls, mostly herring gulls with a few black-headed gulls and a couple of passing great black-backs. Just as my spirits were flagging a juvenile gannet flew by one of the great black-backs. Crows had been flying across the harbour. One flying over the sea took my eye as it looked a lot broad-winged, even more so than a rook, but I concluded it was just a trick of the angle I was seeing it by. Then it called a few times and headed off up and over to Holyhead Mountain and I added chough to the year list. How I missed a dirty long red bill I do not know.

Snowdonia from the end of thf breakwater

The New Harbour

Wheatear 

A rock pipit jumped over the seawall on my approach. A wheatear kept its nerve but also kept its distance. It was a young bird in fresh plumage and the white tips of the tail puzzled me until I worked that out.

Wheatear

I walked the length of the breakwater and walked back. An adult gannet passed by on the open sea about a quarter of a mile out. Glancing down at the path I realised that despite the island being made up of Pre-Cambrian gneisses that had been folded and compressed and partially melted under high pressure the breakwater has been dressed in fossiliferous Carboniferous limestone.

Rugose corals, possibly Lithiostrotion

The walk back to the station was uneventful except the bit where I was forcibly reminded that the roads on this end of town have some steep stretches both up and back down into the town centre. I was glad of a sit down when I got to the station.

There were yet more corvids, greylags, buzzards and woodpigeons as the stopping train to Shrewsbury made its way across Anglesey. Mute swans cruised on the Cefni at Malltraeth while a kestrel hunted along the bank. The tide had ebbed and beyond Llanfairfechan the gulls on the beach were joined by little egrets and pied wagtails.

Great Orme from the train

I changed at Llandudno Junction where a couple of dozen house sparrows settling to roost in a bush by the pedestrian bridge contrived to sound like a couple of hundred. As the train back to Manchester trundled through the twilight I was the old man with his nose pressed against the window looking for owls.