Woolston Eyes

Moorhens and teal

I haven't been making the most of my Woolston Eyes permit, nobody to blame but myself, it's been sitting there waiting to be looked at. It wasn't actually raining this morning so I got the bus to Partington and from there got the 5a to Latchford Locks, crossed over and walked down Thelwall Lane to No.3 Bed.

Latchford Locks 

Latchford Locks was festooned with pigeons, with yet more on the surrounding rooftops. A dozen or so black-headed gulls loafed with a lesser black-back and a pair of mallards. The only birds I could see on the canal was a pair of Canada geese a few hundred yards upstream.

Thelwall Lane, Manchester Ship Canal on the right

The walk down Thelwall Lane was quiet. A greenfinch flew over. A magpie rattled in the trees. A pied wagtail flew into a builder's yard. It didn't get a lot busier as I passed through the gate and walked down to the permit holders' car park. A couple of robins tutted in the undergrowth. A cormorant flew by. I told myself I was doing it for the walk and started to worry because the boots were feeling far too comfortable. All the small bird noise and movement was leaves and branches in the wind. Even in the shelter of the trees there was a strong wind. I put my cap in my pocket. (Note to self: glue a strip of velcro on your forehead to keep your cap on.)

Just past the car park I turned and followed the path to the bridge. It took three goes to open the padlock to the gate, confirmation that I need to visit more often. All the while I was fiddling about gangs of mallards, tufted ducks and shovelers gave a running commentary as they drifted and loafed on the river. Once through the gate and padlock locked behind me I scanned the river, just in case, mindful that I saw a ferruginous duck here in March so no assumptions should be made. In the event there were no surprises but don't look don't see.

River Mersey

I'm never sure if I'm actually encountering more wobbly bridges or if the harmonics of walking over a bridge emphasises the unsoundness of my knee. Either way it was a relief to get onto the island that is No.3 Bed and terra firma. It was also a relief that suddenly the hedgerows and trees were full of bird life: robins, wrens, blackbirds and a squeaky chiffchaff. There was shelter from the wind but rain in the air, I put my cap back on in the superstitious hope that may ward it off.

No.3 Bed

The first Hide I came to gave a view of the pools from this end and a view of distant gadwalls, teals and shovelers dabbling out there. The sky had taken on ominous tones and the water visibly darkened while I watched. I wondered what I thought I was doing.

It was a short trudge along an acorn-littered path to the Sibyl Hogg Hide where a squirrel had worked out that the way to defeat a squirrel-proof feeder is to hang upside down and take the sunflowers from underneath the base. Why it was indulging in these gymnastics amidst a bumper acorn crop I do not know. For a few minutes I thought the squirrel and a couple of chaffinches was all I was getting but then a mixed tit flock — a dozen great tits, a couple of blue tits, a nuthatch and a couple more chaffinches — flew in and worked round the squirrel.

Walking towards the meadows

Walking through the trees towards the meadows I became aware of more small birds mostly quietly flitting about. There were more mixed tit flocks — great tits and blue tits, sometimes with chaffinches, sometimes with chiffchaffs, never with long-tailed tits. Mixed flocks of finches bounced between trees and bushes, mostly chaffinches in the trees, mostly goldfinches and greenfinches in the hawthorns and blackthorns, a bullfinch with one flock, a handful of siskins with another. Every so often the tit flocks and finch flocks would merge into a confusing mass of small objects rattling the dead leaves.

Skirting the edge of the meadows

A great spotted woodpecker flew overhead as the path led me to the edge of the meadow. Woodpigeons and magpies clattered about between treetops. Robins, wrens and dunnocks tutted and squeaked. I was surprised to see a couple of fieldfares fly over, I'd have been less surprised had it been a couple of dozen. Blackbirds bustled about in the undergrowth. And I heard a noise.

I was passing a stand of blackthorn when I heard a sound like a squeaky wheelbarrow. A yellow-browed warbler had been reported earlier in the week but given the distances they travel it was probably in a rectory garden in Dorset by now. I heard the squeak again, a two-note sound that needed a good oiling. I dismissed it as the creaking of an old elder bush growing into the willows on the opposite side of the path. Then I saw the yellow-browed warbler make the noise. It was like a larger, more high-contrast and even more hyperactive goldcrest to look at but the plain olive green of its back continued onto the top of its head. The buff wing bar was obvious as it flitted about in the depths of the bush, I just got one brief glimpse of the buff eyebrow as it jinked towards me then dived under cover. Last I saw was a small body squeaking painfully as it flew over into some willows. I have to wonder that people manage to get photos of yellow-browed warblers.

Canada geese 

I climbed into the Morgan Hide and looked over the pool as the weather decided to stop playing at raining. The teals rummaging about on the near bank took this as a signal to run into the water and have a bath. The Canada geese and moorhens on the bank seemed less delighted. Out on the water small rafts of gadwalls, teals and shovelers drifted about, a couple of lapwings flew in and a heron lurked in the reeds on a tiny island. Somewhere in the brambles at the base of the hide a Cetti's warbler decided to start singing.

Teal

From the Morgan Hide 

The rain seemed well dug in so I decided to quit while I was ahead. I thought it best to retrace my steps and over the bridge then walk up into Woolston for the 100 to the Trafford Centre. One of the mixed tit flocks along the edge of the meadow was almost entirely long-tailed tits, which might account for their notable absence earlier. A mixed flock on the rise above the bridge included a couple of goldcrests.

Heading back to the bridge

I crossed over and walked along the path above the river towards Woolston Weir. The hawthorns and gorse bushes were fizzing with small birds. One of the goldcrests skipping about in one bush was a very excitable male with a vivid orange crown, for a moment I thought I'd struck lucky again, this time with a firecrest. I told myself not to be greedy. The tit flocks on this side of the river all included long-tailed tits. The sun made a cameo appearance and for five minutes I felt distinctly overdressed. 

Walking to Woolston Weir 

Woolston Weir 

The river downstream of the weir bridge was quiet, just a couple of Canada geese and a moorhen. It wasn't a lot busier upstream, just a dozen mallards drifting by the far bank. 

The electricity company bought dirty great plastic owls to put on top of the pylons to scare away the starlings. It obviously works.

I checked the bus times. I had plenty of time for the bus and still had some legs on me so I strolled down the New Cut as far as Bridge Lane then walked up to Manchester Road for the bus. The bird life in the cut was settling down for the night, the last few blue tits bounced through willows, the robins and blackbirds started the twilight shift. Overhead starlings started congregating on the power lines and sat on plastic owls. I had a ten minute wait for the bus and was glad of the sit down out of the wind when it came.

The New Cut

Martin Mere

Kestrel

It was a cool, gloomy day and I set sail for Martin Mere with a few misgivings. I like to imagine I'm not a fair-weather birdwatcher but I wasn't convinced I shouldn't have made a pot of tea and gone back to bed. (I never do but it's a recurrent fantasy when I'm hanging about in the dreich waiting for buses or trains.)

The trains behaved impeccably and we passed by fields busy with corvids and woodpigeons to the published schedule. Just outside Lostock the lead greys of the sky were echoed on the backs of a couple of roe deer in their Winter topcoats. Past Westhoughton I looked in vain for the eagle owls in their aviary. The damp fields beyond Parbold were littered with gulls. And the rooks were starting nest-building at Burscough Bridge Station. Not a concerted effort by any means, just one or two drifting over with twigs while a couple of others grunted as they inspected the premises.

Red Cat Lane 

It was a quietish walk down Red Cat Lane. There were rooks, jackdaws and woodpigeons about but the crowds were over by the railway line. A few carrion crows rummaged about in the fields planted with Winter barley. In the hedgerows and gardens robins sang, chaffinches pinked, goldfinches twittered and titmice quietly bounced about at the ends of twigs. Handfuls of pink-footed geese flew over, calling evocatively. It was the right weather for wild geese calls. Looking over the fields as I passed Curlew Lane I could see more geese, wave after wave, a couple of hundred of them heading towards the fields on the other side of the railway. Closer to hand a flock of black-headed gulls closely shadowed a tractor ploughing a field behind Brandeth Barn.

Black-headed gulls following the plough

Martin Mere 

At Martin Mere I headed straight for the Discovery Hide out of the wind. The mere was carpeted with mallards, the drakes whistling seductively to the ladies. There were more pintails than wigeons and the pochards and tufted ducks took some finding. A couple of dozen shovelers cruised and dabbled by the far bank. There were a couple of dozen whooper swans, most of them full-grown cygnets. Unusually, there were a few mute swans on the mere, too. Shelducks and coots made their way best can through the crowds, the swans sailed through regardless. The greylags crowded the far bank or jostled with mallards and cormorants on the islands. Something put up a crowd of lapwings, ruffs and starlings but I couldn't find the culprit.

Whooper swan and mallards

Whooper swans and mallards, coots and shelducks

Mallards

Greylags, shelduck and mallards

Mallards, shelducks, black-headed gulls and whooper swan

Whooper swans

Mute swan, mallards, coot and whooper swan 

Whooper swan and mallards 

Shelduck

The air felt damp as I walked to the Ron Barker Hide. The sparrows at the feeders by the Raines Observatory were all house sparrows. It was quiet at the Hale Hide and quieter yet at the Kingfisher Hide, save a row on woodpigeons on the fence.

Parasol mushroom 

From the Kingfisher Hide 

From the Ron Barker Hide 
The reeds have taken advantage of the dry Summer to invade the pool.

The Ron Barker Hide was busy with people. I sat downstairs and scanned around. A couple of marsh harriers floated over the distant reeds. A solitary adult cattle egret accompanied the Canada geese grazing over by the fields. Carrion crows bounced about on the banks and a Cetti's warbler sang in the reeds just across the drain. A juvenile kestrel shifted over and started hunting in front of the hide, dropping down a couple of times and flying back up empty-handed. It took a breather in the brambles before flying up to try again a bit further down. It hadn't gone long before a stonechat bobbed up out of the brambles and had a look round 

Kestrel

A possible movement in the grass?

No, shift over a bit to the right then…

…and try again

Kestrel 

A water rail sat out in the open by the drain. It looked a young bird though the dullness of the red on its beak could just have been mud and murky light. One of the marsh harriers, a female-type bird, floated across the back of the reeds and disturbed a couple of teal which flew off at a gallop.

Water rail

Candle snuff fungus 

Walking back I kept an eye out in the trees looking for owl-shaped objects. I still hadn't seen a tawny owl this year. A tawny owl saw me but I was jiggered if I saw it and it wasn't for giving me a second go at seeing where the noise came from. I just don't have the eye for owls. I meet people who can spot owls as easily as I can pick out dunnocks or goldcrests and they can stand me in front of an owl and tell me precisely where to look and I won't see it. There'll be an example of that in the yearly round-up, that particular bird I'd walked past twice and it was four yards away. At least short-eared owls and barn owls give you a sporting chance by hunting out in the open.

Birch bracket fungus

The rain became persistent and I took the hint and set off back to Burscough Bridge for the train home. A male marsh harrier floated past Brandeth Barn and wasn't popular with the pied wagtails. A buzzard on the fence near Crabtree Lane was ignored by the jackdaws and starlings. And for once the train back to Manchester was running and on time.

Tarlscough Lane 

New Moss Wood

Sketch map: New Moss Wood

New Moss Wood is a patch of dampish woodland at the edge of the Salford mosses, separated from Cadishead by the Manchester to Liverpool via Warrington line. It's good on its own for an hour or so's dawdle round or it can be added to a longer walk.

The 67 and 100 buses run down Liverpool Road and stop by Moss Road. Coming in by train, rather than walking all the way down Liverpool Road to Moss Road it's quicker to turn down Dean Road, cut through the entry at the bottom onto Allotment Road then walk through the allotments to Moss Road where it meets the railway bridge. The path through the allotments zigzags a bit and the first time you try it you might wonder if it's the right path and whether you're going the right way, don't worry, it is and you are.

(When you emerge onto Moss Road you'll see that the path continues across the road. This is the old access road for the junction where the Liverpool line met the line between Wigan and Altrincham. I've only walked part of it, into Cadishead, I've not carried on over the bridge and on to Cadishead Way. The stretch I've walked is typical Greater Manchester post-industrial hedgerows and light woodland with the usual assortment of titmice, finches, warblers and thrushes and one the worse for that.)

New Moss Wood

New Moss Wood is a Woodland Trust site that used to be market gardens. It's fairly densely planted birches, alders and oaks with a grid of rides going through them, some a lot muddier than others. In addition there are a few small pools dug to attract dragonflies and the like and some overgrown land drains providing some more boggy habitat. To the West and North, and across the road, farmland adds another habitat to the mix.

New Moss Wood 

There are two entrances, the first one from the railway bridge runs through a scrubby clearing, further along is a small car park with an entrance directly into the wood.

Jay

The birdlife is mostly typical wet woodland stuff. I've not visited it nearly often enough, my list to date is fifty-two species. Wrens and robins abound, as do titmice, thrushes and finches though they can be elusive in the latter half of the year. The usual warblers are chiffchaffs, blackcaps and whitethroats but garden warblers and willow warblers can often be found. You'll have been unlucky if you haven't seen or heard at least one buzzard. On a good day you'll have sparrowhawk and kestrel on your tally, too.

It's a site that feels like it should have willow tits somewhere about but I don't know that they've got here yet. (Willow tits seem to be finding sanctuary in the post-industrial woodlands but they're not given to dispersing quickly and so don't tend to be early colonisers of new habitats. There seems to be a tension between the availability of the new damp woodlands and the species' overall decline. It's to be hoped that the mosaic of patches of woodland between the Mersey and the Douglas provides enough stepping stones for them to increase their range and perhaps recover numbers. Anyway, I'll keep looking and listening.)

Moss Road, looking North

Having farmland round the edges of the wood adds to the mix: you should see pheasants, you might bump into grey partridges. Gulls, lapwings, skylarks, swallows and wagtails fly over and/or can be seen in the fields.

There are plenty of seats to share with dragonflies in the Summer.

Common darters

If you're wanting a more extended walk once you've explored New Moss Wood there are a few options as you walk further up Moss Road.

• A footpath to the right goes over the fields to Astley Road. From there you can walk North into Chat Moss.

• You can carry on to the end of Moss Road then follow the path into the middle section of Little Woolden Moss.

• Just before you meet the motorway you can turn left on Woolden Road and over the river onto Glazebrook Lane then walk North up to the access road to Little Woolden Hall (the first turn on the right after the motorway) and thence onto Little Woolden Moss.

Longendale

Goldfinches and blackbird, Hadfield

It was the sunny day after a very wet 'n' windy night and the fierce wind had the black clouds scudding past before they got the chance to rain. The magpies rattled in the back garden, the spadgers sulked in the roses. It was that sort of day.

Magpies, Stretford

After an intense day's birdwatching yesterday I'd promised myself a gentle Tuesday and was glad of it after a distinctly ropy night's sleep. What to do? Where to go? In the end I decided on an hour's potter about on the Longendale Trail as far as the stretch overlooking Bottoms Reservoir and back. There was likely to be more birdlife kicking about in the shelter of the high embankments as in any of my local woodlands, and besides it's a doddle of a walk.

Starting the walk from Platt Street 

It was bright and sunny, if cool and windy, when I got off the train at Hadfield. I hadn't even got as far as the Padfield Main Road bridge when the clouds rolled in and the gloom descended. This was the cue for the birds to go to roost. Robins stopped singing and took to ticking tetchily from the depths of ferns. A flock of goldfinches disappeared into some hawthorns, followed quickly by chaffinches, bullfinches, blackbirds and blue tits. Woodpigeons clattered into sycamore trees to be joined by noisy gangs of magpies while jackdaws flew over to their communal roosts in the woods by Woodhead Road.

Longendale Trail 

I got out into the open above Bottoms Reservoir. The rooks were still feeding in the fields with the sheep but a stray shaft of sunlight poking through a gap in the clouds seemed to be a signal for off and they all flew over the reservoir into the woods. The Canada geese carried on feeding, it was still a while before sunset even though it looked like twilight out there.

Peak Naze

Bottom Reservoir 

It was much quieter when I walked back, you wouldn't credit that so much bird life had disappeared into those bushes. A couple of magpies bounced about in the trees, a couple of robins sang. Blackbirds still fossicked about in the verges. Oddly, they were all males, black ghosts in the gloom.

I just managed to catch the next train back to Manchester (no panic, they're every half-hour). A buzzard circled low over the station to see me off.