Woolston Eyes

Snipe

It was the last scheduled bright Spring day and I was as unsure what to do with it as I had been on Tuesday. By lunchtime I was so sick of my indecision I got the train with no idea where I was going and it was only when I heard myself ask the guard for a single to Padgate I realised I was going to Woolston Eyes.

Woolston Brook

I got off at Padgate, walked down to Woolston Brook and thence to the New Cut. Spring was in the air: robins, dunnocks, song thrushes and great tits sang in the gardens and hedgerows and the woodpigeons were being frisky in the trees. Chaffinches were singing along the brook and it occurred to me that if today's intent was to see lots of long-tailed tits to make up for not having seen any for a couple of days I wasn't doing an awful job of it.

New Cut

I persist in the notion that the New Cut should be the haunt of willow tits even though today drew another blank. Great tits, blue tits and long-tailed tits bounced through the drowned willows and wayside bushes. There were woodpigeons, magpies and robins galore and moorhens fussed about in the cut. A pair of collared doves disputed possession of one of the willows with a squirrel determined to have a rummage about in the canopy. Looking straight up the trail the shapes zipping across the path at irregular intervals were blackbirds and squirrels. One pair of male blackbirds were so intent on having a fight they bundled into me without a word of apology.

Collared dove

Grey Mist

A pair of mute swans cruised about Grey Mist. There were a lot of anglers on today so the coots were being heard and not seen.

River Mersey, Woolston Weir

At Woolston Weir I checked out all the tufted ducks just in case the scaup and lesser scaup that had spent February between Grappenhall and Lymm had come this way. All the tufties were tufties. There weren't many mallards about and both the teals and gadwalls were hugging the banks. A pair of great crested grebes were noisy, a pair of Canada geese were very quiet in the reeds.

Pochards

I crossed the weir and climbed up to the path above the river. Looking down I could see a raft of pochards, all drakes, drifting downstream while the ducks hung back amongst the tufted ducks and black-headed gulls. There were a few teal about, a lot more mallards, and as the river slowed down for the sharp bend shovelers could be seen dabbling amongst the willows. There was a chorus of disgruntled quacks as a pair of buzzards wheeled over the river but this died down once it became apparent the buzzards had their own business to attend to and they danced in circles upstream beyond the weir.

Buzzards

Tufted duck
I keep thinking I'm done with tufted duck pictures then they go and look photogenic in the sunlight.

Pochards, black-headed gull and great crested grebe

The path above the river, which is in the steep drop to the right

Up top robins, great tits and wrens sang, Cetti's warblers sang from hidden locations at the waterside. A chiffchaff was torn between fly-catching and singing from the same branch in the same tree I was watching one do the same last Spring.

Cormorant

The path dropped down and met the Ship Canal, and yes, I checked the tufted ducks here too. Cormorants struck backlit poses on bits of old jetties and yet more long-tailed tits bounced through the trees.

The path to the bridge to No.3 Bed 

I turned into the path for the bridge onto the nature reserve on No.3 Bed (I have my permit and key). Up till now I'd been walking with the sun in my eyes and struggling to photograph birds either strongly backlit or subject to very high contrast model lighting. Now that I would be having the light behind me the clouds started rolling in. I unlocked the gate, locked it after myself (a feat in itself, it's a big padlock in a thin gap in the fence and I live in dread of dropping the key, luckily the river's not very deep, it only comes halfway up the ducks) and crossed the bridge. There was a muttered chorus from the tufted ducks under the bridge and a heron perched on a tree in the corner. In the time it took for me to cross the bridge the weather had changed from cloudy but bright to grey and ominously gloomy.

Tufted ducks

Grey heron and coot

From the Sybil Hogg Hide

A quick look over the bed from the first couple of hides took in dozens of gadwalls, shovelers, coots and mallards and most of them paired up. I couldn't work out if the pochards were paired up or not. If they were pairs they were apparently making an effort to not look like it, keeping their distance and not swimming side by side like the other ducks. Pairs of Canada geese and greylags loudly broadcast their locations just in case having a pair of big geese on a small reedy island or a bare nesting raft wasn't obvious enough.

I walked round to the Morgan Hide. The hedges were busy with titmice and chaffinches, the trees and bushes in the meadows were heaving with chaffinches and greenfinches, there were scores of them. The goldfinches and bullfinches feeding in the hawthorn bushes were vastly outnumbered.

Not today 

Along the way I decided I wasn't going to climb up to the shipping container hide. I wasn't sure if I distrusted my knees more on the climb or the descent. Either way, prudence said no.

From the Morgan Hide 

The Morgan Hide overlooks an array of nesting rafts. A few black-headed gulls and Canada geese were showing an interest. A lesser black-back settled itself down in what is likely to become its favoured Summer eaterie. Snipe and teal fussed about on the muddy banks. For some reason a lapwing taking a proprietorial interest in one of the rafts took a dislike to one of the snipe, repeatedly flying over to chase it off the mud before returning to its raft. The snipe would fly back, join its mates, start digging for worms and the lapwing would fly over and have another go at it. I've no idea what that snipe had done to provoke it, they never strike me as being particularly mischievous.

Snipe

Snipe and teals

Snipe

A pair of great crested grebes cruised about the open water in between not-pairs-honestly of pochards. The dabchicks I'd been hearing for ages finally emerged from the reeds and started fishing in the open water. My first black-necked grebe of the year, Winter colours not yet fully lost, drifted in stage left and started fishing in the same area.

Black-necked grebe

It had started raining. I took the hint and made tracks. The meadow was still frantic with finches, the hedgerows busy with titmice. I crossed the bridge and followed the path round to Thelwall Lane. Google maps told me I was going to miss the next bus to Altrincham by four minutes and not for the first time I wondered how the ferry across the canal works. I can only think it's a one-way journey, there's no obvious means of contact from this side of the canal. So I scuttled over the locks and somehow had a five-minute wait for the number 5 bus, which took me to Altrincham whence I got a bus home.

Despite the rain at the end of the afternoon it had been a good walk and good birdwatching. I must thank myself for the surprise.