Amberswood

Treecreeper

It had been a bright,sunny morning. I'd debated the pros and cons of where to go today and decided that Amberswood would be the least busy on a sunny Saturday. The clouds rolled in as I put my coat on and walked to the bus stop. It became overcast as I hung about the Trafford Centre waiting for the 132 bus but it was still dry and mild and the wind that had been a feature of the week had died down. I stepped off the bus on Manchester Road and it started pouring down.

Walking in from Manchester Road 

The rain didn't put off the singing robins, woodpigeons and great tits. The hedgerows were heaving with small birds, not least because every do often someone had put bird food on flat surfaces. Great tits, blue tits, house sparrows and reed buntings flitted through the bushes, blackbirds and chaffinches mopped up on the ground. 

Amberswood 

Further along a loose sort of mixed tit flock bouncing through the woodland included great tits, blue tits, goldcrests and blackbirds. The harder the rain fell the louder the song thrushes sang. The peculiar squeaks in the treetops turned out to be a pair of great spotted woodpeckers succumbing to the fires in the blood.

Coal tit

I spent longer than was wise standing at the corner of the lake watching the titmice, chaffinches and reed buntings on the feeders. I was hoping one or more of the willow tits might make themselves available for adding to the year list, I've had no luck so far. And had none today. The long-tailed tits I hadn't been seeing on the path in were on the fat feeders. There were as many coal tits as blue tits and twice as many reed buntings as chaffinches. Given the weather and the time of year it wasn't surprising the feeding was so frenetic.

Blue tit (front) and great tit

Amberswood Lake 

As I squelched round the lake I consoled myself with the thought I'd soon be being baffled by dragonflies. After the past week I made sure to check that all the tufted ducks were tufted ducks. I found a common gull amongst the black-headed gulls. The mallards and moorhens, and most of the coots, were sheltering in the reeds. The usual pair of mute swans had given up and gone to sleep.

Tufted ducks

Heron

A heron stalking the little pond by the path didn't move as I walked by but made sure I knew it was seeing me off the premises. It had to wait longer than either of us had anticipated as I spotted the pair of great crested grebes squaring up to dance. They were well into the initial head-waggling with their tufts and ruffs fully expanded for maximum effect when, almost inevitably, the third grebe on this lake barged in, blaring like a foghorn, and broke up the proceedings.

Great crested grebes

I didn't fancy going over to Low Hall then traipsing up Liverpool Road to get the bus back from Hindley. I decided instead to head for Spring View for the buses to Wigan or Leigh, only a very slightly longer walk and most of it under cover of trees. I hadn't gone far when I bumped into a pair of treecreepers working the moss-covered saplings by the path. They were accompanying a mixed finch flock which at first I thought was just goldfinches and chaffinches then I noticed the larches and alders were busy with siskins and redpolls. The siskins followed me along the path, often coming within an arm's length. Eventually I gave in and tried to get some photos. Which turned out like most of my photos of siskins, silhouettes against a blank grey sky. The light was so awful, and the siskins so active, that any time I caught one against a dark background the inevitably slow shutter speed required rendered the bird a blur. Still, you've got to try.

Siskin

Heading for Spring View 

Further along, song thrushes and blackbirds sang and woodpigeons, magpies and jays barged about in the trees. A dunnock sang from a hawthorn bush in a small clearing. Robins sang from the otherwise deserted fishing lodge. I got the 609 bus to Leigh and connected with the 126 back to the Trafford Centre. About a hundred yards from home it stopped raining.