St Aidens

Common tern

It was a warm and sunny and cloudy day and the Met Office had changed its mind about its raining today so I decided to go over to St Aidens to see if the pectoral sandpiper was still about and have a general nosy round.

I got the train to Castleford and the 141 bus from the bus station to Wood Row at the far end of Methley. It should have been a simple walk up Station Road to the bridge over the River Aire and into St Aidens. Unfortunately the work on the level crossing due to be completed at the end of June hadn't been completed so I had to backtrack and follow the paths through the housing estate to the bridge. Irritating though it was at first I only lost quarter of an hour and I've got a better sense of the paths round Methley and a couple of ideas for exploring the bits of St Aidens I've not got round to yet. And it was nice watching swallows feeding their young on the telephone wires.

River Aire

The causeway

Half a dozen migrant hawkers were patrolling the parched vegetation on the other side of the bridge. I headed for the causeway and bumped into a very busy mixed tit flock, the blue tits and long-tailed tits providing all the acrobatics to a chorus of squeaks from the chiffchaffs. Walking down the causeway the squeaks of the chiffchaffs gave way to the rusty hinge calling of common terns on the pools. The pools were littered with coots, black-headed gulls and gadwalls. A few cormorants fished in the water, great crested grebes had large and noisy youngsters to feed and the terns were diving just feet away from where I was standing. I spent a while getting photos of wingtips and blurry cloud formations.

Common tern

Common tern

Common terns
It's easier when they're sat down.

Great crested grebes

Great crested grebes and coot

Mallards and tufted ducks haunted the reed margins. Greylags and Canada geese shouted from more open shores. And there were yet more coots and gadwalls.

Main Lake

Juvenile common tern

I turned into the bridleway crossing the causeway. This gave me a closer look at the terns, including one young juvenile still begging from one of the rafts. The pool on the right side was busy with egrets, a dozen or more little egrets and at least four great white egrets. Some were fishing, most were loafing in the reeds on the islands. There were shovelers and teals amongst the crowds of ducks on these pools. 

Great white egret

Little egrets, mallards and Canada geese
Sometimes you have to.

Snipes, shovelers and lapwing

Snipe, shovelers, coots and Canada geese

Waders fidgeted on the open mud. Most were lapwings and snipe, nearly all the snipe wading up to their thighs as they fed. I noticed a ruff fairly close in, and so did a lapwing which chased it off before I could take a photo. Further out I noticed a couple of redshanks and then there, over on the far side of the pool amongst a bunch of juvenile snipe, all wearing fresh bright braces on their backs, a pectoral sandpiper. Pectoral sandpiper is the only "stray" peep I can identify with any confidence: that abrupt cut from the stripy brown breast and white underparts really stands out.

Cormorants, Canada geese, greylags, mallards, coots, gadwalls and teal

Little egrets and great white egret

Centaury

Small copper

Knapweed

It was a nice afternoon, I'd found my target, I drifted round to see what else might be about. Small coppers, large whites and meadow browns fluttered about the wayside. Bees and hoverflies visited the flowers. Southern hawkers patrolled the vegetation by the bushes, common darters sunned themselves on the path, common demoiselles kept out of the way of both in the waterside grasses. I'd seen some black darters on the causeway as I came in. I bumped into my first ruddy darter of the year as it hunted midges over some overblown Michaelmas daisies. I'd written them off for this year, I'd had no luck in the usual places.

I'm rubbish at umbellifers, I think this is a wild carrot

Lapwing

So far I hadn't seen any birds of prey. A flock of lapwings suddenly rising from the fields beyond made me look round for one. Eventually I spotted the peregrine that had spooked them. It flew high over the pool I was standing by, the lapwings making themselves scarce. A female-type marsh harrier rose from behind the reedbeds behind the pool and flew after the lapwings. The peregrine went for the harrier, stooping and barely missing its target as it lurched out of the way. The harrier was ready for the second attempt and barrel-rolled out of the way, presenting a full set of claws to its attacker. The point had been made, the harrier made an exit and the peregrine circled high over the pool a few times before drifting over to the larger pools.

Peregrine

Peregrine and marsh harrier
First pass.

I walked round to Astley Lake and had a sit down while I had a look round. There were more great white egrets and little egrets. Loafing cormorants shared islands with geese, ducks and lapwings. A Cetti's warbler sang. I'd been sat there at least five minutes before I realised there were ten spoonbills asleep on an island right in front of me.

Spoonbills and teal

Spoombills

St Aidens 

Having had my wake-up call I managed to add some dabchicks and a willow warbler to the day's tally before deciding to start making a move for getting home. On a whim I took the path leading out over the Aire and onto the Aire and Calder Navigation, which was picturesque. I crossed the canal and headed down Fleet Lane, which was less picturesque as it passed under the railway line.

Luckily, there were stepping stones

I've not suffered much from hayfever this year so I noticed it when the sinuses threw a wobbly as I walked past fields of flowering sweetcorn. My sneeze woke up the chiffchaffs and titmice in the hedgerow. I probably disturbed much else besides given that a pile of swallows and house martins chose to drift my way.

I didn't have long to wait for the 141 back to Castleford but just missed the Manchester train and had an hour's wait for the next. I weighed up the options of getting the next train to Leeds or Sheffield and making connections there but I'd be arriving in Manchester later than if I sat and waited. A collared dove sang on the lamppost by my seat to keep me company.

St Aidens

Black-necked grebe and black-headed gulls 

I was feeling tired and jaded so I thought I'd have a bit of novelty. I got the train out to Castleford for an afternoon wander round the lakes and reedbeds at St Aiden's. I've got some "go anywhere on the Northern network free" tickets burning a hole in my pocket, with more to come, but decided not to use them today as it added an hour to the travelling time either way, I can use them on some other jaunts into Yorkshire. 

I got the 141 bus to Fleet Lane in Methley, which turned out to be more complicated than anticipated when we had to wait at the bus station for a replacement bus as the one that pulled in had broken down then I had a panic when two stops before my destination the bus reversed down the road, did a three point turn and headed off in the other direction, which turned out to be due to a diversion for roadworks.

Greylags, Methley Lane 

I got off and crossed over. A mixed flock of greylags and Canada geese were grazing on the field by the road.

I walked down Station Road, crossed the railway and went through the little cut taking me to the banks of the Aire where the first of the many invisible Cetti's warblers of the day was singing by the bridge. I crossed over and was in St Aidens.

River Aire

It was a first time visit for me. I had a look at the map and decided my best bet was to carry on straight ahead, go over the causeway across the main lake then swing round for the reedbeds to the North and West and loop round back to the bridge and decide then what I had left in time and legs for further exploration.

Approaching the causeway

Black-headed gulls, goosanders and gadwalls on the main lake

Walking up the road I'd been seeing and hearing lots of black-headed gulls. In the short time I reached the lake the noise had ratcheted up more than somewhat. There were hundreds of them on the lake, mostly paired up and many busy courting and nest-building. Lots of mallards flew about but it was mostly gadwalls and tufted ducks on the open water. A few teal dozed and squabbled at the edges of reedbeds, a handful of goosanders were asleep on an island, there were a lot of coots and a few herring gulls and lesser black-backs loafed to one side. I was walking through clouds of midges but there was no sign of any hirundines about to mop them up.

Black-headed gulls 

Gadwall

The sun had emerged from the thin cloud and it was becoming a warm Spring day. I wandered round, the big lake giving way to smaller, connected pools girt with gorse and reeds. There were fewer black-headed gulls and more ducks. I could hear the hinneying of dabchicks — I managed to see a pair later in the afternoon — and was tripping over Cetti's warblers every five minutes. Scanning the pools I could see great crested grebes cruising about then I saw my first black-necked grebe of the year.

Black-headed gulls, great crested grebe and coots

Coot, black-necked grebe and black-headed gulls 

Black-necked grebe and black-headed gulls 

Scarce fifty yards further along a pool held about a dozen black-necked grebes, all of them strikingly backlit. They didn't seem remotely bothered by us people stopping to stare at them. One, barely ten yards away, was making a start on nest-building, diving and bringing up bits of muddy vegetation that it patted down onto a tiny mound protruding from some thin reeds.

This black-necked grebe was busy nest-building, diving down for bits of muddy reed to pile up on the little mound by its side.

Other black-necked grebes were busy courting. One pair had me puzzled before I realised it was an adult and a first-Winter bird.

Black-necked grebes and great crested grebes 
This pair of black-necked grebes looked to be an adult and a first-Winter bird.

I'd heard there was a long-staying Slavonian grebe about and wondered if I'd manage to see it. Left to my own devices I wouldn't have. Luckily a chap noticed I was scouring round and asked if I'd seen it. He put me on to it though it took an embarrassingly long time, I just wasn't seeing it. It didn't help that it was spending a lot of time underwater but that's no excuse for not seeing something all of nine feet away in thin reeds. I finally clocked it and apologised for being such a slow study. I've only ever seen Slavonian grebes in Winter plumage and nearly all from a distance so frustrating as it was it was good to see the dark head and the emerging golden plumes that have the Americans calling it horned grebe.

The Slavonian grebe was being awkward

Great crested grebes and black-necked grebe 

Western reedbeds 

I carried on walking round to the noise of black-headed gulls, Cetti's warblers and greylag geese and the occasional wittering calls of passing oystercatchers. Then I heard the bittern.

St Aidens 

I followed the path round to where it meets Swillington Ings. Nearby to one side there was a booming bittern, to the other there were duelling Cetti's warblers in the pathside gorse bushes, I gave up trying to see either and just enjoyed the sound, the bittern's boom reverberating in my bones as the warblers' explosions of song drowned out the background. 

Black-headed gulls

I followed the curve round and found a colony of hundreds of black-headed gulls on a small lake. It was almost standing room only as a few oystercatchers and lapwings tiptoed their ways past them. Much to my surprise I noticed a female tufted duck sitting on a nest slap in the middle of the crowd. I guess hiding in plain sight with the protection of a mass of easily-triggered gulls is as good as hiding away somewhere under cover. 

Further along the path left the pools and lakes and curved through open woodland and scrub roughly parallel with the  river on the other side of the embankment. Chiffchaffs, robins and great tits sang and there was a reassuringly lengthy stretch of song from a willow warbler in some birch scrub.

Walking back from the reedbeds

I arrived back where I started, feeling the heat a bit as I'd dressed for the morning not the afternoon. I checked the bus and train times and decided to call it a day. I walked back to Methley Road and got to the bus stop just as the next bus arrived and only had quarter of an hour to wait for the Manchester train. I've added yet another to the "must visit again" list.

I had ten minutes to wait for the train home from Oxford Road. I spent it in the company of a grey wagtail that was skittering about on the wall opposite platform five.

Grey wagtail, Manchester Oxford Road Station