Reservoir Wednesday

Juvenile pied wagtail, Hollingworth Lake
It's not often you get close enough and they sit still enough to be able to see the yellow gape at the side of the beak.

It was a warm, sunny morning so I thought I'd go for a gentle stroll. A long-tailed duck had been recorded at Hollingworth Lake but had disappeared overnight. No matter, the report reminded me I've not been there in ages and it's a nice, gentle stroll. And if the pollen count's going be high a Pennine reservoir is a fair way of hiding from the worst of it.

I got the train to Smithybridge and walked up to the lake, the slope irritating the knee more than the ankle but the exercise was getting the movement back into the joints. Along the way there was the bonus of a handful of Southern marsh orchids in the grass verge, which was nice to see. Blackbirds, spadgers, starlings and dunnocks rummaged around in front gardens, jackdaws and woodpigeons clattered about the rooftops and swifts screamed about the chimney tops. There were dozens of swifts, showing the advantage of having a huge body of midgey water up the road.

Hollingworth Lake

The lake was, understandably, very busy. Which didn't bother the house sparrows flitting about between the gardens and the bankside. Nor the young pied wagtails overly much though the adults were a lot more skittish. A huge raft of Canada geese cruised the lake in between boatloads of kids learning how to row like Vikings. Most of the gulls on the water were lesser black-backs, there were handfuls of herring gulls and black-headed gulls. The hedgerow songscape was mostly blackbirds with a few blackcaps and chiffchaffs near the houses and gardens, robins and great tits out by the fields. Out in the fields to the South reed buntings, greenfinches and chaffinches sang in the hawthorn bushes.

Looking South from the lake

The path to Shaw Moss, with jackdaw

The crowds were feeling a bit oppressive so I took a time out by taking a walk part of the way along the path to Shaw Moss. It was very quiet of people but noisy with singing woodpigeons and wrens. Magpies and blackbirds rummaged about in the fields and a lot of greenfinches flitted about in the hawthorn bushes. It feels good to be able to write: "A lot of greenfinches." Oddly there weren't any hirundines about, I was expecting to see some swallows at least around the cattle sheds. The non-appearance of swallows where I'm expecting them is getting to be a point of concern.

I wandered back to the lake, got myself a lemon sorbet to give myself an ice cream headache and carried on with my circumlocution.

The nature reserve 

The hide in the nature reserve was busy but there were plenty enough gaps in the trees to see what was about. A few mallards and their ducklings dabbled about in the company of some moorhens and magpies. Out on the beach about forty gulls — two lesser black-backs for every herring gull, plus a couple of black-headed gulls — loafed with a handful of very vocal oystercatchers.

The lake by Rakewood Road

I carried on walking up to Rakewood Road and found out where the hirundines were. A commotion over the houses across the field was house martins chasing off a kestrel. As I walked down the road a flock of swallows descended on the beach across the road and hawked low over the water's edge, keeping out of the way of the gulls while they did so. The balance of things was restored. Further reassurance was the meadow brown butterflies fluttering about the fields on my side of the road.

By Rakewood Road 

The 456 bus was due in ten minutes so I waited and got that into Wardle for a walk up to Watergrove Reservoir to see what was about. It turned out that what was about was a film crew and the Eastern end of the reservoir was off-limits. Which was no great hardship, there's good walking away from there.

Watergrove Reservoir 

Lesser black-backs 

The water was low here, too, and a couple of dozen lesser black-backs loafed on the spit that had emerged. A pair of great crested grebes drifted midwater and dozens of Canada geese congregated on the far bank. Willow warblers and blackbirds sang in the trees down below and a buzzard slowly floated overhead and headed for the hills.

Pied wagtail 

A family of pied wagtails skittered about the base of the reservoir wall. I could see a wader further along and assumed it was a redshank. I eventually caught up with it and was surprised to find it was a greenshank. There's been a passage of waders, mostly sanderlings, over the Pennines recently, this bird might be a part of it.

Greenshank 

I had five minutes' sit down on a bench to check my notes and assess the aches and pains and was surprised to find that the notes were copious and the aches and pains minimal. That being the case I decided not to drop back down into Wardle for the bus, instead I'd have a stroll over the hill into Whitworth. It was just the right weather for it and it's a walk that's easy on the knees with soft ground and climbing not compulsory. As I got up from the bench I noticed a grey wagtail feeding a fledgling at the top of the step bridge overflow.

Grey wagtails

Heading for Slack Gate

It was a very pleasant walk, just what I needed. Blackbirds and robins sang from the trees and skylarks and meadow pipits sang from the moorland. Rooks and jackdaws fossicked about around the sheep, carrion crows flew about the slopes, magpies popped up anywhere. 

There'd evidently been a mass emergence of burnet moths, they littered patches of ragged robin and lady's bedstraw, hardly letting the small tortoiseshells and common blues get a look in at the flowers.

Five-spotted burnet moth on ragged robin 

Common blue 

This path becomes Slack Gate

Slack Gate
It gets posher further along.

I walked along Slack Gate to the radiating confusion of paths near the golf club. Usually I walk down Whitworth Rake into Whitworth for the bus into Rochdale. Today I opted for the bridleway to Syke, just out of curiosity.

The bridleway to Syke

The bridleway follows the route of the feeder stream for Brown House Wham Reservoir (people think I make these names up). Blackbirds, chaffinches and skylarks sang and there was at least one Canada goose on the little reservoir by Springside Farm.

Brown House Wham Reservoir 

Willow warblers, meadow pipits and wrens joined the songscape at Brown House Wham Reservoir, a couple of drake mallards pottered about on the water. 

Fanny Brook 

The bridleway became Dirty Leech, became Limers Gate then became Dewhirst Road and I was heading into Syke for the bus into Rochdale. Of course, I'd forgotten how bad the traffic is on Whitworth Road, I spent most of the next hour sitting on that bus as it crawled down the road. And even that couldn't take the gloss off a very good day's walking.

Hollingworth Lake

Buzzard, Shaw Moss
Either heavily into moult or has thrown four moth-eaten cardigans on in a rush.

I've found  this August to be hard going. it's not just that it's a quiet time for birdwatching, or the weather's made it even quieter than usual this time of year, or the hay fever, or the trains, there are days when I just can't be bothered. And today was one of them. I was fully committed to wasting a sunny day listening to the cricket but I couldn't be bothered listening to the cricket. So I dragged myself out of the house and went for a walk around Hollingworth Lake.

As the train approached Rochdale the sunny day had been replaced by the ominous clouds that seemed to have been a feature of the couple of decades I spent working there. By the time we got to Smithybridge where I got off there were big slabs of blue sky poking through the cloud. For some reason this was my first visit of the year. I'm not consciously put off by the ten minutes you have to wait trying to cross Milnrow Road.

Hollingworth Lake 

Hollingworth Lake was heaving busy with every permutation of old folk, children and dogs you could imagine. A crowd of Canada geese, mallards, mute swans and black-headed gulls were mugging for food on the slipway by the sailing club. I decided to go the other way and have an anticlockwise walk round the lake.

Dunnock, Hollingworth Lake 

It's a nice walk but it was too busy for hearing or seeing small birds quietly going about their business. A couple of robins sang and a dunnock bobbed out of a willow bush to pick at some crumbs by the path.

Out on the water a raft of lesser black-backs drifted midwater or loafed about on unoccupied boats. A few cormorants and herring gulls flew about, there were more loafing on the bank with a lot of black-headed gulls over on the Rakewood Road end.

Looking towards Shaw Moss 

Along the Southern shore the fields were busy with sheep and jackdaws and noisy with a family of carrion crows. I scanned round on the off-chance of finding a passage migrant or two but just found a few woodpigeons sitting on fenceposts or devouring hawthorn berries.

I squeezed through the narrow gap by the fence and walked up the path to Shaw Moss. The fields were busy with woodpigeons and the sky busy with swallows. I let on to a birdwatcher coming back from Shaw Moss. He said he'd had redstarts in the hawthorns by the farm a couple of weeks ago, which was good news for him and I congratulated him but bad news for me because I'd been hoping to catch them today and they don't tend to linger. Never mind, it's a nice walk and a very quiet one too.

Shaw Moss 

Besides the woodpigeons and swallows there was the occasional house Martin and a handful of greenfinches and goldfinches twittered in the trees. A couple of black-headed gulls fossicked about by the caravan park and a juvenile buzzard was begging loudly somewhere over Rakewood.

Shaw Moss 

I walked up to the end of the path at Annis Hill Farm and wandered back towards Hollingworth Lake. Another couple of buzzards floated overhead followed by three more and all five soared noisily over the farms. I'd passed a small pond along the way, on my way back a heron flew in and sat by the side until a couple of horses were brought into the field for a bit of rest and recreation.

Teal, Hollingworth Lake 

It was fairly busy with birds at the hide by the lake, most of the noise being provided by the lapwings and black-headed gulls at the waterside. There weren't a lot of ducks and they all looked like youngsters, certainly the gadwalls and the couple of mallards were juveniles and I think most if not all of the dozen teal were, too. I don't see families of teal nearly often enough to be confident in the differences between immature and female plumages.

Teal, Hollingworth Lake 

I walked round to Rakewood Road where a swarm of swallows was hawking low over the fields. I drifted down to the visitor centre to add chaffinches to the day's tally then went for the bus back to Rochdale.

Swallows, Hollingworth Lake 

I got the 456 back to Rochdale. I wondered if I had the energy to get off at Wardle for a quicky nosy round Watergrove Reservoir. Dear reader I barely had the energy to remember to get off the bus at Rochdale.

By Rakewood Road 

Hollingworth Lake

Carrion crow

Day five of the heatwave and I was getting fidgety, even contemplating braving the perils of Transpennine Express to look for the brown booby in the North Sea fog.

Instead I headed up to Hollingworth Lake for a wander. There's plenty enough tree cover providing shade for most of the circuit and I could take a detour along the path to Shaw Moss to see if any passage migrants were lurking in the hawthorns.

My local train doesn't stop at Deansgate any more so the cross-city connection is a walk from Oxford Road to St Peter's Square for the tram to Victoria. I had a stroke of luck: as I was crossing Chepstow Street the free city centre bus was arriving, I got that to the People's History Museum, walked down to Salford Central and had five minutes to wait for the train to Smithybridge. (The recent building work at Salford Central appear to have been designed to make it even more inaccessible than it used to be.)

Hollingworth Lake 

Arriving at Hollingworth Lake I immediately took the path by The Beach pub and wandered round. Light cloud and a gentle breeze took the edge off the sun. Out on the water a raft of gulls — mostly equal numbers of herring gulls and lesser black-backs with a handful of black-headed gulls — was torn between being outraged by the intrusion of a lot of kids learning how to canoe and wondering if they had any food on them. 

Robins, blue tits and chiffchaffs rummaged through the hedgerow, the chiffchaffs coming within an arm's length of me as I was looking to see what was about and always making sure to dip back into the hedge for a moment whenever the camera got them in focus, only to pop back out again once the shot was missed. I admitted defeat.

Hollingworth Lake

A couple of brown hawkers patrolled the waterside while common darters flitted about the tops of the hedge. Red admirals fluttered about by the paths while speckled woods dodged about in the undergrowth beneath the trees.

From Hollingworth Lake looking towards Shaw Moss 

The fields by the side of the lake were busy with woodpigeons, jackdaws and carrion crows. A handful of swallows twittered overhead but it looked like I'd already missed the main passage.

All the mallards on the lake were asleep on the jetty by the water activities centre near the café.

Rabbits

I took half an hour's diversion along the path to Shaw Moss, checking out the hawthorns in the fields and the thicket of hawthorns, spindle trees and rowans by the farm. I knew there were a lot of small birds in the thicket because I watched fifty-odd starlings settle in there as I was walking up. I could actually find perhaps a dozen of them when I got there. The greenfinches and goldfinches were more conspicuous. The hawthorns in the fields were busy with a mixed tit flock — blue tits, great tits and long-tailed tits and all of them very fidgety.

The lane to Shaw Moss 

A trick of the topography suppresses the sounds of the motorway and the visitors around Hollingworth Lake despite my being only a couple of hundred yards down the path. It was a treat to be able to relax and not have to filter out noise. Most of the quiet contact calls in the bushes were titmice or robins. A very weak call somewhere in the depths of a hawthorn over by the opposite fence had me beaten. I had hopes of a spotted flycatcher but I couldn't see anything except a couple of woodpigeons gorging on haws and I wasn't convinced enough of the identification to claim it.

Aside from the birds I was tripping over red admirals and speckled woods and the rabbits weren't being particularly shy.

Returning to the lake I reckoned that I deserved an ice cream and went and sat down in the shade to eat it in the company of a treeful of greenfinches and goldfinches, including some newly-minted youngsters of both.

Lesser black-backs
I eventually concluded that the bird on the buoy is a first-Summer lesser black-back

Resuming the walk I checked out the raft of large gulls on this side of the lake which was mostly lesser black-backs and included first- and second-Summer birds in a variety of garbs, reminding me that I'll soon be making a fool of myself when the gullwatching season properly kicks off. Every year I get less and less confident with gull identification.

Cormorant

The water was high at the hide and there wasn't enough exposed land for any waders. A few teal dozed and bathed in one corner of the pool keeping well away from a heron lurking in the other. Cormorants and black-headed gulls perched on the posts that usually mark the end of the mud bank.

By Rakewood Road
(With self-portrait.)

I carried on walking, the chiffchaffs in the wooded stretches along the lake being replaced by the willow warblers in the trees in the open fields by Rakewood Road. A buzzard soared low over Hollingworth Hill and drifted towards Blackstone Edge. Swallows passed overhead, mostly in twos and threes with a couple of flocks of half a dozen birds.

Cormorant in the afternoon haze

A haze settled over the lake so the distant rafts of gulls were unidentifiable white shapes until individual birds took wing. Depending on which reference I chose to believe I either had five minutes or twelve minutes to wait for a 456 to Rochdale. In the event it was twenty and I felt every minute of it standing unsheltered at the bus stop. I'd have been better off walking down to Littleborough for the train.

It was a long and hot journey home but I'd had a good afternoon's birdwatching.

Rabbits

Hollingworth Lake

Fox (and rat), Shaw Moss

I'd had a long lunch with a friend in Rochdale, spotting one of the peregrines on the town hall on the way in and a grey wagtail fossicking about with the mallards and farmyard geese on the river walking over to the bus station on the way back.

I checked the buses and decided to get the 458 to have an afternoon's wander round Hollingworth Lake while the weather was looking surprisingly fine.

Hollingworth Lake 

Unsurprisingly the water was very low. I harboured a hope that all that fresh foreshore might have attracted a sandpiper or two but the only waders were the usual crowd of lapwings over on the Rakewood Road end of the lake. There were plenty of mallards about: fifty or so of them were with the Canada geese and mute swans over by the car park, the rest were in groups in the corners, about sixty congregating in the little bay by Queen's Walk and a couple of dozen over by the hide. Quite a few of the drakes were already coming out of eclipse plumage. Try as I might I couldn't turn any of the gulls into anything that weren't black-headed gulls or lesser black-backs.

The trees around the lake were filled with the rustlings of small birds, nearly all of which turned out to be great tits, robins or blackbirds. A couple of chaffinches and dunnocks added variety and a few odd squeaks remained unidentifiable.

Robin, Hollingworth Lake

I took half an hour's diversion up the path that heads towards Shaw Moss. Clouds of swallows twittered overhead while singletons of sand martin and house martin steamed by. The hawthorns on the rise were thick with goldfinches and greenfinches, nearly always obscured by leaves. Every so often they'd rise up, flit over to a fresh clump of trees and disappear again. Wrens and blackbirds were heard but not seen. There was something else deep in the undergrowth but I couldn't place the call and it could well have been another great tit.

Rabbit, Shaw Moss

Woodpigeons shared the field by the path with a family of rabbits. On the other side of the path a fox concluded a successful bit of ratting by one of the farm buildings.

Looking towards Shaw Moss from Hollingworth Lake 

I returned to Hollingworth Lake and bought myself an ice cream just as the sky darkened and the wind started to blow a hooley. By the time I reached the hide it was pouring down, which didn't bother the gulls and lapwings any and just set the mallards a-muttering in the grass. There were a handful of herring gulls amongst the gulls and just the one common gull.

Black-headed gulls and lesser black-backs, Hollingworth Lake

I walked down Rakewood Road in the teeming rain, enjoying the novelty, and got to the bus stop with five minutes to spare for the bus to Littleborough. (Had it not been pouring I'd have walked down to the station.) I had ten minutes to wait for the train back to Manchester, during which time slightly over a hundred jackdaws flew in noisy dribs and drabs out of town to their roosts by Brearley Brook.

Hollingworth Lake from Rakewood Road 

Reservoirs

Approaching Slack Gate

I was meeting friends for an evening do in Rochdale so I thought I'd have a wander round Hollingworth Lake then nip up to Watergrove Reservoir and wander down to Whitworth via Slack Gate thence off to the jolly.

I got the train to Littleborough and walked down to Hollingworth Lake and down Rakewood Road. It was a cloudy Friday but even so I was surprised at how quiet it was. Which made for a nice walk. A flock of seventy-odd lapwings overhead was a good omen.

Hollingworth Lake

There wasn't much out on the open water. A heron fished along the base of the reservoir wall and a few mallards hugged the margins. The water was quite low so there was a lot of damp ground for moorhens and pied wagtails to forage on. The spit over by the hide was twice its usual size, which gave the loafing gulls and lapwings room to space themselves out a bit. There were equal numbers of black-headed gulls and lesser black-backs with a few herring gulls and a couple of common gulls. They were joined by a few mallards and Canada geese and there were a couple of teals dabbling in one of the inlets. A couple of the lesser black-backs looked darker than the others but I decided it was due to the light rather than any chance they may be intermedius birds.

Lesser black-backs and black-headed gull

I turned onto the path that follows the South bank of the lake. It was quieter than usual along the stretch to the hide, just a few woodpigeons and great tits and a couple of rabbits.

I had a nosey from the hide. There were a couple of dozen teal on the pond with half a dozen mallards and a drake wigeon in eclipse plumage. I looked in vain for any waders. I looked over at the gulls, getting confirmation about the light on the lesser black-backs because different birds looks darker from this direction. There were more mallards on the water here and an eclipse drake pintail preened in the shallows.

Pintail

I walked on a bit from the hide and looked back at the gulls from a different angle. One of the young herring gulls on the water looked different to the others, my eye was caught by its big, heavy beak. The other herring gulls and the lesser black-backs had smaller bills and one young herring gull, presumably a small female, had a positively dinky beak. I kept looking round then coming back to it (I find this is a good way of checking whether something that looks strikingly different at first sight really is so strikingly different, if it disappears into the crowd it could have been the light, the angle of view or the activity — or not — of the bird that made it look different). The bill was still big, heavier at the end than at the base. I wasn't for taking any account of the particular shades of grey on its mantle and wings in this light so I looked at the structure of the bird. It looked longer-winged than the others and had a bigger, more rectangular head. A yellow-legged gull, then. A bird coming into second or third Winter plumage I think, I'm not at all confident of ageing this species if it's not a first-Winter or adult.

Hollingworth Lake

There wasn't a lot more besides on the walk round the lake besides a few red admirals and speckled woods in the trees by the café, and there were more people about now the weather had warmed up a bit so I went to get the bus up to Wardle. Then gave up on it when it was quarter of an hour late and walked up through Smithybridge and got the bus to Wardle from Halifax Road.

Watergrove Reservoir

I got off at the chapel and walked up Ramsden Road to Watergrove Reservoir. I'd arrived later than planned because of the missing bus so I limited my walk round the reservoir to the path by the southern bank. There wasn't much out on the water, just a dozen black-headed gulls, a few lesser black-backs and a pair of great crested grebes. There was more activity down by the car park with a flock of jackdaws vying with a gang of magpies and a couple of jays to see who could make the most noise in the trees. A raven flew overhead, cronking all the while and doing barrel rolls in the wind apparently just for the fun of doing it.

It was late afternoon so the walk over the moor to Whitworth was predictably quiet. A few carrion crows and jackdaws fossicked round in the grass, a couple of meadow pipits flew overhead and a small flock of woodpigeons flew into one of the little corpses of conifers and sycamore by the path.

A nice, if a bit quiet, couple of short walks.