Salford Quays

Black-headed gull 

I was feeling better by teatime and felt the need to go out for a walk to clear my head and get some exercise. I decided on a stroll up and down Wharfside to see if I could find the usual yellow-legged gull.

I got off the 30 bus at Imperial War Museum North. There were plenty of lesser black-backs and black-headed gulls and perhaps a handful of herring gulls flying overhead to the Ship Canal. A lot of pied wagtails were feeding on the grass prior to going to roost. As I turned the corner onto the path to the canal side a juvenile peregrine shot overhead at rooftop height. I know peregrines nest locally, it was about time I had some luck seeing one of them. This was a very young-looking bird, dark and rusty underneath with sooty brown upperparts.

Lesser black-backs and herring gulls 

There was a raft of dozens of large gulls having a wash and a brush-up on Central Bay. Lesser black-backs outnumbered herring gulls about three to one and the mixture of ages was made the more bewildering by most of them being in moult out of Summer plumage. The dozens of black-headed gulls were dotted about on the water or lined up on the railings by the Lowry, most of the youngsters now only being slightly browner than the first-Summer birds. On the way in I'd seen a report of a first-Summer kittiwake on Clipper Quay so I kept an eye out just in case it had drifted over this way. I found an adult common gull in the crowd and another flew overhead.

Black-headed gull 

Black-headed gulls 

Fishing cormorants snaked their way around the gulls. It's a sure bet that if they had caught anything they'd have surfaced well away from them. Mute swans, Canada geese and coots mugged for scraps over at the entrance to the Ontario Basin and pigeons littered the far quayside.

Black-headed gulls 

Passing South Bay

Canada geese, mallards and coots loafed on the bank at Clipper Quay while moorhens and pigeons pottered about. There were a few black-headed gulls and a young lesser black-back but nothing that might be a kittiwake. A chap on the far quayside was feeding a crowd of black-headed gulls, I'm told he does this so he can get close enough to read the numbers on the rings on their legs. I don't have much luck at that, on the few occasions I've managed to read the full number most have been ringed locally though a handful have come from further afield, one of them was ringed in Estonia. None of his excited throng turned out to be a kittiwake.

A birdwatcher searching for the kittiwake had told me the yellow-legged gull had been on the boat parked in South Bay when he'd walked up. I had a look over but the boat was now outlined in black-headed gulls standing shoulder-to-shoulder. I decided to walk up and have a look at Pomona and see if I have better luck on the way back.

Walking up to Pomona

Pomona was quiet even by its lights: three black-headed gulls, a couple of pigeons and a passing lesser black-back.

Black-headed gull 

I did have more luck on the way back, the yellow-legged gull was in the crowd bathing in Central Bay. A few more herring gulls flew in. I couldn't see anything that might be a candidate for a kittiwake. I wasn't too disappointed, it had been the walk I'd needed.

The Millennium Bridge over to Salford