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Nightjar, Kenworthy Woods

A nightjar appeared in Kenworthy Woods last night and was still there this morning so I postponed today's plans, got the train into town and the 101 bus to Merseybank and was soon walking into the woods.

Kenworthy Woods 

The quickest way to the location was to walk along the cleared path under the power lines, something I generally avoid partly due to superstition and partly because in damp weather they give me a headache. Luckily it wasn't damp today, the air felt heavy but the sun shone bright.

Wrens and robins sang in the clearing. I joined the access road through the wood where a mixed tit flock — long-tailed tits, blue tits, great tits and chiffchaffs — bounced through the hedgerows, migrant hawkers patrolled the road and speckled woods, large whites and red admirals fluttered about the verges.

The nightjar had been reported just off the road but I didn't realise just how close until I saw the small knot of birdwatchers just behind the hedge by the lay-by. I joined them and was very pleasantly surprised to see the bird almost immediately, asleep on a branch. The almost white end of a broken branch provided a perfect landmark for keeping the bird in view as I shuffled round a bit for a better view. The front end of the bird reminded me of a wryneck with its broken patterns of brown, black and grey barring. The rest of the bird looked surprisingly pale and a bit fluffy, especially when it fidgeted in its sleep, which suggests it might be a young bird. For the past couple of years I've been keeping an eye out for nightjars in one of their summering areas, with no luck. I'm hoping this has opened the gates for future sightings, if not it was a bonny bird.

The orchard

I had an errand to do for my father so I took my leave and walked up to the orchard to do some 'phone calls. This involved having a row with my father which I hope I would have handled better had I not been so tired. I wasn't really in the mood for the rest of the walk through the woods though I did it anyway. Parakeets, magpies and woodpigeons clattered about in the trees, carrion crows fossicked about in clearings, there were more mixed tit flocks, robins and wrens and a raven cronked as it flew down the river. Give nature its due, it was trying its best.

Kenworthy Woods 

Alexandra Park 

I decided to give up and go home. Alexandra Park was along the way so I had a dawdle through it to try and get my head in a safer place. A family of mistle thrushes rattled their way about the parkland and there were more parakeets in the trees. Pigeons and black-headed gulls crowded one end of the lake while mallards, coots, tufted ducks and mute swans drifted about the other. I couldn't see any moorhens and there weren't many Canada geese about either. The pigeons and black-headed gulls made up the numbers.

Tufted duck

Tufted duck

There were a dispiriting lot of terrapins sunning themselves on logs.

Terrapins

Waiting for th ebus home from Stretford I noticed that even though it was warm and sunny the house martins had gone.

Late on I decided I needed another walk so I got the 256 into Flixton and had a twilight walk through Wellacre Wood with my bat detector. Robins, wrens and magpies settled down for the night as the light faded. A noctule bat, big and with direct flight, skimmed over the hedgerow by the path. 

Wellacre Wood 

Horses dozed in a field by the wood and I could see at least four bats flitting about the hedgerow. I positioned myself by the gate so I could see the bats against the darkening sky, the bats didn't mind and flew around me. I couldn't recognise them by sight, they were smaller than the noctule but considerably bigger than any pipistrelle. I put the bat detector to work and found that most of the calls were around the 25-27mhz range, though oddly I could actually hear some of them myself. Those notes were as high as the highest bits of a goldcrest's song but more abrupt and a lot more solid. The bat detector translated the higher notes into a "blap" noise not unlike somebody flicking stretched out plastic film with their finger. There aren't many bats calling at that frequency, mercifully, and these weren't noctules. Serotine bats don't get this far North and don't sound like that so they could only have been Leisler's bats, which are uncommon but do occur in Greater Manchester.

I walked back in the dark and struck lucky with the bus home. The walk had done some good and it had been a successful bat hunt.

Bats

Lostock Park 

I had lots of plans for a mild, sunny Saturday, slept through the setting-off times for most of them and settled down to a lazy day. I felt guilty about this so I thought I'd do a bit of local patch-watching to see if I'd have any more luck finding much going to roost than I've been finding during the day. 

The answer was no There were plenty of woodpigeons about, some joining a magpie in having one last rummage in the grass before going to bed. A wren sang. A migrant hawker patrolled the sweet chestnuts by the skateboard park. And lesser black-backs headed for the Salford Quays roost.

Barton Clough 

Lostock Park 

As the sun set the parched grass glowed eerily and reminded me of photographs taken on infrared film. I'd brought my bat detector along hoping to find something but didn't even pick up any mutterings about the bat nesting/roosting boxes. The latest candidate for my last swift of the year shot overhead bearing Southwest.

On the way back home I had a look for any bats at the station and saw a couple of soprano pipistrelles (I need the detector for the ID) flitting round the trees on Humphrey Park.

It took me more than ten minutes to walk the less than hundred yards home. Nearly all that time was spent watching another soprano pipistrelle dancing round the railings by the playing field. Yet another joined it for a moment before being chased off into the night, the victor coming back to its dance.

Etherow Country Park

Mandarin duck

I thought I'd ease myself into the week with a nosy at the mandarin ducks at Etherow Country Park. Evidently somebody had 'phoned ahead to warn them, they were extremely thin on the ground this afternoon.

Tufted duck

For a change I got the train to Rose Hill Marple and then got the 383 to Compstall and walked up to Etherow Country Park. At first sight the only difference to the other week was that there were a few more tufted ducks in the mix by the car park and there was no sign of the usual greylags. A surprisingly loud goldcrest took issue with my walking too close to one of the bushes by the garden centre.

Canada x greylag goose

Etherow Country Park

Walking down by the canal I was struck by the lack of finches and mixed tit flocks. There were great tits and blue tits about but operating as pairs or singletons. On the other hand there were plenty of singing robins and wrens and a few blackbirds mussed up the leaves at the pathside.

Robin

Now the leaves are falling the views of the river opened up by the Spring tree felling become more obvious. It was an opportunity for me to look for dippers. I'd convinced myself I hadn't seen one in over a year, actually it was June this year. In any case, I didn't see one now. As I scanned the river from the bridge by the weir I found a couple of juvenile grey wagtails skipping round near the canal overflow and a lady and her small boy found a mink fossicking about near the rocks by the bridge.

Mink

The feeders in the Paddock Garden by Weir House were busy with titmice. Blue tits, great tits and coal tits jostled for position but the long-tailed tits I kept hearing were staying in the trees by the river above the weir.

Blue tit

I still hadn't seen any mandarin ducks. I wandered round the drowned willows in the pool by Weir House and eventually found a couple lurking in the shadows. But only a couple. The drake was busy preening and I was struck how the abstract shapes and high contrast colours that would make him strikingly conspicuous out in the open worked as camouflage with the lights and shadows in the depths of the drowned willow branches.

Mandarin duck

The same bird without the camera automatically amping up the ISO, a lot closer to what I was seeing through my bins

Keg Wood

A half hour's wander round Keg Wood until the joints shouted barleys found me a mixed tit flock — blue tits, great tits, coal tits, goldcrests and nuthatches but, again, no long-tailed tits — and a surprise in a noctule bat flying high about the tree tops. The weather wasn't brilliant but I hadn't realised it was that gloomy. The titmice had been keeping their distance but once I started taking photos of fungi they came to have a look at what I was doing.

Yellow waxcap

Honey pinkgill

Keg Wood

I think this is a milkcap

Walking back I passed a family of long-tailed tits bouncing round the pathside willows keeping aloof from the blue tits and great tits on the other side of the canal. I'd been wondering where the Muscovy ducks were and bumped into a couple dozing under a bush by an angler's platform. 

Etherow Country Park

Cormorant and black-headed gulls

Tufted ducks
The first-Winter drake on the right made me look twice. On his left-hand side his sides were pale grey-brown, on his right-hand side it was nearly white and nearly covered the wing. At a distance in this type of light I might have been tempted to say lesser scaup.

I got the 383 into Romiley and while I waited for the train to Manchester the station jackdaws kept me under close observation.

Jackdaw

Mersey Valley

Mallards, Jackson's Boat

Yesterday at dawn there were 79 black-headed gulls on the school playing field, today there were just sixteen. If there's a pattern to their occurrence I'm not seeing it.

The early morning's errand done I got an hour's kip, filled myself up with an unseemly amount of tea and toast and took advantage of the bus strike being called off to get the 25 into Chorlton and walk home via a circuitous route.

Hawthorn Lane

I got off the bus at Ryebank Road, crossed over, nipped through Meadow Court and onto Hawthorn Lane into the woods by Turn Moss and thence into Ivy Green. It was a grey morning threatening to become a sunny lunchtime and there were plenty of people — and their dogs — about. As I walked along there was a clattering about by woodpigeons and magpies, squirrels and jays dropped acorns on my head and there was a screeching of parakeets. That last would a constant feature of the walk together with the songs of robins and wrens. There were blue tits and great tits about but they weren't organised into mixed flocks, they were still going around in pairs. Magpies and carrion crows rummaged around in the meadow on Ivy Green and a pair of mute swans flew overhead heading for Sale Water Park.

Chorlton Ees 

Chorlton Ees was similarly busy with people and shy of birds, though they were about if you looked hard enough for long enough. Again the titmice weren't flocking, unlike the goldfinches working their way through the alders and birch trees fringing the hay meadow. Woodpigeons pillaged oak trees, magpies and blackbirds gorged on haws, squirrels filled their cheek pouches with anything going. Chaffinches and nuthatches called in the trees and a great spotted woodpecker flew overhead into the thick woodland. I thought it was too cool for butterflies and a speckled wood proved me wrong as it foraged for honeydew on the leaves of a sycamore tree.

It was all go on the river at Jackson's Boat, there were almost as many mallards as people. Dunnocks joined the tutting chorus of robins, wrens and great tits as I walked past the car park to the path alongside Barrow Brook. A passing buzzard was barracked by a crowd of jackdaws feeding on the field on Sale Ees, they couldn't be bothered taking flight to badger it.

By Barrow Brook

There was plenty enough water on Barrow Brook for a crowd of mallards, the surrounding woodland would have been quiet but for the parakeets and a pair of nuthatches.

Sale Water Park 

The target birds for the walk had been long-tailed tits and moorhens and I'd somehow contrived to see neither until I got to Sale Water Park. The moorhens were puttering about by the islands on the lake. The long-tailed tits were in the only mixed tit flock of the day bouncing through the willows and dogwoods on the bank. Over on the slipway a large herd of mute swans were mugging for scraps, muscling out any Canada geese, mallards or coots similarly on the cadge. On the water every buoy had a black-headed gull on it and the pair that are joined together to form the starting point for canoe races also had a couple of common gulls on the crossbar. The pontoon was standing room only, there was barely enough room for the cormorants to flex their wings. A few black-headed gulls cruised about on the water with the great crested grebes which were staying over that side away from the Saturday anglers. I was surprised to see speckled woods flying across the lake to the islands, I don't often see them out in the open like that.

The willows have sprung up in front of the hide on Broad Ees Dole, scanning the pool with the binoculars was a lot like looking through a series of keyholes. Shovelers and teal loafed and preened on the islands, a few more shovelers and a lot of moorhens rummaged channels through the duckweed. It took me a while to find a dabchick, it was dozing by one of the islands in the middle of a group of teal. The only heron of the day was stalking the reedbeds on the far side. For once there was literally nothing on Teal Pool and my hopes that the Cetti's warbler might have returned came to naught.

Stretford Ees

Stretford Ees was remarkably quiet. Jackdaws and woodpigeons passed overhead and a couple of parakeets called from the trees by the river but even the great tits, wrens and robins I saw going about their business in the undergrowth were staying silent. Unlike the pigeons under the tram bridge by Hawthorn Road that were enthusiastically working at making baby pigeons.

I walked along Kickety Brook onto Stretford Meadows. There didn't seem a lot about in the hedgerows but what was about was making plenty of noise whether it was the woodpigeons and jays in the trees, the great tits and coal tits in the bushes or the jackdaws passing overhead. One feature of the walk was the number of cyclists who were considerate of pedestrian traffic on the paths and said thank you when I stood to one side. It really shouldn't be remarkable but it is and I'm grateful to them all for restoring my faith a little.

Hemp agrimony 

Stretford Meadows 

It had become a warm, sunny afternoon. I freely admit that I was flagging by the time I got to Stretford and heading straight for the steep slope of the mound didn't even seem a good idea at the time. Still, it gave the system a good workout and the knees took it remarkably well. On the plus side it meant that it was a long, gentle coast down to Newcroft Road. There were a remarkable lot of birds about and they were nearly all woodpigeons, upward of two hundred and fifty of them scattered through the hawthorns and young oak trees. Every so often a flock would clatter into flight as a walker or a dog got too close, or in one case when the usual buzzard passed low overhead calling all the way. Aside from the woodpigeons there were a handful of magpies and a couple of singing robins. In terms of diversity it was very below average but I've not seen as much tonnage of bird flesh on here for a very long time. While all this was going on a migrant hawker was zipping around hunting flies over the large stands of Michaelmas daisies.

Parakeets and spadgers called from the hedgerows as I popped into the garden centre for a nosy. I was planning on buying some pansies for the pots by the front door, was very tempted to buy a load of hellebores for non-existent gaps in a couple of borders and ended up buying lavender and catmint for an old strawberry planter I've got by the kitchen door. I probably will buy a load of hellebores anyway.

I had an errand to run at teatime (I got drenched last week and my 'phone's none the better for it). On the way back I stopped off at the station to look at a pretty sunset. Just as I was wrong to think it had been too cool for butterflies I was wrong to think it was too cool for bats. The usual soprano pipistrelle was dancing over the field by the station, and very nice too.

A Humphrey Park sunset

Home thoughts

It's an odd thing: I haven't seen a single sparrow in the garden this weekend. I'd let the feeders lie empty for a couple of days at the end of last week but it usually takes less than a day for them to twig they've been refilled. 

They haven't been much in evidence in their other usual haunts locally, either. They've been very quiet at the station this week and the usual mutterings in the privets by the bus stop weren't to be heard. I was rather relieved when one chirped at me from a privet hedge as I walked home at sunset. 

A few minutes later I walked on down to the station thinking it was a bit of a cool evening for bats but it's worth five minutes' having a look. There were two soprano pipistrelles flying round the field at head height. One flew off towards the school, the other continued flying figures of eight around my head. I stood there for five minutes and bade it good luck and goodnight. It's a rum do when you're seeing more bats than spadgers.

Lazy Sunday afternoon

I refilled all the feeders yesterday, including fat balls and suet blocks as well as the usual sunflower seeds. The spadgers had been dropping hints, the cocks tapping on the windows yesterday to alert me to hungry youngsters staring wistfully into the empty feeders. So I went out for supplies and refilled all the feeders.

Spadgers 

Today they've spent the day sitting in the rambling roses taking a prolonged bath in the rain. They've hardly touched the feeders, they'll get round to it when the fancy comes to them, there's plenty of seeds and berries and insect life to be getting on with. I think it's the principle of the thing with them. I'd have missed the coal tits had I not happened to glance out of the window as they disappeared into the foliage of the rowan tree. The cock emerged briefly, a handsome bird in fresh Autumn plumage with a very rich peachy brown belly the colour of cherry leaves falling in Autumn.

Magpie in the rain

The exciting phase of the Autumn migration is kicking in and while I'm making my plans for next week it's tempting to get over excited. Do I want to boost the year list or do I want to go to All The Places or do I just want to potter about and see what I will see. Or all of the above. And then the unplanned and unexpected will happen so it's anyone's guess. And it's not like I stick to plans anyway.

The wave of waders being reported on the wires include curlew sandpipers all over the shop, a little stint in the usual place at Hoylake and an American golden plover that's skipping to and fro across the Ribble at Freckleton. A flock of glossy ibises passed through Northwest England over the weekend… a flock of glossy ibises passing through Northwest England… and a couple of individuals have lingered around Conder Green and the area round Martin Mere. And there's scaups at Moore and ruddy shelducks at the mouth of the Mersey, a thin passage of black terns and little gulls, and I haven't yet seen any ring ousels, redstarts, spotted flycatchers or crossbills this year. Or tawny owls. Or… 

I'll see what I see.

A Stretford sunset 

A dramatic sunset at the dry end of a very wet day saw the arrival of eighty-odd black-headed gulls on the school playing field. They didn't all settle, when I walked back from the station after not finding any bats there were just four dozen of them with the dozen lesser black-backs.

I'd been back from the station five minutes when the soprano pipistrelles appeared and spent the twilight whizzing round the back garden. Which was nice of them.

Wellacre Country Park

Jackdaws and rooks

It was a day largely made up of ten minutes interludes of sunshine in between heavy downpours which made me glad that I'd got so deeply into a book that I missed the train for the planned walk. 

Although the back garden seemed quiet the feathered hooligans accounted for a full feeder of sunflower seeds by mid-afternoon and had also demolished three suet blocks. I only appreciate how many spadgers are dispersed in the garden when Old Silvercheeks shouts them over to the rambling rose and they then decamp to the trackside brambles, a couple of dozen of them sometimes and nearly always with a young blue tit in tow. The mixed tit flock generally assembles some time in mid-Autumn here, in the meantime the adult great tits and blue tits go about in pairs, the young blue tits attach themselves to troupes of sparrows and the young great tits go walkabout. I don't see much of the long-tailed tits this time of year, they'll be fussing about in the trees on the embankment hidden by leaves. I've seen nothing of the coal tits nesting by the station in months though the male down the end of the road is still very vocal.

Its famine or feast over on the school playing field lately. Sometimes it's awash with pigeons, woodpigeons, rooks, jackdaws and magpies. Other days, like today, it's three woodpigeons, a couple of rooks and a magpie. The other day when it was pouring down fifty-odd black-headed gulls and a dozen lesser black-backs danced for worms all afternoon and well into twilight, today four black-headed gulls flew in at lunchtime and hung about for half an hour.

I let the thunderstorm pass by and got the bus into Flixton for a wander round Wellacre Country Park while the weather cleared.

Wellacre Wood 

Wellacre Wood was very, very quiet. Were it not for a singing woodpigeon and the calling of carrion crows in the fields I would have thought I'd gone deaf. More woodpigeons fossicked about in the fields with magpies and crows and swallows hawked low over the grass. A crowd of jackdaws and rooks passed overhead, circled noisily to gain height and headed for the roosts along the Mersey Valley. There were more swallows over Irlam Locks and black-headed gulls fussed about the water treatment works.

Rook

Jack Lane Nature Reserve 

Chiffchaffs squeaked in the trees on Jack Lane Nature Reserve and robins bathed in the puddles in the reedbeds. A couple of sand martins passed over at treetop height then drifted over to the locks. The surprise of the afternoon was a common hawker patrolling the path by the railway embankment, it felt too cool for dragonflies and if there were any about I'd have expected a brown hawker or a Southern hawker, possibly a migrant hawker. Common hawkers are typically moorland dragonflies but the local wet lowland peat bogs and mosses seem okay for them, too.

Walking over to Dutton's Pond 

The mallards, coots and moorhens mooched quietly on Dutton's Pond as the bankside swelled with teatime anglers.

I walked by Green Hill and on to the bus stop on Carrington Road. A mixed tit flock was hinted at in the trees by the rustlings of twigs and occasional calls of blue tits and coal tits.

I called it quits as I had an errand to run and the person I was doing the errands for had decided to get impatient for it. I later had a sunset wander to the station to watch the soprano pipistrelle quartering the field. It's amazing how many people stop for a chat when you're standing by a path with a bat detector in your hand.

Another lazy day

Stretford twilight 

It had been an intense couple of days' birdwatching and I had more planned for the week so I took advantage of a morning's heavy rain for a break. The spadgers made inroads on the sunflower seeds, the magpies cackled in the rowan tree and the robin struck poses along the fence. 

I was relieved to see a blackbird gobbling rowan berries, it's been a quiet August for them. I'm used to the mistle thrushes and song thrushes going missing in August, the blackbirds going AWOL is a new wrinkle.

I nipped out to the station as the sun set to watch the soprano pipistrelle quartering the field. It circled the field at shoulder height barely making a detour to avoid the two girls walking their dogs.

Lazy day

Spadgers

Another grey August day, though somewhat warmer and mellower without that cold wind. What sounded like a donkey rearranging next door's patio furniture was a juvenile house sparrow having an early morning bath. This time I did succumb to the allure of a lie-in and another hour's sleep. Needless to say, I did feel like the wreck of the Hesperus the rest of the day.

That spadger not withstanding it was a quiet day in the back garden. The suet pellets I put into the feeders haven't been a great success (there wasn't any sunflower seeds in the shop). The spadgers have been picking at them, the blue tits can just about manage to pick them out and take them into cover. The robin wasn't impressed. I got a kilo of seeds this afternoon to make amends with.

I was rather late in going out for tonight's bat hunt at the station and thought I'd missed them completely. A lad and his mother asked me what I was up to and we had a conversation about bats in general. After they'd gone I was about to give up when I knocked the frequency setting and got me a lot of fast clicks. Remarkably they were way too high to be any sort of bar, which is how I found that some large noctuid moths make a noise as they fly about. A few minutes later I had the consolation prize of a soprano pipistrelle flying by over the trees.