Etherow Country Park

Grey wagtail

It was a dreich, rainy day. Two male dunnocks sang in the blackcurrant bushes as I refilled the feeders and the robins were courting amongst the snowdrops. I left them to it, I was glad to get back inside.

Etherow Country Park 

I still had a touch of the glooms on me so I headed out and drifted towards Etherow Country Park with half an idea of taking photos of mandarin ducks in the rain. Except that it stopped raining and the mandarin ducks were nearly all hiding in the trees. One of the willow trees on the canal had fallen over across it and workmen were repairing the damage caused to road and the bank by the uprooted roots. So the mandarins were hiding in the drowned willows in the mill pool. A couple of the drakes came out for a swim for less than a minute before rejoining the others.

Mandarin ducks

Mandarin ducks 

The usual array of black-headed gulls, mallards, coots, Canada geese and moorhens joined the mute swans and pigeons in the pool by the car park. A grey wagtail puttered about the bank by the visitor centre. 

Mallards

Mallard

River Etherow 

The river was high and fast and I'll have to wait to be adding dippers to the year list. I decided not to visit Keg Wood today, rather than doing what has become the usual half-arsed attempt at a visit I'll come round early sometime soon and make a proper job of it.

Muscovy duck

On the way back I was greeted by the pair of Muscovy ducks on the causeway. I hadn't noticed the redhead goosander sitting in the weeds by them until it barked at me and swam off.

Etherow Country Park 

The lily pond 

Black-headed gulls and cormorants 

I wandered back and had a wait for the bus back to Stockport — if the roadworks at Rose Hill don't get you, the roadworks at Romiley will — and got the bus home. It had been a fairly quiet afternoon but I felt a lot better for having had the walk.

Pennington Flash

Mallards and goosanders 

It was a mild, grey, wet and windy day so I opted for a wander round Pennington Flash on the basis it's easy to escape by bus if the weather turns worse and there are plenty of hides to shelter in.

Walking in from St Helens Road 

The rain stopped just before the bus did and the wind calmed down a little. It was mizzly as I crossed St Helens Road and the rest of the afternoon was gloomy and damp. Which is fine for walking in and the visibility was adequate for birdwatching though most everything looked in grey scale. Except the car park oystercatcher.

The car park oystercatcher 

I'm pretty sure this is the car park oystercatcher by the confident way it strutted about just feet away from passersby, I had to stop and let it pass at one point. The other oystercatchers I've seen here are very skittish about people. 

Pochards 

Out on the flash the main event was diving ducks. A round dozen pochards steamed out of the brook and into open water, the drakes giving the occasional, subtle, bobbing of the head to the ladies. Further out there was a mixed raft of at least a couple of dozen pochards with a similar number of tufted ducks. And a dozen goldeneyes drifted about midwater.

Black-headed gulls and lesser black-back

Pochards

There were plenty of black-headed gulls about, most of them mingling with the mallards and Canada geese loitering round the deserted car park waiting for the tiny tots to get out of school. A few lesser black-backs and herring gulls loafed on the rocks by the bank. There were more large gulls in a raft over by the sailing club, only a few dozen of them this time of day. It seemed to be two-to-one herring gulls to lesser black-backs. Even at that distance in this light it was easy to spot a couple of adult great black-backs, I suspect there were a couple of younger birds, too, but it would have needed a telescope to be sure of the identification. As would any chances of picking out anything unusual that might have been in the raft. For some reason the buoys within easy sight from the bank were being favoured by first-Winter herring gulls and lesser black-backs, the older birds weren't interested today. A bit of a kerfuffle involving a black-headed gull with something to eat gave a common gull the opportunity to park itself on one of the buoys but it was soon evicted when the herring gulls came back.

Cormorants, herring gulls, black-headed gulls and lapwings

The spit at the F.W.Horrocks Hide was very quiet, except at the far end where the usual motley assemblage of herring gulls, cormorants and lapwings gathered. A low-flying aeroplane spooked the lapwings and about fifty of them circled the spit before settling back down again.

Coot

Lapwings

It was very quiet of people today, I can't remember it so quiet. It felt nearly as quiet of birds, the titmice, robins and dunnocks kept a very low profile in the hedgerows and a goldcrest was the most conspicuous bird in the trees. The whistling of the teals a-courting on Pengy's Pool was the dominant feature of the soundscape.

From the Tom Edmondson Hide 

Pairs of mallards, shovelers and gadwalls drifted about the pool at the Tom Edmondson Hide. 

At Ramsdales Hide

A pair of mute swans grazed at the corner by Ramsdales Hide. Across the way a great white egret stalked another corner. A mixed group of mallards and goosanders drifted about by the willows by the bight while teal, coots and dabchicks puttered about. 

Coots and a dabchick keep an eye on a passing mink

All of a sudden the dabchicks were on high alert, craning their necks to look over to the water behind one of the islands. The coots gathered and the ducks quietly drifted away from the bank. Eventually I could see what was going on: a nearly completely submerged blackish something was steaming across the water with three coots in tow. The mink beached itself and immediately disappeared into the reeds, the waterbirds keeping an eye on its progress until it had gone over the top to go and disgruntle the coots and mallards on the next pool.

Reed buntings

I was feeling the effects of the gloomy weather and a bad night's sleep so I decided I'd visit the Bunting Hide then call it quits. The feeders had been recently replenished and were being fought over by magpies, moorhens and squirrels. A couple of great tits and robins flitted in and out and a female chaffinch tidied up below the bird tables. Any time the magpies were otherwise engaged in the trees a bunch of male reed buntings would pile in and get a quick feed.

Walking back I had a scan over the flash. More herring gulls had come in and joined the distant raft. One of the gulls on one of the buoys caught my eye, a big herring gull type with some brown feathers on its wings and a long beak. The mid-grey back looked too dark for a herring gull though, even for one of the darker Scandinavian gulls. And the beak looked wrong. In fact, the whole bird looked wrong: there was a small head and a lot of chest and the primaries were all jet black. It was very gloomy out there so I wasn't getting a good look at the bird but at least the light was dead flat, always a lot of help when you're looking at gulls and trying to fathom out shades of grey. I was hedging towards identifying it as a Caspian gull or a yellow-legged gull and wasn't comfortable with either. Then it yawned and I realised there had been a lot of beak sort of merging into the background gloom. It was a yellow-legged gull, a third-Winter bird I think.

Pennington Flash 

I hadn't seen the scaup that was out on the flash, I think that must have been over near the sailing club, I noticed a couple of guys with telescopes walking over the rucks. Still, I'd seen more than plenty and was ready for the bus rides home.

Owt for a lark

Shore lark, Mow Cop

I was about to leave the house when there was a panic in the garden with spadgers bashing against the window, something that the adults never do because it's so filthy. In the end the young sparrowhawk causing the furore gave up the chase and sat in the rose bushes to catch its breath.

Sparrowhawk

The sparrowhawk had had a busy morning judging by the feathers scattered round the station platform.

It was going to be a fine but windy day. I decided I'd chase after the shore lark that's been showing well on Mow Cop, just on the Cheshire side of the border with Staffordshire. It looked straightforward to get to where it was reported and it looked like I should get better views than I did with my first one at Oglet last year.

I got the Stoke train to Kidsgrove. Woodpigeons seemed to be on ration past Stockport, they were one every kilometre and sometimes not even that. Even the pigeons at the stations at Cheadle Hulme and Macclesfield were no-shows. We were approaching Adlington when I saw a red kite floating over a field, its tail twitching and turning in the wind. It's an odd thing: if I see a kite in Yorkshire I recognise it immediately as a kite, I see them so rarely this side of the Pennines that when I see one I have a long moment where I'm asking myself what I'm seeing.

Mallard

I got off at Kidsgrove, crossed the bright orange Macclesfield Canal and its gang of mallards and had a short wait for the 95 bus which goes through Mow Cop on its way to Biddulph.

It wasn't long before I was getting off the bus by St Thomas's in Mow Cop. Google Maps said to follow the road down and round and up onto Castle Road but I noticed a footpath up the hill directly opposite the church and took that instead. Conveniently enough, I only had to cross Castle Road for the little road I needed to follow up the hill to the field where the lark had been reported.

Walking up to Castle Road 

In the teeth of the wind

Turning the corner at the top, where it meets the Gritstone Trail and the teeth of a strong wind, I could see a small knot of birdwatchers by a gate. I walked down slowly and carefully, scanning the field as I went, hoping I wouldn't spook the shore lark if it was there. As I got closer it became apparent that they were looking at something in the next field along and just behind the stone wall separating the fields.

Shore lark

I got to the gate, looked over, and there was the shore lark, all on its own and in plain sight.

The lark had stopped for a preen when I arrived

Every so often it would look over at us birdwatchers…

…have a bit of a fidget…

…then get back to preening

It spent the next few minutes preening, stopping every so often to stare at a handful of birdwatchers as if to wonder if they were a thing. It didn't seem any more bothered by us as by the cattle in the field. Once it finished preening it gave its feathers a good shake, gave an odd little chirp and flew a few yards deeper into the field. A couple of the birdwatchers crept along the stone wall to try and pick it up again; I left them to it, I was plenty happy with the view I'd had.

Looking over to the Peak District 

I took in the views, which were wonderful. I debated walking round for a look at the ruined castle but I was already feeling too windswept and interesting for words. 

Looking over towards the Cheshire Plain

St Thomas's Church

I retreated downhill for the bus back to Kidsgrove.

Macclesfield Canal 

I had half an hour to wait for my train at Kidsgrove so I had a potter about the canal. Mallards bathed, moorhens pottered about and a fair-sized flock of house sparrows made a lot of noise as they flitted about the bushes either side of the canal.

Moorhen

I took a circuitous route home. The woodpigeons were still on ration in Cheshire.

Kersal Wetlands

Goldeneye

After a lousy start to a dreich day after a bad night I wondered what energy I could bring to salvaging something positive out of the day and the honest answer was: not a right lot.

I dragged myself kicking and screaming out of the house, determined that I'd get some exercise, commune with nature, overwhelm intrusive thoughts by the sublimating nature of the hunting instinct and all that to try to get my head in a better place. I played bus station bingo at the Trafford Centre and found myself on the 52 heading into Salford on its way to Cheetham Hill.

The 52 passes by the Kersal Wetlands, the path into the wetlands from Cromwell Bridge being next to the bus stop. I looked at the grim, grey weather and decided I really couldn't be bothered. And found myself getting off at the bridge and walking up the path along the river.

Canada geese 

Blue tits, great tits, house sparrows and robins fidgeted about in the gardens and the trees by the river. A few mallards and Canada geese dozed by the far bank, a couple of dabchicks bobbed about in the river and moorhens fussed about in the flotsam of floods past.

I've no idea what made these holes. I'm rather hoping it's amphibious rabbits, or else the water voles are the size of small dogs.

There were a lot of carrion crows about, I stopped counting beyond thirty. Some were feeding on the mown grass of the playing fields, there were many more in the trees either side of the river. There was a definite teenage school disco vibe about it all.

River Irwell 

I walked up the rise and had a look over the pools on the wetlands. Canada geese, mallards, coots and dabchicks busied themselves in the water while herons lurked in the reeds. There were more herons — well over a dozen of them — dotted about the playing field in distant twos and threes amongst the loafing black-headed gulls. In the mist they looked like the backdrop in an Ingmar Bergman movie.

Goldcrest 

I took the path past the little hill to the bend of the river. The caws of randy crows gave way to the squawks and squeaks of randy parakeets as they chased each other to and fro over the river. A goldcrest had to  sing very loud to let me know it had arrived in the hawthorn bush at my side.

River Irwell 

Walking by the river

Female goldeneye

A female goldeneye was on the river. She would fly upstream fifty yards, her feet paddling in the water then drift back with the river, diving every so often as she went. Then she'd do it all over again. I don't know if this part of the river is particularly rich in food (she'd be after insects and crustacea mainly) or if this is a strategy for panicking food items out of hiding.

Ring-necked parakeets 

A particularly noisy quartet of parakeets flew over and started stripping cones from one of the conifers by the path. After a few minutes they seemed to suddenly give up on it and they chased each other back over the river.

Kersal Wetlands, that Manchester in the background 

Back up top I had another look over the pools before moving on. A drake tufted duck was in one corner of the reeds, a drake shoveler flew in and joined a group of coots out in the open water.

Crossing the river into Kersal I noticed a drake goldeneye drifting on the water under the bridge. His approach to hunting was far less energetic than the duck's, he returned to pretty much the same place after every dive.

Kersal Way 

Walking down the abandoned road that is Kersal Way, which would be proper spooky in a heavy mist, three song thrushes had a singing duel in the trees.

I looked at the bus times, decided I didn't want to go anywhere near the City Centre this time in the afternoon and walked up to Agecroft Bridge where I caught the 66 into Eccles. Its one of those routes that take the most indirect possible route from A to B without being at any time more than three miles from its target but I was in no particular rush. The outing hadn't had much effect on my mood but I was glad I'd done it anyway and I was surprised at the afternoon's tally, I'd seen forty species of birds on the walk without even trying very hard.