Hindley

Moorhen (and black-headed gulls), Amberswood

After a busy morning I decided I'd head out for an afternoon stroll round Pennington Flash but the 126 to Leigh didn't turn up so I got the 132 to Amberswood. It was a bright, almost cloudless day and the ice and snow of the past few days had mostly been washed away by last night's heavy rain.

Amberswood 

Walking in from Manchester Road the path was good though there were still enough patches of ice to make me watch my step. The hedgerows were busy with titmice and blackbirds, goldfinches sang in treetops, while magpies, woodpigeons and jays clattered about in the trees. 

Amberswood 

Long-tailed tit

The feeding station at the corner of the lake was heaving with small birds, very few of which took a blind bit of notice of people or dogs. I stood still on the path for ten minutes to watch the mêlée. There were dozens of great tits, blue tits and coal tits and a busy flock of about two dozen long-tailed tits. I very rarely get the opportunity to write: "dozens of coal tits," so I'll do it again: dozens of coal tits. 

Robin 

Blackbirds, robins, chaffinches, moorhens and reed buntings tidied up on the ground beneath the feeders, or got a meal on one or other of the bird tables by the path. The robins got a bit of courting in while they were there. Goldfinches made a lot of noise in the trees but didn't often come in to the feeders, unlike one of the siskins. Nuthatches made flash visits to suet feeders, treecreepers scuttled about up tree trunks. I kept an eye out for willow tits but it wasn't my day for them. It was entirely possible that they were about but I missed them, small birds were flitting by this way and that in bewildering profusion.

Great tits and blue tits at the feeding station 

Blackbird 

Amberswood Lake 

By Amberswood Lake 

A water rail squealed in the reeds near the feeding station but I had no luck finding it. As I wandered down the path by the frozen lake I heard lots of scuttlings in the reeds, most of which turned out to be moorhens. Walking past one of the gaps in the reeds I was astonished to see an otter scampering across the ice, easily the closest I've ever been to one. It quickly disappeared into the reeds, its progress marked by the bad language and panicky flurried flight of moorhens.

Lesser black-back and black-headed gulls 

There were tiny patches of clear water by the reeds. Across the lake, where the sun had caught the ice, there was enough free water to hold a pair of mute swans and two dozen mallards. A mute cygnet looked very browned off as it sat on the ice (I had to look twice to be sure it wasn't frozen in). Small parties of black-headed gulls loafed on the ice with a couple of lesser black-backs and a herring gull, rather a lot more passed overhead

Moorhens and black-headed gulls 

Herring gull, black-headed gulls and lesser black-back 

I often hear water rails here but I can't remember actually seeing one. I don't know which of us was the more surprised when I nearly trod on one as I turned a corner.

Low Hall 

It was approaching sunset so I had a twilight walk round Low Hall. Blackbirds and robins were having one last rummage about in the undergrowth. A flock of black-headed gulls flew in and settled with the crowd of mallards and teal on the free water on the far side of the pond while a pair of mute swans dozed on the bank. Great tits and blue tits flitted into the trees as the sun set.

I walked back to Liverpool Road, the woodpigeons and carrion crows gathering in the trees. The 559 bus to Bolton was due in five minutes, it's a service I use perhaps once a year, if that, because we never coincide. I didn't use it today, either. It didn't turn up. I walked into Hindley and had a long wait for the 132 back to the Trafford Centre.