Salford Quays

Lesser black-backs and herring gulls

I didn't feel like doing anything today, my get up and go has been ghosting me all week. I'd read the same page of a book for the fifth time when I lost patience with myself and dragged myself out for a very dispiriting look around my local patch. 

Lostock Park 

The park was busy with people and quiet of birds. We've lost whitethroats as a breeding species after somebody tidied away the big bramble patches and drifts of thistles on the waste ground. There hasn't been the usual flocks of goldfinches and greenfinches either. The mass of goldenrod and willowherb that had taken over isn't anywhere near as productive and doesn't provide much cover. The brambles in the margins provide enough cover for dunnocks and wrens but not much else. I wasn't expecting any warblers today and didn't find any. And found precious little else.

• Black-headed gull 2 overhead
• Blackbird 2
• Blue tit 1
• Carrion crow 1
• Feral pigeon 1
• Goldfinch 1
• Herring gull 1 overhead
• Lesser black-back 3 overhead
• Magpie 3
• Woodpigeon 10
• Wren 1

I headed for Salford Quays to see what was about there. A flock of a dozen goldfinches fussed about in the trees by the bus stop as I waited for the 250 across to the other side of Trafford Park. (I could have walked it but it is a phenomenally dreary couple of miles of industrial estate road walking and the buses are every ten minutes.)

Clipper Quay
Coot, mallards, great crested grebe and moorhen

It was grey and cloudy and a keening wind blew straight down the Ship Canal. I walked over to Clipper Quay where black-headed gulls fussed about. A few coots, mallards and moorhens dozed and pottered about on the muddy bank. Rather to my surprise, they'd been joined by a great crested grebe dozing in their midst. I can't think when I last saw a great crested grebe hauling itself onto land except on a nest, I forget they can do it. 

Common gull

It was too early for the big roost of large gulls on Central Bay, there were just a couple of dozen or so loafing and preening, mostly lesser black-backs with a few herring gulls and a common gull. There were dozens of black-headed gulls and they were very active. When they weren't squabbling as they bathed they were squabbling over scraps of sticks they'd found on the water or they were a squabbling cloud hovering about mute swans and Canada geese mugging for scraps over in Ontario Bay, or they were chasing each other around the Lowry. In a turnaround from the usual state of affairs a black-headed gull chased a juvenile herring gull round the houses and forced it down onto the water.

Yellow-legged gull 

More herring gulls and lesser black-backs floated in, as did many more very noisy black-headed gulls. The usual adult yellow-legged gull took some finding as it was right out at the front of the raft of large gulls, and it was looking very spruce so I had no excuse. Yellow-legged gulls start and finish their moult earlier than the others. Over on the other side of the bay three house martins whizzed across the top of the water and towered up over the side railings.

Lesser black-backs and herring gulls 

Lesser black-backs 

The pied wagtails were gathering as I walked over to the War Museum, as were the United fans for the match. Luckily I was heading back in the wrong direction to get too embroiled in the traffic.

Leighton Moss

Painted lady 

It was a damp morning promising better and as the train headed North we left the heavy rain of Chorley for the fitful sunshine of Preston. I had me an old man's explorer ticket and was headed for Leighton Moss via Dalton as per usual for the usual reasons. 

A few times I complained to myself that the fields and tracksides of Lancashire were being as barren as any of Yorkshire and I concluded that either the jackdaw population of Galgate had plummeted or I'd lost my eye for jackdaws. A thin passage of swallows, just the odd one or two, moved through Northern Lancashire. 

Cumbria convinced me I hadn't lost my eye for jackdaws. Redshanks, starlings and black-headed gulls gathered on the banks of the Kent and curlews and little egrets stalked the mudbanks. Fields were busy with black-headed gulls lapwings and greylags, jackdaws and carrion crows fossicked about and mallards fussed about in pools. It had become warm enough for large whites to flutter about the trackside. The tide was riding high, too high for more than a couple of eiders to have loafing space on the banks of the Leven as the little egrets retreated to the back channels. It was very thin pickings further along, I was seeing more butterflies — large whites and speckled woods — than birds and I wasn't seeing so many of them, either. 

It was much the same on the way back to Silverdale. A flock of teal dabbled in a drain before Cark and small whites joined the flutterings by the trackside. Moorhens pottered across ponds, buzzards floated over fields, it was quiet early Autumn fare.

Blue tits and house sparrows fussed about Silverdale Station and a comma butterfly passed by as I crossed over the track to the exit. Robins tutted in the hedgerows and woodpigeons passed by. A painted lady fed on the verbenas in the garden by the visitor centre and marmalade hoverflies skittered about the herb garden. Great tits, blue tits and robins could be heard more often than be seen.

Reed cutting 

Reed cutting was being done at Lilian's Hide, which was unfortunate for my photography but is essential work to maintain the habitat and I can be unfortunate enough for my photography without any help. The mute swans and great white egrets were lurking in the far reeds while coots, mallards, gadwalls and dabchicks sat in a raft at one end of the pool away from the work as if making a point that it was their pool and they weren't going to be chased off it by people slipping about in waders.

Willows by the reedbed

It was a very quiet walk through the reedbeds through to the Tim Jackson Hide. Robins stole through willow roots like ninjas and a chiffchaff squeaked as I passed it by. A party of sand martins passing overhead made up the numbers. 

The gadwalls on the pools at the hide were paired up and the mallards were a-courting. A couple of ruffs feeding on the edge of the reeds kept a wide berth from a loafing heron. A few migrant hawkers zipped about as well as another dragonfly that wouldn't stay flying in one direction long enough for me to identify but might have been one of the chasers. 

At the Tim Jackson Hide 

All of a sudden the sky went dark and it poured down. Five minutes later it was sunny again. It was one of those afternoons.

Cormorant 

The walk round to the Griesdale Hide was just as quiet. There were hints of passing long-tailed tits in the willows. Cormorants and carrion crows sat in the dead trees by the hide. A mute swan drifted about the pool. Over in a corner a black-tailed godwit poked about in the mud. I'm always suspicious of any bird that should be in a flock turning up on its own so I had a good stare at it and it remained a black-tailed godwit. Mallards and gadwalls flew out to the estuary, woodpigeons flew in to the woods. I waited out another shower and made my way back. 

Mallards

At the Griesdale Hide 

Just to emphasise how quiet the visit had been, I heard my first wren of the day tutting by the Sky Tower and the only nuthatch I saw flew into a tree at the station as the Manchester train arrived. As the train passed the coastal hides I saw a flock of more than a hundred black-tailed godwits on the pool by the Eric Morecambe Hide and  a dozen greylags grazed by the bank. Marsh harriers had been notably absent at Leighton Moss. A female-type was putting up the meadow pipits on Carnforth Marsh and a kestrel hovered by the trackside.

Leighton Moss 

Autumn's a funny season in this corner of England. Anything can be anywhere, birds are on the move and a lot of them are doing it for the first time and don't know for sure where they're going. On the other side, the ones that aren't going anywhere haven't any big incentive to call attention to themselves and there's plenty enough cover to hide behind. It means that you have to work as hard as any time during the Summer but you never know what, if anything, might turn up. The other day I looked for a black redstart and found a spotted flycatcher in the same place first, today I have a quiet time at Leighton Moss. If it was predictable it would be boring.

Mersey Valley

Mute swans. Sale Water Park

It wasn't a bad class of day. There was plenty of cloud about and there was still that cool Northwest wind but the sun came out mid-morning and seemed happy to linger. I wasn't in the mood for trusting trains so I spent the afternoon wandering round our bit of the Mersey Valley.

Passing through Stretford town centre I was heartened to see a handful of house martins still hawking over the bus stop. 

Ivy Green 

As I walked down Hawthorn Lane there were lots of grey squirrels rummaging about in the verges with magpies and woodpigeons. I turned into Ivy Green and almost immediately bumped into a goldcrest fidgeting about in an elderberry bush. Great tits and blue tits also moved through the trees but if it was a mixed tit flock it was a very loosely coordinated one. Speckled woods and large whites fluttered about the margins of the wood and more large whites fluttered about the open grass. A sparrowhawk circled lazily above the treetops.

Ivy Green 

Chorlton Ees 

I'd been surprised not to be seeing or hearing any parakeets so far on the walk. This changed in Chorlton Ees where they were heard but not seen in the treetops. Robins sang, jays screeched, a buzzard was very vocal, magpies and woodpigeons clattered about and carrion crows strutted about the open stretches. Red admirals joined the large whites and speckled woods fluttering through the bramble patches. A mixed tit flock moved through the hawthorns and oaks by the hay meadow, a family of long-tailed tits providing the stitching together lacking in Ivy Green. Somewhere in the meadow two cock pheasants were in pitched battle, possibly over the hen pheasant perched in a hawthorn bush eating berries.

Chorlton Ees 

River Mersey 

The walk by the river to Jackson's Boat would have been quiet but for the crows, magpies and parakeets. A couple of mallards dabbled by the bank and a grey wagtail fidgeted about. A migrant hawker patrolled the apple trees up top, the only dragonfly of the day.

Barrow Brook was running high. Robins sang, wrens tutted, a chiffchaff squeaked. I bumped into another goldcrest and a family of long-tailed tits bounced through the undergrowth. The light streamed through the trees and cast grey highlights fringed caramel brown and pale blue on the muddy water of the brook.

Barrow Brook 

A herd of mute swans drifted about the eastern end of the lake in Sale Water Park. There were more over by the slipway with a gang of mallards, black-headed gulls, coots and Canada geese while cormorants stood aloof on the pontoons. The arrival of small children with bags of food had the herd charging over to join the others. As I walked round I bumped into great tits and long-tailed tits and chiffchaffs squeaked from bushes but they all seemed to be independent units. I was struck by the absence of large gulls on the lake. It was too early for the small roost on here but there's usually a handful of lesser black-backs kicking around.

Sale Water Park 

It was difficult to see through the willow scrub in front of the hide on Broad Ees Dole. Teals, gadwalls and mallards dabbled in the high water, moorhens pottered about the shallows over the islands, dabchicks dived in the channels in between. As I emerged from the hide a heron flew by and a grey wagtail flew in onto the bank of the lake. A couple of people were having a swim in the lake and I felt cold on their behalf. A dozen teals dabbled about on the Teal Pool, this is the time of year when it earns its name.

Teal Pool 

I debated which way to go and decided to head into Priory Gardens for a change. As I walked past this end of the lake I noticed the great crested grebe with half a wing preening out in the water. A great survivor and a reminder that if it wasn't for blokes with guns and a habit of polluting waterways there'd be quite a few flightless waterfowl in this world.

Priory Gardens was also in a quiet mood. This time of year there's no need for small birds to call attention to themselves and there's plenty of cover. Robins sang, chiffchaffs squeaked and blue tits flitted between the trees. I emerged and struck lucky with the 248 bus. It was a roundabout way home.

Wirral

Little stint, Meols

The birding day started with the calls of common scoters on their nocturnal migration in the wee small hours before dawn. It was going to be an okay sort of day weather-wise so I headed out to the Wirral coast to catch up on waders. Little stints — still not on my year list — and curlew sandpipers have been on the beach at Hoylake and Meols all week and yesterday there was a cameo appearance by a Baird's sandpiper. That would have been a lifer for me, I did the research just in case it came back while I was there. You can live in hope.

As I sat on the train I weighed up all the swollen watercourses running through parched landscapes. Even taking into account the heavy run-off over soils baked hard over the Summer there's something seriously amiss in the water retention policies of our environmental management.

Hoylake Lifeboat Station 

It was mild and cloudy and very windy when I got to Hoylake Lifeboat Station. The tide was out but rolling in. There were lots of waders out on the mud beyond the stretch of salt marsh, the redshanks were easy enough to pick out when they flew a few yards onto their next patch of mud. The smaller waders were harder work, it wasn't the distance I was struggling with, it was the wind bashing the binoculars about. It took a good ten minutes to finally get my eye in so I could tell the dunlins from the ringed plovers, and there were plenty of both. I was glad the Baird's sandpiper had beggared off so I wasn't embarrassing myself trying to find it.

Little egret

Pied wagtails and a rock pipit fussed about by the sea wall. Black-headed gulls, herring gulls and a couple of little egrets rummaged about in the marsh. As I walked along the salt marsh receded and the waders on the mud were a little closer and a lot more easy to identify though scale was still an issue. I kept thinking I'd seen a wader small enough to possibly be a little stint then what I'd been looking at would run over to join a group of dunlins exactly the same size. Ironically, when I did actually see a fairly distant little stint I dismissed it as a dunlin until one walked past it. I would have missed a curlew sandpiper had it not been in a small flock flying across my field of vision and the white rump screamed: "Look at me!"

Grey plovers

It got easier as I approached the end of the tennis courts and the salt marsh ended and the waders came in closer. Half a dozen grey plovers, still in black-bellied breeding finery, kept their distance, as did the sanderlings moulting into Winter whites. There weren't many knots about but there were hundreds of ringed plovers. It's been a long time since I've seen so many. And of course there were hundreds of redshanks, tiger-striped youngsters and adults in varying stages of moult, patchworks of rich browns and beiges. There was an assortment of curlews ranging from three-quarter-grown youngsters with shorter, straighter bills to a huge female as big as a herring gull with a bill as long as her body. There was quite a lot of variation in the shades of brown, too, with some of them almost appearing ghostly monochrome in flight. I would have missed the sleeping whimbrel in the mix had two young curlews not barged into it.

I flitted by the chaps with their telescopes using the tennis court wall as a windbreak, so's not to get in their way. There were a few more with telescopes further up the promenade. There had been negative reports of the Baird's sandpiper this morning but don't look don't find. I'd concluded that if it was still about and was with the dunlins I wasn't going to spot it with my binoculars, even if the wind calmed down. I was happy enough having little stint bring the year list to 200, though I'd have been happier if the 200th had been that dotterel and little stint the 201st. I walked down the prom a bit and stap me vittles! there was a juvenile little stint feeding close to the sea wall, entirely unconcerned about passersby.

Little stint

Little stint, showing the white braces of the juvenile plumage

Little stint

Little stint

Little stint

Lesser black-back, great black-backs and herring gull

Herring gulls, lesser black-backs and three great black-backs loafed on mudbanks. Black-headed gulls fussed about and a couple of common gulls fossicked about in the mud in the company of shelducks. I started to see oystercatchers amongst the redshanks and a greenshank scurried about a little creek. More pied wagtails flitted about by the seawall. All in all it was quite busy out there.

Oustercatchers
A variety of stages of moult in the birds at the front: breeding plumage on the left, partial moult beginning centre, coming into Winter plumage on the right. 

Oystercatchers and a redshank

By the time I got to the end of Meols Promenade the tide had started its invasion proper, rushing into the basin by the start of the revetment. Oystercatchers flew in and settled on ever-shrinking islands. Three black-tailed godwits stubbornly carried on feeding until the water finally lifted them off the mud and they flew off inland to the pastures by Park Lane. Turnstones and pied wagtails flew onto the revetment. I kept an eye out for passage migrants, a few swallows sailing with the wind were almost my only haul today.

Black-tailed godwits being obstinate

Oystercatchers

Oystercatchers

Oystercatchers

The groyne 

Turnstones, redshanks, knots and little egrets huddled on the groyne to wait out the incoming high tide while a curlew carried on feeding by the waterside while it could and a cormorant fished for morsels brought in with the tide. A little beyond I found a juvenile white wagtail amongst the pied wagtails. Juvenile white wagtails are tricky and I dare say I've missed loads of them over the years, confusing them with some of the paler pied wagtails. There was no question with this one, pied wagtails don't get down to three, borderline two on the Kodak grey scale.

Redshanks and whimbrel

Curlew

Redshanks, turnstones, little egret and oystercatcher

It was a relief to bob over the top into the relative shelter of Leasowe Common. A few goldfinches and woodpigeons fidgeted about in the trees and robins sang from hawthorn bushes. I'd hoped a warbler or two might be in the trees round the pond but I none were to be found. 

A bit of water on the pond

It was nice to see some water back in the pond even though it was barely a couple of inches. A scan round the paddocks beyond found woodpigeons and carrion crows. A few greenfinches and house sparrows joined the goldfinches in the hedgerows behind the lighthouse.

Whitebeam

Leasowe Common 

Jays screeched in the trees by the caravan park and a loudly begging juvenile buzzard in the treetops was pointedly ignored by the adult circling low over the industrial estate. On Kerr's Field what wasn't woodpigeons was a pied wagtail.

As I waited for the train at Moreton I looked at the bird reports for inspiration for where to go next. The Baird's sandpiper was reported at Meols about the same time I was dropping onto Leasowe Common but couldn't be found again shortly after. One of the guys with the telescopes must have struck lucky. I wasn't for walking back to try my luck. A Leach's petrel had flown by Leasowe Gunsite. I wondered if there were many about. I've had good views of Leach's petrels from the mouth of the Mersey at New Brighton in these weather conditions with the wind blowing birds into the estuary so I headed thataway.

New Brighton Beach

It was high tide at New Brighton and the wind was whipping up huge white horses. Herring gulls, black-headed gulls and a few lesser black-backs floated by. I leant against the seawall and scanned further out. More gulls. Three cormorants flying in a line almost skimming the waves. The dark starling-sized birds flying over towards Seaforth were starlings. There are worse things in this life than seawatching on a sunny Friday teatime.

Herring gull

I walked down to the marine lake where dozens of turnstones and a handful of redshanks roosted on the pontoons. I sat on one of the benches and carried on my seawatching. More herring gulls. A couple of common gulls. A kittiwake, that was a nice find, they're not remotely as common in the Mersey Estuary as they are on the clifftops of the East coast and North Wales. No Leach's petrels though. The tide started to ebb. Waves of turnstones chunnered as they joined the herring gulls on the beach. A rock pipit bounced about the breakwater boulders. Starlings left their roost on Perch Rock and started fossicking about on the receding timeline by the river while more turnstones descended on the breakwaters by Perch Rock and the lighthouse.

Turnstone

Juvenile herring gull

Ironically, for once, a late-running train worked in my favour: I had a leisurely stroll over to platform 10 at Lime Street for the train directly back home instead of the usual mad dash and getting it by the skin of my teeth.