Local patch

Blue tit

It was one of those nights. The blackbird kicked off the dawn chorus at half four, a carrion crow joined in at five, the robin at half-past, a woodpigeon ten minutes later and after a passage of lesser black-backs overhead the collared dove and a starling joined the chorus. I must have finally dozed off before the Count Basie Orchestra were counted in.

I woke up more tired than I was when I went to sleep and shelved the plans for the day. I replenished the feeders and got a lot of impatient feedback from the robin and one of the dunnocks because I insisted on grubbing up some brambles and sycamore seedlings. 

It was a cooler and cloudier day that still had a touch of late April to it and I felt I should make use of it. I decided I'd have a circuit of Davyhulme Millennial Nature Reserve. As I saw the bus pass by a minute early I decided that rather than wait twenty minutes at the bus stop I'd walk to the park and give my local patch a proper going over rather than the passing glances it's had the past couple of weeks.

Lostock Park 

There were plenty of birds about though I was disappointed no chiffchaffs had arrived yet. Then I reminded myself it's still mid-March. A pair of siskins bouncing through the trees at the back of the park served as a reminder.

• Blackbird 11, 3 singing
• Blue tit 5
• Carrion crow 3
• Dunnock 1 singing
• Feral pigeons 4
• Goldfinch 6, 3 singing
• Greenfinch 3, 1 singing
• Herring gull 1
• Jackdaw 1
• Lesser black-back 1
• Long-tailed tit 1
• Magpie 14
• Robin 10, 9 singing
• Siskin 2
• Song thrush 1 singing
• Woodpigeon 15, 2 singing
• Wren 5 singing

The 250 was due soon so I decided to get that to the Trafford Centre and get the 245 which goes by Davyhulme Millennial Nature Reserve. The 250 was running a couple of minutes early so I'd not have long to wait for it. Four minutes later it was running fourteen minutes late. That turned out to be an optimistic estimate. As we got into the Trafford Centre bus station the 245 pulled out. Three hours' sleep told me to jack it in and go home. Which I did.

Barton Clough

Urmston

The long-tailed tits by Old Eeas Brook were nest-building

It was another gloriously sunny day. I'd had two pretty intense days' birdwatching and was still feeling the effects of yesterday's travelling and late homecoming but I had plans for the day. Then I sat myself down and reminded myself that this isn't a job. It would do no harm to chill out for the day. So I had a wander about locally. The spadgers in the back garden made a point of letting me know I needed to pick up a bag of sunflower seeds on the way home.

House sparrow
I think this lad's coming up to his third birthday this year. 

I walked over to Cob Kiln Wood. The gardens along the way were noisy with magpies and robins, the rooftops and trees busy with starlings, jackdaws and woodpigeons, and great tits and robins sang in the allotments. I'm going to be doing a lot of my birdwatching by ear this Spring.

Old Eeas Brook 

Old Eeas Brook was running high. Titmice and blackbirds bounced through the trees while robins sang and parakeets screeched and woodpigeons clattered about. 

Cob Kiln Wood 

Chiffchaffs and a song thrush joined in the chorus as I walked past the dragonfly pond. Somebody's given it a clear-out and it looks like it might not dry out completely this year. Just beyond, the warm weather had opened the alder cones and a mixed flock of goldfinches, great tits and blue tits was hoovering up the seeds from the path. They dispersed as I apologised and walked past but were back again when I was barely five paces ahead.

Comma

The brambles in the electricity pylon clearing were busy with butterflies and long-tailed tits. A great spotted woodpecker drummed in the trees and a couple of buzzards circled on the thermals overhead. Blackthorn and wild cherry were in full bloom, comfrey leaves were poking out of the frost-blackened debris, even the path at the top of the steps down to Cob Kiln Lane was only muddy. All the signs of Spring were there, including drifts of primroses on the banks and carpeting swathes of cuckoo pint leaves under the trees. I must remember to come back in a couple of weeks' time to see if there are any buds showing, I'd expect the flowers in April or early May but the seasons and the calendar aren't aligning anymore. It promises to be spectacular when it happens and I want to catch it.

Peacock 

Primroses 

The walk down Cob Kiln Lane to the river was punctuated by robins, wrens and great tits. The robins were in fearless mode, giving passing dogs and people hard stares at close quarters.

Robin

Cob Kiln Lane 

Looking downstream from the weir

The Mersey was high, making the salmon ladder by the weir pretty much redundant. I didn't think I'd be seeing much on the river in these conditions so it was a nice surprise to see a pair of goosanders fishing over the shoals downstream before retreating to the bankside for a rest.

Goosanders

I walked back down Cob Kiln Lane. I fancied a walk round Urmston Meadows and on a whim I decided not to walk into town and past the cemetery, instead I'd take the rough paths between the river and Old Eeas Brook. I wouldn't ordinarily do this in Winter or Spring but the weather's been mostly dry this past few weeks so I thought I'd take a chance.

The old, mostly dried-up, ox-bow 

Is it so very long ago that this was open meadow with linnets singing in trees and skylarks singing overhead? Well, yes, it was a long time ago. There are still open patches of grassland with brambles round the edges though the riverside has been invaded by Japanese knotweed. Wrens, dunnocks and long-tailed tits fidgeted about in the brambles. Some of the wrens and dunnocks stopped to sing. Some of the long-tailed tits had beakfuls of moss and if they saw that I saw them they'd make themselves very conspicuous as they turned and flitted away from the nest site before zipping back under cover of leaves.

It must be forty years since I last took the low road on this path outside a midsummer drought. It'll probably be forty years before I do it again. The high road involves playing Tarzan among the elder bushes, hollies and willows to get over the collapsed gaps. 

Chiffchaffs and a song thrush sang in the trees by the open ground. I followed the main path into the trees by the old ox-bow lake which is now mostly just a muddy deep depression. A flock of redwings stole through the canopy, they're definitely in migration mode now and only stopping to eat. Robins and chaffinches sang by the path. I'll have to remind myself of the subtle differences in tone and tempo between blackcaps and garden warblers and be wary of robins: the one at the station has retained its willow warbler descent at the end of its song and quite a few of the local robins have blackcap-like trills in their warm-ups. I was so intent on delivering this homily to myself I almost didn't notice that the bird singing in the elder bush by the path was my first blackcap of the year.

The ox-bow lake by Urmston Beach

I'm old enough to remember when the current ox-bow lake was still, just, technically a river meander and was only an isolated lake in Summer. A pair of mallards seemed to have it to themselves as they dozed and preened under the roots of a very old willow.

Old Eeas Brook 

I crossed the bridge over Old Eeas Brook, which was looking younger and more vigorous than it did upstream in its rush to meet the river. It was a short walk past the corner of the cemetery to the path into Urmston Meadows.

Blackthorn 

Urmston Meadows 

The woodland beside the meadows was noisy with song. Coal tits and goldcrests joined the soundscape though the latter struggled to be heard over the robins and wrens. More redwings passed through the trees. Bullfinches whistled as they disbudded wild cherries, chaffinches pinked as dog walkers went by but ignored dogless pedestrians, and somewhere in the background a ring-necked parakeet was shouting the odds. A nuthatch called from some of the younger trees between the fields. A kestrel was harassed by jackdaws in another corner. Magpies, jackdaws and carrion crows shadowed the horses in the fields. Watching them I wondered how long it would be before I'd be seeing a cattle egret here. That thought reminded me to keep an eye out for little egrets though I didn't see one today. 

Urmston Meadows 

A moorhen pottered about in the damp corner of one of the fields. I followed the path beside the field drains hoping for a sight of a water vole but not even seeing much sign of their being about.

It had been a nice, laid-back afternoon stroll. I headed into Urmston and made my way home.

Ribble Estuary — Hesketh Outer and Banks Marshes

Banks Marsh 

It was very tempting to give up on today's jaunt. My train into Manchester was held up at signals at Cornbrook for quarter of an hour and I would have missed the Barrow train had it not been cancelled. Being bloody-minded I waited for the Blackpool train which was due quarter of an hour later and got the one that arrived into Oxford Road an hour and a half late, which became the late-running 10:37 train, much to the surprise of the train crew, and which set off at 11:13 just before the 11:08. We steamed through towards Preston without stopping, with every prospect of arriving ten minutes before the originally planned scheduled time, then we ground to a halt outside Buckshaw Parkway, where Preston North End weren't being put through their paces on their training ground so we just had an empty field to stare at. The delay was because the signals South of the Preston area had been damaged and were not to be trusted so the signal controllers were having to radio the drivers to move each train one stretch of line at a time as it became free and the drivers were on visual caution each time they were told to move one space ahead because the train in front was now out of the way.  Given the large number of trains going through Preston — local and West Coast Main Line —  you can imagine the results. I include details like this in case any of my readers decide to use the trains and get dismayed by chaos. This is the normal. There's no slack and decades of underinvestment and tinkering about means the system runs at all by the deployment of spectacular improvisation in the face of systems failures and the train crews are ofttimes as baffled as the passengers as to what's going on. On the plus side, even if the failure's as big as this one at such a critical part of the network nine times out of ten you'll still get where you're going and ninety-nine times out of a hundred it'll on the right day. You've every right to get dismayed by the disruption but you'll survive it easier if you see it as a side-quest to the adventure.

Which is a long-winded way of saying I went out for a walk between Hesketh Bank and Banks and had a very productive time of it.

On arriving at Preston I'd missed the number 2 bus to Southport, which stops in Hesketh Bank. It's an hourly service and I'd half an hour to wait for it. The 2A was due in five minutes, I could get that, get off at Longton Brickcroft for a short potter about then get the next 2 from that stop. A lunchtime dawdle round the pools and woodland sounded more fun than idling at the station bus stop. And so it was.

Longton Brickcroft 

Woodpigeons, great tits and blackbirds sang by the bus stop and they were joined by robins and chiffchaffs as I walked through the car park. Mallards and mute swans dozed in the midday sun, moorhens pottered about, tufted ducks drifted about the pool and a great crested grebe barked at passersby.

Woodpigeon

There wasn't long enough to visit the top pool. The trees around the middle pool were lively with woodpigeons, squirrels, titmice, blackbirds and chaffinches while the undergrowth fizzed with robins, wrens and dunnocks. An invisible song thrush belted out a number and invisible nuthatches called maddeningly close by. A couple of redwings flew in and nestled into the deep cover of the canopy.

Redwing 

I glanced at the time and realised I had to put a toddle on for the bus. I would have liked another half hour or more but time was short if I wanted a walk by the Ribble Estuary marshes.

Mallard 

I got the bus and got off at the first bus stop as it turned out of Hesketh Bank onto Shore Road. It was a short walk to the end of Dib Road and it was accompanied by singing robins, great tits and chiffchaffs. I heard a noise inland and saw two buzzards calling as they rode the thermals together and a male sparrowhawk having to get out of the way as they barged through his display flight.  

Crossing over to Dib Road I noticed a little egret lurking in the drain by the road.

Little egret 

I was offered a lift most of the way up Dib Road and accepted it with thanks. It saved me quarter of an hour's walk. I was dropped off by the field sports centre. The sound of shotguns didn't put off the singing robins, chiffchaffs or song thrush, nor the chaffinches singing in the hedgerows further along. A male sparrowhawk skimming the hedgetops made everything go quiet for a minute or two. Linnets fussed in the fields, peacock butterflies basked on the road and my first tree sparrow of the year — at last! — was a billy no mates in the hedges by the farmstead near the end of the road.

Farmed mossland on the left, Hesketh Out Marsh on the right and I've chosen to walk with the sun in my eyes for the next few miles

Moorhens fussed in the drain inland of the bund. I could hear black-headed gulls and the whistling of wigeons from over the other side. I climbed up onto the bund and started walking along the path. It's impossible not to skyline here but most of the birds weren't unduly bothered, even the redshanks and avocets out there. It must be said, though, that they're happier when you're moving.

Hesketh Out Marsh 

There were scores of avocets and black-tailed godwits on the pools. The godwits were feeding up ready for the off, most of them in rusty brown breeding colours, the younger birds still mostly in Winter greys. The avocets were new arrivals and spent more time socialising than feeding. A few were already paired up and some looked like they were trying to establish territories amongst all the hubbub. There were even more redshanks peppered across the marsh.

Avocets

The wigeons and teal were in unobtrusive hundreds, there's a lot of marsh for a lot of ducks to spread themselves over. There were scores of shelducks, mostly in pairs and a handful of pairs of mallards. Little egrets pottered about in ones and two in the pools and creeks. The heads of a few Canada geese rose above the long grass in the distance.

Wigeons, teal, avocets and shelducks

A couple of spotted redshanks had been reported here earlier so I kept an eye out. Which wasn't easy as the redshanks were silhouetted against the sunlight. I shuffled along a bit to get between the sun and a few of the redshanks, established they were all redshanks and shuffled along a bit more, and repeat. A lady walking back with a telescope said she'd found one spotted redshank and lost it again almost immediately as the waders were being so active. She'd seen enough to note that it was moulting and was quite dark above where the black breeding plumage was coming through. Which was a good tip, I'd been assuming they'd still be Winter ghosts.

Whooper swans 

The mutterings inland were small flocks of whooper swans feeding in the fields. I looked for any Bewick's swans, just in case, as you do.

Whooper swans 

Up on the bund skylarks were very much in evidence, rising and singing at head height before dropping down out of sight. Conversely, the meadow pipits were being very inconspicuous and almost had to be trodden on before they'd rise out of the grass. The linnets, meanwhile, were feeding in the fields or fussing about noisily in the trees on the field boundaries. Peacock butterflies fluttered about and there was an abundance of small, orange ichneumon wasps I've not yet been able to identify. 

Ichneumon wasp

A marsh harrier put the ducks and waders up, giving me the hope I might pick up the spotshanks in flight. No luck and everything settled back down again once the harrier moved on. It was pure chance I noticed one preening at the edge of a small pool a little further on, I was looking for geese far out in the marsh and the movement closer in caught my eye. It looked a different bird to the one the lady saw, it was mostly still paler than the redshanks though a dark shadow across its back hinted of the black Summer plumage.

Mute swans 

I glanced inland and realised that the pair of swans standing away from the flock of whoopers in one of the fields were mute swans. If I could miss mute swans I could miss Bewick's so I scanned the flocks anew. One of the birds in a flock of a couple of dozen a few fields away looked distinctly smaller than the others but I couldn't be sure it wasn't just the angle of view. In the end I concluded it was just another whooper, it would have been obvious had it been a Bewick's swans and I wouldn't have been asking questions.

In the past when you walked along this bund you reached a locked gate. Twenty yards ahead was another locked gate. You had to turn and walk the best part of half a mile inland along a bund to Marsh Road, annoying the sheep in one field, walk twenty yards along the road then walk the best part of half a mile along another bund to get to the other side of the other locked gate, annoying the sheep in another field along the way. Since the new National Coastal Path has been inaugurated we can pass through thd gates. Which came as a relief today.

Between the two gates
I didn't know this creek was here.

A great white egret flew over and headed for the river. I started being able to see geese on the distant marsh. At first they were just dark clouds rising from the marsh as aircraft flew overhead. As I progressed along the bund I started to see dark lines of geese — thousands of them — on the marsh, then some lines became black dots, then discernable geese and then some were close enough to be identifiable though even the closest stayed a couple of hundred yards away.

Pink-footed geese 

Predictably, most everything I could identify was a pink-footed goose. Then I had a bit of luck as an aeroplane flew over and spooked the geese: the light caught the faces of some slightly heavier, distinctly darker geese as they flew up in a panic. There were at least three Greenland white-fronted geese out there. Further along I picked up a Russian white-front, possibly two, in a crowd of pink-feet near a fence. 

Pink-footed geese and a couple of Russian white-fronted geese (you'll probably just have to trust me on that)

A bit further along the clouds of geese rose up again as the aeroplane flew back over a few times and the pilot got his licence miles in. The grey and black patch in the mid-distance one time was a dozen or more barnacle geese. Another time at least eight Russian white-fronts settled back down and disappeared into a sea of pink-feet. One of the sentinels staring up from one mass of pink-feet was a good head taller and tawnier and I found me a tundra bean goose. Someone with a telescope would have been having a bonanza today, God alone knows what I was missing out there. Probably not a white-morph snow goose but all other bets are off.

Pink-footed, and probably a few other, geese rising up after being spooked by a passing aeroplane…

…and coming back down again

Curlews, oystercatchers, lapwings and redshanks called from the marsh, skylarks sang from the bund and reed buntings sang from the inland fields. The smells of cabbages and leeks being harvested made me wish I'd brought a casserole with me. 

Banks Marsh 

I got to the point where Marsh Road meets the bund, dropped down and walked into Far Banks for the bus. I could barely have hoped for a more productive walk beside the marsh, I could think of half a dozen birds I would have liked to have seen besides but that was like wishing for a meal after a feast.

Walking to Far Banks

There was a twenty minute wait for the buses either way. Train services from Preston still looked a bit fragile, the problem seemed to be sorted but the knock-on effects were still apparent, so I got the bus into Southport and thence home. The timetable for my local train service being what it is I walked home from Urmston and was ready for a pot of tea.

Moore

Peacock

After two days' grim weather where walking was limited to shopping and walking to bus stops I wanted to take advantage of what promised to be a decent sort of day so the plan was I'd go over to Moore Nature Reserve for a morning's wander then move on to one or two other places. The plan was. In the event I spent six hours wandering round Moore in glorious sunshine and surrounded by birdsong. 

River Mersey by Chester Road 

I got the train to Warrington and rather than bothering with buses I walked over to Warrington Bridge and down Chester Road. In the past I've made the mistake of heading down the wrong road at the roundabout here and I've learned to ignore everything except the river. If the Mersey's on my right-hand side I've got the right road. The Canada geese and mallards on the river agreed with me, as did the titmice bouncing through the roadside trees and the robins singing in gardens.

Lesser celandines

Just after the junction with Slutchers Lane I dropped down onto the Transpennine footpath and walked between the old Latchford Canal and the river to the viaducts. Mallards and moorhens drifted about in the canal, which is now little more than a long and very thin pond densely fringed with reeds and willows on this side and back gardens on the other. Brimstone butterflies fluttered about the margins of the path. Titmice bounced and sang in the trees, robins and wrens struck poses to sing in bushes, goldfinches and chaffinches sang from treetops. There was a tiny flock of siskins, four or five at most, it was difficult to keep track of them as they skipped through the alders and willows past a charm of goldfinches.

Latchford Canal on the left, the Mersey on the right

I passed under the railway viaducts and immediately turned right onto the path into Moore Nature Reserve. Then stood to one side to let a group of volunteers pass by after what looked like a major litter-picking session. I'd be passing more of them as I walked down the path. The trees were noisy with the songs of robins, wrens, great tits and chiffchaffs. They were joined a little further along by a song thrush and some chaffinches and carrion crows and magpies called in the background. The sun brought out the peacock butterflies and they spent most of their time basking on the paths.

Moore Nature Reserve 

Pumphouse Pool 

I took the side path and had a look over Pumphouse Pool from the gap in the hedgerow that had been Colin's Hide. I'd been hearing black-headed gulls on the way up, there were about fifty of them clamouring on the pool. Pairs of mallards, coots and tufted ducks quietly went about their business, cormorants sat on willow roots and dried their wings, and dabchicks hinneyed in the reed margins. About halfway down the pool I noticed a large nest in the tree by the cormorants. It was way too big, and low, for a crow's nest and it looked too structurally sound for a cormorant's nest so it was probably an old heron's nest. Or not so old: as I was looking at it a heron's head poked up and rearranged some of the sticks on top of the parapet.

Moore Nature Reserve 

Walking back to the main path I was serenaded by a coal tit from the top of a gorse bush. The moment the camera came out of the bag the coal tit hopped up into a birch sapling and sang from behind the cover of a mass of catkins.

The bird song was sustained as I walked down beside Pumphouse Pool. Blackbirds, dunnocks and a reed bunting joined in the medley. An oystercatcher called as it passed overhead and out of sight. A buzzard called as it circled on the thermals high overhead. 

Great crested grebe

I took the path into Birch Wood and checked out this side of the pool from the Pumphouse Hide in the company of a mistle thrush that wanted to know what I was doing but didn't want me to know it was there. Mistle thrushes don't do inconspicuous very well, they have a woodpigeon-like habit of barging about. Out on the pool there were some more tufted ducks and at least a dozen teal — the whistling in the tree roots sounded like more than a dozen of them — and a great crested grebe cruised about in the open water.

Pumphouse Pool 

Birch Wood 

Birch Wood 

Siskins and goldfinches fidgeted about the treetops deep in the wood. Great tits, robins and wrens bustled about in the bracken. It was all very agreeable.

Birchwood Pool 

Dabchicks hinneyed from the Birchwood Pool. Coots, mallards and tufted ducks drifted about on the water and pairs of great crested grebes barked at each other. There was someone already at the hide. We let on and swapped notes. "There's usually a dabchick comes across here about now," he said. And blow me, so it did.

Mallards

I walked on to the Lapwing Pool, where the ducks came close enough to the hide for photography. 

Mallard

Wigeon

The whistle of a wigeon was a surprise. There was just the one. A couple of pairs of gadwalls cruised about with the coots, tufties and mallards.

Gadwalls

Lapwing Pool

I checked the bus times. I'd just missed the 62 bus from Moore — the bus to Warrington passes through about the same time as the one to Runcorn — and I had an hour to wait for the next one so I went for a wander round Lapwing Wood.

Lapwing Wood

Goldcrests added to the songscape and bullfinches sighed in wild cherry trees. Treecreepers and long-tailed tits flitted about with beakfuls of moss, the treecreepers heading for big old, decaying, willow trees and the long-tailed tits diving into bramble patches. Nuthatches called but weren't seen, jays were seen but not heard. 

The bridge over the canal

On a whim I crossed the Latchford Canal, which hereabouts just looks like a more open stretch of wet woodland, and joined Lapwing Lane. It occurred to me that I've never walked the full length of the lane as it curves round the outside the reserve and back round to complete the letter D at the car park. So I did.

Buzzard

I'd been expecting, but not hearing, Cetti's warblers in the reeds and wet scrub in the reserve. Instead I heard one singing from a tiny patch of flag iris by a brook out in the open country. As I was listening to it a buzzard glided by and headed for the Ship Canal. At the bend in the road the ploughed fields were busy with flocks of stock doves and linnets, skylarks sang and a little egret fossicked about in the field margins.

The edge of Lapwing Wood 

Lapwing Lane 

I carried on round and past the houses then back into the reserve. The already crowded songscape was added to by the greenfinches singing in the hawthorns in the glades.

Lapwing Lane 

Bridgewater Canal, Moore

I'd missed another pair of buses and there was forty minutes to wait for the next. I wasn't convinced I had the legs for much more exploration so I walked into Moore and sat by the Bridgwater Canal watching the mallards bully the coots back while blackbirds chased each other in the trees. There are worse ways of waiting for a bus to Warrington.