Birchwood

Birchwood Forest Park 

I wasn't feeling my brightest and bounciest best, not that I have a brightest and bounciest best but one should show willing. I had no firm plans, or even vague plans, for the day and despite its being a sunny morning I couldn't shake off the lethargy and get out and do something. As a displacement I spent two hours submitting a response to a government consultation, almost certainly a dead waste of time as given the nature of these things everything's been done and dusted and any are you really sure this isn't a tad unwise? questions will be deftly swept under the carpet. I'd hoped that might have prompted an energetic reaction but it wasn't happening. I put my boots on and went to get the train to see where I went. One of the advantages of not having ticket facilities at the station is that you don't have to commit to going anywhere until the guard sells you a ticket on the train.

Birchwood Forest Park is the thin band of woodland acting as a buffer between the housing estate and the railway line by Birchwood Station. I've not stopped and had a proper look round for a bit, it's a nice hour's slow dawdle, this time of year it has the usual complement of suburban singers, I needed a bit of exercise, so I got off the train at and walked round the corner into the park.

Robins, blackbirds and chiffchaffs sang along the roadside. They were joined by blackcaps, wrens and a song thrush as I walked along. Great tits churred and squeaked as I passed, a couple of robins ticked quietly from the depths of holly bushes, blue tits were in ninja mode, only spotted when breaking cover between trees. A lot of the trees were barely breaking bud but I was already struggling to spot small birds that didn't want to be seen. A couple of goldfinches twittered past overhead, more were silhouettes quietly picking insects from the emergent leaves at the tops of ash trees. A great spotted woodpecker made itself known before vanishing into a sycamore.

Spanish bluebells

I decided I wasn't going to walk round for time gentlemen please at Ridley Moss. I had a bit of an explore of the little side paths between the park and the housing estate, picking my way through cow parsley and Spanish bluebells and stepping over fallen trees. All the while watched by robins, magpies and titmice or startled by woodpigeons suddenly erupting from hawthorn bushes.

Wandering back a coal tit added its squeaky toy call to the soundscape and a couple of woodpigeons started singing. 

A blackcap sang over the piped music as I waited for the train back. I felt the better for stretching my legs and getting a bit of sunshine filtered through green leaves. I decided against stopping off along the way for another walk. The dark grey, yellowing clouds that suddenly rolled in confirmed I'd made a sound choice.

Damp Saturday

Irlam Moss

The plan was a good plan and probably would have been a successful plan but for me and the weather. The rot probably set in when I checked the tide times and concluded I'd best get the lunchtime train to Liverpool to get to Hoylake about an hour before high tide so I could catch the waders coming in and, perhaps, if I was very, very lucky, there might be the chance of a passing Leach's petrel. It was a good plan, it wasn't its fault I felt lukewarm about travelling far on a Saturday. Once I got going it would be different. On the plus side it was a sunny morning. And continued to be so right up to the point I arrived at the station. There's even less shelter at the station than there used to be as the rickety metal shelter thing with no sides fell to pieces a month ago. When the train arrived the best part of quarter of an hour late I was very, very wet and thoroughly demoralised.

I was on the train, where was I going? The good thing about having no ticket facilities at the station is that you don't have to commit yourself to going anywhere until you do. After much havering about I got off at Birchwood. It had stopped raining but still looked ominous, I'd have a quick nosy at Birchwood Forest Park and get a train back. At least that way I'd get some exercise and a bit of birdwatching in.

Woolston Moss 

As the train pulled into Birchwood Woolston Moss was peppered with woodpigeons and black-headed gulls. There were plenty of woodpigeons grazing the grass verges of Birchwood, mostly accompanied by the rattle of magpies and the songs of robins in the trees.

Birchwood Forest Park 

Birchwood Forest Park was quiet of people and busy with birds. Blackbirds scuttled about the verges, magpies and woodpigeons seemed to be everywhere and there were some fair-sized mixed tit flocks about. I was alerted to their passing by the calls of great tits but none of the birds, even the coal tits, were particularly shy. I was trying to get photos of the second, larger, flock and was being defeated by their being so busy and the leaf cover so dense when they all went quiet and hid. Overhead, at treetop height, two magpies escorted a sparrowhawk off their patch. The tit flock re-emerged and was joined by a handful of chaffinches which set about the cones at the top of an alder.

When I got back to the station the sun came out so I decided to get off at Irlam and go for a walk on Irlam Moss. If weather and mood allowed I could carry on onto Chat Moss but I was dubious of both.

Irlam Moss 

It was cool but sunny as I walked down Astley Road and there was a definite edge to the wind. A chiffchaff sang in the church garden as I passed by. The Zinnia Close spadgers muttered in the hedgerows and robins and woodpigeons sang in the trees. The fields of turf were empty, or so I thought until a cock pheasant walked into plain view then disappeared into a clump of cow parsley at the field edge. A cock sparrowhawk soared overhead and drifted over into town. His departure was the cue for a flock of goldfinches to fly up twittering into the trees.

Astley Road 

The wind got up and I was showered by conkers. It was blowing for rain and I could smell rain in the air so I had an idea it might rain. Which it did do when I got to the Jack Russell's gate. It was a sudden downpour which stopped as abruptly as it started. The male kestrel on his usual perch on the telephone wires above the field looked browned off with the weather, too.

The weather brightened considerably as the rain clouds scudded over towards Urmston. There was a passage of swallows, all of them heading West. A scan over the rough pasture between Prospect Grange and the motorway didn't even find me any woodpigeons. There were plenty of starlings on the communications tower by the motorway bridge, though, and a handful of house martins flew West over the road here.

Roscoe Road 

I decided not to cross over and walk over Chat Moss. The knees were creaking and I had a feeling I might be pushing my luck. I turned and headed down Roscoe Road. There were woodpigeons and carrion crows aplenty on the fields beyond the turf fields but literally nothing on the turf itself. A few black-headed gulls flew over, accompanied by a handful of very vocal jackdaws. I wondered why everything was flying West. The fields between Roscoe Road and Astley Road were a little better, robins and dunnocks in the rough pasture at the junction, chiffchaffs and great tits in the trees, and magpies rummaging about in the field stripped of turf, but again the fields covered in turf were barren.

I can forgive myself not spotting this grey partridge first time

I scanned all the field margins for any grey partridges and found none. I was disappointed but not surprised, there was plenty of cover for them. I'd almost reached the housing estate when I stopped to try and work out what a crowd of carrion crows and jackdaws were doing in the far corner of a field of barley stubble. It turned out they were having a bath, though they spent more time striking poses and bickering than bathing. The light was interesting so I got my camera out to take some landscape photos and in doing so I noticed a dark lump in the field about ten yards in front of me. The grey partridge looked up, looked at me and put its head down and pretended to be a rock.

Irlam Moss from Roscoe Road 

A few more swallows shot past as I reached the housing estate. I walked down to Liverpool Road and got the 100 back to the Trafford Centre and made an easy connection with the 25 for once. I'd just brewed a cup of tea when the thunderstorm started.

Birchwood

Buzzard

I had all sorts of plans for the day but couldn't be doing with any of them so I found myself on the lunchtime train to Liverpool debating whether to get off at Birchwood for a walk round to Risley Moss or get off at Padgate and walk down to Woolston Eyes now I've finally got my act together and bought a permit. I decided against Woolston Eyes, I'd want to give more time for my first proper explore of the inside of the reserve, and got off at Birchwood.

There were dozens of black-headed gulls and woodpigeons in the field by the Liverpool-bound platform yesterday morning, this afternoon there was one of each. And a buzzard sat in the tree in the corner.

Birchwood Forest Park 

Leaving the station I walked down into Birchwood Forest Park. The trees were full of bird song, the inevitable robins being joined by song thrushes, dunnocks, woodpigeons and coal tits. A mixed tit flock fizzed through the trees by the railway line, a couple of goldcrests joining the coal tits and long-tailed tits while the blue tits and great tits forged ahead. For once it was the red in a great spotted woodpecker's plumage that caught my attention. I was watching some long-tailed tits when the bright red undertail and white belly of a woodpecker flashed in the tree just behind them.

Song thrush 

A flock of redwings moved over the woodland, flying over in ones and twos, a few of them stopping in the treetops for a minute or two before moving on to who knows where. My guess from the direction of travel is they were going for an early roost at Woolston Eyes.

Birchwood Forest Park 

The large mixed tit flock near the brook included singing coal tits and a lesser redpoll. Lesser redpolls are tiny finches though I hadn't properly registered just how small they are until I saw this one sharing a twig with a long-tailed tit. Even allowing for the tit being fluffed up in the cold wind its body wasn't much smaller than the redpoll's.

Risley Moss 

I thought I'd left plenty of time for a wander round Risley Moss, which keeps office hours. I would have done but it's closed Fridays. The bus to Warrington was due in five minutes, I took it and got the train home.

A Cheshire walk

Rabbit, Gorse Covert Mounds 

It was a dry but very grey day so I thought I'd go chasing yellow-browed warblers. One's been reported a couple of times in the past week in the Silver Lane area between the M62 and Culcheth, I don't know the area so it was an opportunity to do a bit of exploring.

The quickest way for me to get there was to get the train to Birchwood then get either the 28 to the Noggin Inn or the 25 to Hamsterly Close then have a mile and a bit walk to the place indicated on Birdguides. This involves waiting half an hour for the bus at Birchwood Station; I couldn't be doing with waiting that long for a two mile ride so I walked it. Rather than taking a straight line through Birchwood from the station to Gorse Covert thence over Pestfurlong Hill onto Silver Lane and over the motorway I walked along the stretch of Birch Forest Park by the railway, past Risley Moss, across Birch Park and thence into Gorse Covert, adding about a mile to the walk.

Arriving at Birchwood Station I had a quick look over the ploughed fields next to the Liverpool-bound platform where a couple of hundred black-headed gulls and a few dozen woodpigeons were busy feeding.

Long-tailed tit, Birchwood Forest Park

From the moment I stepped into Birch Forest Park the trees were noisy with great tits and I was getting some practice into finding small birds amongst the Autumn greenery. If the great tits hadn't been so noisy I'd have struggled to spot them. As it was, once I'd got them in my sights I could pick out the blue tits and long-tailed tits they were flocking with. In the mile and a half of this part of the walk I bumped into five mixed tit flocks and in two of those the most conspicuous birds were the goldcrests. A couple of robins sang, wrens scolded and blackbirds were acrobatically busy getting the last of the hawthorn berries.

Birchwood Forest Park 

Overhead there was a constant passage of woodpigeons flying North from the ploughed fields the other side of the railway. Every so often they'd be passing over in their dozens, at least a hundred and fifty went over while I was walking through. A couple of buzzards called loudly as they flew low over the trees, shadowed by carrion crows part of the way. I was struggling a bit with the weather: the air was cool but the wind was warm and I'd swapped the Winter jacket for the Summer one over the weekend.

I walked round Risley Moss rather than going in it, I didn't want to add a detour to the walk. The mixed flock I bumped into here was made up of great tits and goldcrests with a dunnock tagging along.

Birch Park

I cut across Birch Park to Gorse Covert. The hedgerows were noisy with great tits and robins, I bumped into more goldcrests and a bullfinch sighed mournfully in the trees by the car park.

Gorse Covert Mounds 

Gorse Covert's the housing estate on the Eastern side of Birchwood, separated from the M62 by a strip of parkway called Gorse Covert Mounds running up to Pestfurlong Hill. I hadn't gone far into Gorse Covert Mounds when I bumped into a large mixed tit flock which included a couple of dozen blue tits, none of which were up for having their photo taken. The goldcrests and long-tailed tits were relatively shy, unlike a coal tit which came up close to tease the amateur photographer. I've had the new camera a while now but I'm still not quite used to the camera"s reactions being slower than mine. There were half a dozen moorhens on the end of the pond by the path as I passed.

Winter Hill from Pestfurlong Hill 

I checked out the views from Pestfurlong Hill and wandered down onto Silver Lane and over the motorway. The wind was cooling and there was a hint of rain in the air as I stood at the beginning/end of the lane North of the motorway and wondered where to go.

Google Maps told me to follow a path though Pestfurlong Moss that would take an hour and a half to get to the point about fifty yards from where I was standing, which seemed odd. I had a scan over the moss while I was here and found a few woodpigeons in the fields and goldfinches in the hedgerows. The turn-off on the North of the motorway is a contractors' service road with a bit of parking and a locked gate. I decided to cross this road to see if the grey streak on the map was a footpath. It was, and it immediately dropped onto the stretch of Silver Lane on Culcheth Heights. I refreshed Google Maps to see which way to go along the lane. I then ignored the advice.

Occasionally Google Maps plays tricks on you.
The stretch of path I've coloured red took 2 minutes to walk.

A Southern hawker zipped by the trees along the path as I checked the map. The trees thinned out as I walked down the lane and soon I was in open country with a small pool on one side of the path and thin scrub on the other. I was seeing or hearing no sign of any tit flocks, or any small birds at all. 

Culcheth Heights 

Shrine to the Dog Shit Fairy 

The clouds rolled in and visibility dropped with a hint of drizzle in the air. I'd gone a good hundred yards when I disturbed a large finch which flew up and circled over me then disappeared into the scrub. The light was so bad I had to use a process of elimination to identify it as a greenfinch, anything else would have had some white in the plumage. The flock of linnets I bumped into a few minutes later were easier to identify, as was the flock of starlings rising from a field on Pestfurlong Moss.

Silver Lane Lakes 

I followed the lane round to the North then dropped down onto the path by the lakes. I was beginning to wonder why I shouldn't give up and take the quickest route to Warrington Road thence home when a chiffchaff squeaked in the scrub and reminded me why I was here. This felt more like tit flock country. I hadn't gone far when I started hearing blue tits, great tits and dunnocks. A couple of jays flew by, a couple of robins sang, long-tailed tits bounced through the trees.

All the pools so far had been empty water. The largest pool was busy with birds. A raft of a few dozen black-headed gulls bathed and preened, pairs of tufted ducks and wigeons drifted midwater and coots fussed about near the banks.

Silver Lane Country Park 

The hints of rain had passed though it was still grey and gloomy. I carried on along the small path heading East through more mature oak woodland. Blackbirds, wrens and robins fossicked about in the undergrowth, a few great tits called from the trees.

 If there was a yellow-browed warbler about I'd expect it to be in the woodlands round the lakes but I had me no luck today. This is part of Silver Lane Country Park, of which I was ignorant until today. If I were to come back I think I'd get the 28 to the Noggin Inn and walk down Silver Lane from there.

Looking back at Silver Lane Country Park 

I followed the path down to the end of the woods then followed the footpath that doglegs through the fields and through the farmyard onto Warrington Road. A buzzard called noisily from a telegraph pole at a couple of herons that flew low by over the field. One set of telephone lines had a dozen starlings and a couple of mistle thrushes, another had thirty-odd linnets and a couple of meadow pipits.

There's a long stretch of Warrington Road between the bus stops at Risley Prison and Newchurch at the edge of Culcheth and the footpath I was on meets the road halfway along. The 28 bus to Leigh passed me halfway to Newchurch. This is an hourly service, I decided to walk into Culcheth for the 19 to Leigh. I got to the bus stop by the library with quarter of an hour to spare, if the buses were running on time I'd have a similar wait for the 126 back to the Trafford Centre. The 19 arrived three-quarters of an hour later and crawled through Glazebury at such a glacial pace that not only did I not catch the 126 I was aiming for, I didn't catch the one leaving Leigh and hour and ten minutes later. I was just in time to get the 35 to Boothstown where I got the next 132 to the Trafford Centre and for once made the connection for the 25 home. 

It had taken almost as long to get home from Culcheth on the buses as it has to walk there from Birchwood. It had been a good walk, though, and pretty good birdwatching even though I didn't get a yellow-browed warbler.

Birchwood

Long-tailed tit

I woke early to the sound of a skein of pink-footed geese flying overhead in a bright, wispy blue sky. The plan for the day was to go over to Martin Mere, see if the Russian pink-footed goose was still about then have a wander about to see what I could find. It had been a long night, I was very tired and getting to Martin Mere is such hard work I don't want to only have a superficial look round so I parked the idea. Tomorrow is another day. It's an odd thing, up to perhaps fifteen years ago all the white-fronted geese I saw in the Northwest, and most of the reports I heard of, were of Greenland white-fronted geese and now they're almost exclusively Russian. I'm too tired to think of the possible causes and effects.

I didn't want to waste the day so I put the roll of carpet I use as a brain to the task of selecting an afternoon walk. It needed to be fairly undemanding and I desperately wanted to avoid Manchester and the school run. Then I dozed off on the cat's sofa (it's my sofa, bought and paid for by me before she was even a twinkle in a tomcat's eye but we're having a territorial dispute).

Anyway, when I woke up I got the train to Birchwood, the idea being to have a teatime walk round Risley Moss.

Birchwood Forest Park 

Leaving the station I turned right and walked down the road to the entrance to Birchwood Forest Park. There was an odd transition, robins were singing in the hedgerows along the road, this part of the park was silent. But not empty, blackbirds were gorging themselves on haws and elderberries and woodpigeons clattered about in the trees.

Blackbird 

About a hundred yards on one of the clumps of hawthorns was busy with both blackbirds and song thrushes. The blackbirds picked off the haws at the end of twigs by blue tit-like acrobatics while the song thrushes treated them like flying insects and snatched them on the wing.

Long-tailed tit

It wasn't long before the first robin started singing and not long after that I bumped into the first mixed tit flock. As far as I could tell this one was all long-tailed tits, blue tits and great tits; another I later bumped into by Birchwood Brook included goldcrests and a nuthatch. Also by the brook was a rather scruffy looking juvenile heron.

I took the path that leads through the trees to Risley Moss. As it crossed the brook I had a look round for any dragonflies — I'd been buzzed by a couple of common darters along the way — and found a grey wagtail instead.

By Risley Moss 

I got to Risley Moss and it was shut. It was just after five o'clock and I forgot that this is one of the fenced-off pieces of our natural heritage that runs on office hours. Presumably it's all packed up and put into a cupboard once the gates are locked, except on Fridays when it's not unpacked at all. It's a minor inconvenience to me but it irks me deeply. What's the point of having a community nature reserve if you can't walk round it at tea time? A community woodland where you'll never be able to listen out for an owl? I can understand the visitor centre having set hours but not the reserve itself. All I could think of was the sketch in the late, great Eddie Braben's "The Show With Ten Legs" where one of the characters asks: "What time's the countryside open, Doctor Bum?"

There was no point in lingering. I checked the train times and I had half an hour to get the one taking me directly home from Birchwood Station and it would roughly take that long to retrace my steps through Birchwood Forest Park. That route's a right-angled dogleg running along the brook then turning and running parallel to the railway line. I decided to go diagonally through Birchwood and in doing so discovered something. Whenever I've gone through Birchwood on the bus the layout's baffled me. Today I learned that it's laid out as a collection of pedestrian rat runs with the roads meandering around them. The most direct route from A to B in Birchwood will be a pedestrian path. Which baffles Google Maps, by the way, you have to be standing a good way away from a road for it to realise you're on a walkway. So I got to the station with ten minutes to spare. And the train was nearly quarter of an hour late. But that was okay, I sat in the sun zoning out the muzak and listening to the jays rattling in the hedgerow on the Liverpool platform.

Friday wander

Garden warbler, Birchwood

The weather forecast promised more of yesterday's nonsense with a chance of sunshine late on. The cat promised more of yesterday's nonsense starting at 5:20 (yes, I bear a grudge) after the first time I've managed to sleep through the dawn chorus all week. So I left home.

Moorhen, Buxton

I was weary through lack of sleep and had the attention span of a mayfly on acid so I got myself an old man's explorer ticket, bobbed over to Piccadilly and played departure board bingo, which is how I arrived at Buxton in a dry but cloudy interval. I wandered over to the Pavilion Gardens which were looking lush but some of the lawns still haven't recovered from Winter. Chaffinches and robins sang in the trees, mallards and tufted ducks dozed on the banks of the ponds, moorhens and coots fussed about. The youngest in a party of visitors rustled a paper bag whereupon seventy-odd Canada geese charged over from the other side of the gardens looking like a dangerously bad-tempered Sunday park run.

Canada geese, Buxton

Barnacle goose, Buxton
This chap toddled along behind the Canada geese. It won't be going on my year list though I'd have been tempted if it was January.

Mandarin duck, Buxton

It started pouring down. A drake mandarin duck, halfway moulted into eclipse plumage, ran under a tree and fossicked around in the daisies on the lawn. I left the park and walked up the hill to the bus stop and got the bus to Macclesfield. 

This bus route winds its way along the tops of picturesque Pennine valleys past the Cat and Fiddle before descending into Macclesfield. I've long since given up on trying to get photos of the scenery and just sit back and enjoy it, especially on days like today when the ride coincides with a sunny break in the weather. There's not usually much visible birdlife about, today was a lot busier than usual with a few pairs of carrion crows rummaging about in fields, and a mixed flock of jackdaws and rooks off Old Buxton Road. As we'd just negotiated a tight bend just before the Cat and Fiddle a red kite floated past. At first I assumed it was a hen harrier, I've seen a couple on this stretch over the years, but as it got closer and we passed it I could see the different structure and paler head, the light not picking up any fox red tones.

I got off the bus at Macclesfield Station in the rain and got the train to Stoke because it was there. The weather cleared up en route so I walked down to Manorfields Pools which, now I know the way, is five minutes' walk from the station. A flock of large gulls, mostly lesser black-backs, wheeled high over in the direction of Hanley Park. I should have a nosy over there some time. 

The goldfinches and blackbirds of the university campus gave way to blackcaps and chiffchaffs and it had become warm enough for a handful of common blue damselflies to be flitting about the rank vegetation by the river.

Manorfields Pool

I followed the path round and noticed a gate leading to an overgrown path through the trees to the large pool. It turned out to be a very overgrown path and I suddenly didn't feel so bad about my back garden. Robins, wrens and song thrushes sounded like they were singing within arm's length as I barged my way through dog roses, brambles and nettles. I got to the pool where a pair of mute swans drifted about, a family of coots fussed about and moorhens and mallards kept a low profile. The drake mallards had almost completed their moult into eclipse plumage. I carried on down the path where it was becoming apparent I was the first visitor all year. In the end I gave up, I would have been drier standing in the pouring rain and the vegetation was getting so thick I couldn't disentangle the branches. I retreated, found a set of steps up to the path by the meadows and had a more sensible walk.

Baby coots, Stoke

Magpies and mistle thrushes bounced about the meadows and swifts flew low overhead. Robins and dunnocks hopped about on the path ahead of me, there were more of them in the bushes by the path with more blackcaps and chiffchaffs and a family party of blue tits. What I assumed to be more blue tits in the high branches of a tree turned out to be a pair of goldcrests with a couple of youngsters. A few of the damselflies flitting about by the river turned out to be azure damselflies, they stayed still long enough for me to identify them.

Azure dragonfly, Stoke

I clocked the time and made my way back to the station to catch the train back to Manchester (my ticket was only valid for the hourly Northern stopping train). The train hadn't yet set off when it started pouring down. An hour later we approached Manchester in bright sunshine on a warm Friday afternoon.

I was very tired but I didn't want to waste the weather. I bobbed over to Oxford Road and caught the Warrington train, getting off at Birchwood with a view to having a quick look at Risley Moss before getting the direct train back home just after six. 

Birchwood Forest Wood 

I didn't get there, contenting myself with three quarter of an hour's wander round Birchwood Forest Wood, which has one of my favourite names of multiple redundancy. It's a nice little ribbon of woodland between the railway and the housing estate. Blackbirds, blackcaps, chaffinches and chiffchaffs sang in the undergrowth, song thrushes and woodpigeons sang in the trees. Robins, wrens and dunnocks fussed about the path margins and a great spotted woodpecker's alarm calls made it clear I wasn't a welcome passerby. A juvenile willow warbler was a nice surprise, as was a garden warbler. I'm seeing more garden warblers than I'm hearing just lately which is very much against the usual rub of the game.

I dawdled my way back to the station, had twenty minutes to wait for the train, got home, fed the cat, had a cup of tea and had a few hours' sleep. Somehow or other I'd managed to see forty-six species of birds in the day.