By the Ribble

Wigeons, River Ribble

For all the talk of this week being much milder than last it was a cold and frosty morning. It seemed a shame to disturb the spadgers and goldfinches to put out more sunflower seeds but they'd have denuded the feeders before lunchtime. They all sat in the rowan tree making unseemly noises and I got the job done.

I wondered what to do with what threatened to be a pleasant day. I noticed that the American wigeon that was on the Ribble just outside Penwortham had been reported again first thing. It looked an easy enough place to get to on the map and I've not had a lot of luck with American wigeons over the past few years, I thought I'd try and find it. The drawback was that it's a first-Winter drake. I can manage to struggle to pick out an adult drake amongst a crowd of Eurasian wigeons, a first-Winter would be a challenge.

I got myself an old man's explorer ticket and set off for Preston. I only had a minute or two to wait for the 2A from the station, I got off at Howick Cross and walked down Howick Cross Lane to the river. 

Howick Cross Lane 

It was a nice, straightforward walk on a very pleasant January day. Titmice, robins and blackbirds bounced and flitted about the hedgerows. Woodpigeons, magpies and jackdaws rattled about in the trees. A couple of treecreepers fussed about the trunks of a couple of trees either side of a gateway. A chap putting his wheelie bin away noticed my binoculars and asked if I was looking for anything in particular. I said I was hoping to see an American wigeon, he told me where to find it: carry on down the lane to the river, turn left and check out the wigeons along the far bank beyond the electricity pylons. Which is what I did.

Heading for the Ribble. The grey line on the horizon is the hawthorn hedgerow along the bund.

There were a few cars parked in the turning circle at the end of the metalled part of the lane. The lane carried on as a track beyond a locked gate with a kissing gate for pedestrians. On one side of the track was a big field with a flock of sheep at the far side. On the other side of the track was a big field with a couple of hundred lapwings at the far side. A male stonechat bounced up and down from a fence but I couldn't find his mate.

As I approached the high bund separating the fields from the riverside I could see a lot of fieldfares in the hawthorns lining the tops. I'd be seeing a lot more of them.

The view back from the bund

So far the walk had been dead easy. As I get older and the knees dodgier I've come to hate stiles. The stile at the base of the bund is on a slope, which added to the fun, and the step is made from steel girders, which wins points for durability but would have been interesting on an icy day. All of which is a lot of moaning about a few seconds' wobbling about. The stile thus negotiated I bobbed up a gentle flight of steps and was by the river.

Fieldfares 

The bund is an impressive bit of engineering, an earthwork about twenty yards wide and flat-topped. The side facing the fields is lined with hawthorn hedges, the riverbank side is dotted with willows and hawthorns, giving good views of the river while breaking up the skyline enough that people taking a walk don't spook the waterfowl. On a day like today it's a very nice walk.

The hawthorns were busy with fieldfares, getting on for a hundred of them, and a few blackbirds. Titmice, including a big party of long-tailed tits, favoured the willows.

Wigeons 

Looking down at the near bank as I walked along I could see small groups of wigeons, less than a handful each time. More flew up and down the river. Here and there a redshank would potter about around loafing wigeons. A white, starling-sized wader shooting downstream could only have been a sanderling, I was surprised at seeing it so far up the river. 

Wigeons and teals

I'd walked about a hundred yards when I started seeing groups of ducks loafing on the far bank. They obviously had favoured places, there's be a long stretch of bare mud then there'd be dozens of teal and/or wigeons and a handful of mallards. The teals favoured stretches of mud chopped up with rocks and debris, the wigeons preferred the open mud. One way or another there were plenty of ducks to be checked out.

Wigeons and teals 

Wigeons

Most of the ducks were fast asleep. The bird I was hoping to see would look more like a female Eurasian wigeon than a drake but instead of having a head the same shade of brown, or darker, than the body it would be paler and greyer. Looking at all those wigeons with their heads tucked deeply into their back feathers this felt like a big ask. Or it did until a group of birdwatchers came walking back and told me they'd had no luck, which lifted the pressure off me. I'd keep on looking for the bird but I wouldn't be beating myself about the head for not finding it.

Cormorants fished in the river, a small skein of pink-footed geese flew overhead and more redshanks joined the ducks. Small groups of wigeon or teal gathered on the water by the far bank, a bunch of drakes head-bobbing and whistling in court to one or two ducks. A few wigeons waddled up the bank to graze on the grass on the top. 

Moss Brook joining the Ribble

I walked as far as the dip where Moss Brook meets the river and decided to call it quits. I kept checking out the ducks on the far bank as I walked back, there was enough to-ing and fro-ing going on for the American wigeon to have made an appearance.

There was one group of sleeping wigeons that I'd kept having another look at as I walked down the river. I couldn't explain why unless it was the feeling that my quarry would be hiding in plain sight and a line of sleeping ducks was thus an object of suspicion. I found myself drawn to the same group of wigeon on my walk back up. There was something I was not noticing about them. Then I realised that one of the ducks looked a bit different, what I could see of the head was a colder, greyer shade with yellow clay tones to it. The more I stared at it the more I decided I was stringing myself along with hope overcoming evidence. I took a photo just in case and resumed my search. I was getting to the stage where I was staring at ducks and not really seeing them.

Back home I zoomed into the photo and could confirm that I wasn't imagining the difference in the colour of the head. It wasn't a tick I could claim in the field but at least I had recognised there was something "not quite" about the bird. Had it been awake and active I'm sure I would have recognised it once I saw it.

Wigeons
First-Winter drake American wigeon second right

Approaching the point where the path joins Howick Cross Lane I found a little egret fishing on the far bank and a redhead goosander amongst mallards. That made my inability to find a difficult bird in a crowd feel a bit less daft. I left the fieldfares to their hawthorns, dropped down to the stile and made my way back.

Fieldfares

The lapwings were still in their field, dotted out in a regular grid as they fed. A couple of pied wagtails fidgeted round a dung heap in the corner.

Howick Cross Lane 

Halfway down the lane a mixed tit flock bounced between the hedgerow and a small strip of woodland on the other side of the road. Great tits, blue tits, coal tits and a family of long-tailed tits were accompanied by a couple of nuthatches.

Howick Cross Lane 

I just beat the bus to the bus stop and went back to Preston where I played train station bingo with my old man's explorer ticket. I still had an hour and a half's daylight to play with. The Barrow train was almost ready to go, I'd have a wait for any others not going back to Manchester, so I got that. I'd go up as far as Arnside and have five minutes' look over the Kent before getting the train home. (The next train back to Manchester would be two, mostly dark, hours later, which is why I didn't go to Leighton Moss or over into Cumbria.)

River Kent

The train back from Arnside was running five minutes late which gave me a bit more time for a look over the river. The tide was low and curlews stalked and called on the wide expanses of mud. Chaffinches and goldfinches worked their way through the brambles by the station and woodpigeons sang quietly in the trees. Which is a not unpleasant end to a day's birdwatching.

From Arnside Station