Elton Reservoir

Teal, Elton Reservoir

I've a long list of places I've not visited yet this year and it's a bit embarrassing it's only now I've got round to Elton Reservoir. I did the usual thing: getting the 471 from Bury Bus Station, getting off at the petrol station and walking down past the hospital to the reservoir.

The car park bird feeders were a frenzy of activity. Fifty-something goldfinches fed and squabbled, a few of the dozens of greenfinches were singing in the treetops, the rest were busy trying to barge past the goldfinches to get something to eat. A dozen or so each of chaffinches, house sparrows and great tits got in as best could whenever the goldfinches got distracted, blue tits slipped in and out like thieves in the night and a few reed buntings and bullfinches hung on the margins looking a bit forlorn.

Mallards and tufted duck, Elton Reservoir

The reservoir was nearly full and busy with coots, mallards and black-headed gulls. Teal were thin on the ground, there were only a dozen or so Canada geese and there were no mute swans at all. A few dozen tufted ducks were dotted about in small rafts, a dozen goldeneyes congregated in the middle of the reservoir. There were two pairs of great crested grebes on the reservoir, the pair furthest out on the water would have to be the ones doing their courtship dancing with lots of head-waggling with cheek ruffs flaring, choreographed swimming away and returning and a brief exchange of something or other picked up from underwater.

Elton Reservoir 

The path along the North shore of the reservoir was, even by its own standards, in an abominable state. Slipping and sloshing along it was hard to credit that we're at the cob end of a very dry Winter.

Elton Reservoir 

I spent a while on Withins Reservoir hoping to find the female red-headed pochard that was flitting between the reservoirs. I had no luck, which might just have meant that she was lurking in the depths of the reeds on the far Western side amongst the cormorants, Canada geese and mallards. A little egret rummaging about in the reeds was a consolation prize.

Withins Reservoir 

I took the opportunity of there being plenty of puddles in the potholes on the lane into Radcliffe to wash my boots and lose about two inches in height. It hadn't been a fun walk but the birdwatching was good, I called it quits and got the bus back into Bury and thence home.

New Brighton

Redshanks

Today was a reminder why most of my weekend birdwatching is kept local and nearly always away from popular spots: I find crowds exhausting these days. Oxford Road was bedlam, busy made worse by the new crowd control measures (it's taken me a week to realise that the problem is that passengers are being directed from open areas to congested areas rather than the other way round; I'm getting slow, in the old days that would have taken me ten minutes). The train to Liverpool was packed and, despite its being a grey and blustery day, the sea front at New Brighton was busy, too. Still, I got some exercise and a bit of birdwatching done rather despite myself.

New Brighton beach

I got off the train at Wallasey Grove Road and walked down to the lifeguard station, the idea being to have a look to see if the snow bunting was still where I saw it last month in the dunes by the Derby Pools. It's an odd thing but once snow buntings find a cushy billet for the Winter they'll hang around for weeks or even months. Given how busy this stretch was with both unruly yapping dogs and unruly yapping kids* I didn't hold up much hopes so it was a pleasant surprise to see the bunting flitting in and out of cover between waves of noisy passersby. It's a bit of a relief to see a skittish snow bunting, they often strike me as being wilfully unwary.

Carrion crow, preening after a bath

The beach was busy with walkers and dogs so there were only a few oystercatchers and crows and rather a lot of gulls about. The gulls were evenly divided between black-headed and herring gulls with handfuls of lesser black-backs and common gulls and a couple of great black-backs. I looked in vain for redshanks. A small, dark shape moving in the seaweeds at the bottom of the sea wall turned out to be my first purple sandpiper of the year.

Redshanks

I got to the marine lake and found out where all the redshanks were: the beach was so busy they'd all gone to roost on the pontoons in the company of another, rather fidgety, purple sandpiper.

Redshanks and purple sandpiper

I called it a day then. Filtering out the crowd scenes had tired me out far more than the walk had and I didn't fancy moving on to try and fit an hour's birdwatching in elsewhere. I'd got both today's target birds and kept the year list ticking over so it was a fair result for the day.

New Brighton beach

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* I did wonder whether or not to delete that as being a bit curmudgeonly but it has to be said: some dogs, and some children, shouldn't be let loose in the public realm without leads and muzzles. I blame the owners.

Bolton

Waxwing, Darcy Lever

Feeling a best less sorry for myself and filled with tea and porridge I set out for Bolton to see if the waxwing was still hanging about the housing estate in Darcy Lever. 

It was only a short ride out on the 511 from Bolton and perhaps a hundred yards walk from the bus stop, complicated by roadworks and pavements being dug up. I'd scarcely turned into Laurel Avenue when I spotted where the waxwing was: there were a dozen people standing round a tree in somebody's front garden. The sight dismayed me, especially once I noticed that it was sitting in the top of the tree eating berries and I was getting a better view of it than anyone trying to stare through the tree. I stayed where I was, took a couple of record shots and moved on. I dare say I could have got better pictures by moving a little way down the street but I didn't want to bother. The welfare of the bird — and the local residents — comes well before my need to have a photograph.

Darcy Lever gravel pits 

Seeing as I was in the area I thought I'd have a nosy at the Darcy Lever gravel pits, just behind the housing estate. It's mostly wet birch and alder woodland with a few small pools, the sort of environment that makes you think of willow tits and woodcocks even if you see no sign of either. It was a blustery day and all the small bird noises were being made by the trees so I had to search by sight alone. The teal in one of the pools and the magpies and robins in the trees were easy enough, the flocks of long-tailed tits and blue tits were harder work.

Darcy Lever gravel pits 

Elf's cup fungus

I dropped down into the Darcy Lever half of Moses Gate Country Park, another place I've not explored before. The woods were very quiet, most of the small birds were keeping under cover in the wind. It's an odd sort of walk round when a treecreeper's the most conspicuous bird. A female bullfinch skittered about in an evergreen bush I couldn't recognise and great tits, dunnocks and robins called from deep cover somewhere in the brambles along the path. It took me a while to realise that the path I was walking was actually the wall of this end of the Bolton and Bury Canal.

The Bolton and Bury Canal 

Moses Gate Country Park 

I crossed the road into the Moses Gate half of Moses Gate Country Park, which was a bit busier. A buzzard floated about the field next to the road and a mixed tit flock bounced around the hedgerow by the path. There were hundreds of black-headed gulls about, split between birds loafing on the grass by the play area and birds loafing on the water with the dozens of herring gulls in one corner of the lake. There was plenty of waterfowl about: dozens of coots, mallards, Canada geese and mute swans, small rafts of tufted ducks and a few great crested grebes. 

First-Winter great crested grebe, Moses Gate Country Park 

First-Winter herring gull, Moses Gate Country Park 

I had a slow wander about for an hour then called it quits for the day. I'd kept the year list ticking over and explored a couple of new places to me.

Etherow Country Park

Mandarin duck

After yesterday's blue funk and overnight rain I thought I'd go and take some photos of mandarin ducks to try and get my mojo back.

Canada geese, Etherow Country Park 

I got the 384 from Stockport bus station, got off at Compstall and walked over to the car park by the lake. Dozens of black-headed gulls and pigeons lurked around the car park hoping for scraps while Canada geese and mallards mugged passers-by for bread and bird seed. There was only the pair of mute swans on the lake, I hope they've chased off the cygnets rather than their succumbing to the bird flu.

Mandarin duck, Etherow Country Park

There weren't many female mandarins about, all of them paired up. On the other hand there were more than a dozen single drakes hanging about under the trees at the weir end of the canal. I'd got the impression that last year's ducklings were mostly males, it looks like I was right. A squadron of unattached drake mallards, mostly first-Winters cruised about too.

The white goose on her rock by the weir, Etherow Country Park

No luck again with dippers on the river and the only grey wagtail was a flyover upstream of the weir. The white goose was back at her usual station now the river was back to normal levels and she was kept company by a couple of pairs of mandarins.

Keg Wood 

I had half an hour's wander around Keg Wood. Song thrushes, robins, nuthatches and coal tits sang, cormorants sat in trees by the river and blue tits carried moss to their nest hole. I took advantage of the new seat that's appeared at the bottom of the steep dip by the little beck to see what would pass by. Blue tits and great tits formed a small flock with a treecreeper tagging along with them. Blackbirds and woodpigeons clattered about the ivy-covered trees after the last of the berries and a couple of stock doves called from the trees up the hill behind me.

Keg Wood 

There were plenty more titmice with a lot of long-tailed tits on the feeders in the garden by the weir as I walked back and I bumped into a pair of goldcrests in a tree by the bridge over the canal. As I reached the lake the sun finally cut through the gloom for a few minutes before descending back into the clouds behind the hills. It hadn't been a bad couple of hours' walk.

Etherow Country Park 

Home thoughts

Despite having had a perfectly good afternoon's wander yesterday I'm still wound up about the train cancellations. Which surprises me because I thought that after two decades of this crap it would be water off a duck's back save a bit of venting. I think it's because I've been seeing reports and photos of the king eider at Redcar daily for the past couple of months and the only reason I haven't tried my luck is Transpennine Express cancelling its Transpennine trains at the drop of a hat. There are no guarantees in the birdwatching world, I could walk up and down Redcar beach and have no joy whatever but that would be down to my bad luck or my bad fieldcraft, not because a company that we taxpayers subsidise to an eye-watering degree can't be arsed doing its basic job. I think I'll just have to give it up.

I'm as stupid and bloody-minded as the next man but there are days when I've no fight left and today is one of them. I could have had a bit of consolatory sea duck watching on the North Wales coast but I just couldn't be doing with it. Which is a shame as the weather forecast doesn't reckon much to visibility for the next few days. Instead I spent the day licking my wounds and tackling the pruning of the hazels and the rambling rose in the back garden. The rose fought back savagely so by the time I'd finished I had more wounds to lick. Progress was hindered by half a dozen spadgers, which refused to get out of the way while I squeezed past the bird feeders, and a pair of long-tailed tits which kept alighting on the branches I was trying to prune to see what I was doing.

And for all that I ended up with a pile of prunings five feet high the garden doesn't look I've done anything at all. I notice the crows and magpies are gathering sticks for their nests. I'll have to chop some of these into a size they can carry.

Prunings

A Pennine stroll

Roebuck, near Shore

I thought I'd use up the pile of travel vouchers I'd amassed from Transpennine Express cancellations to go out to Redcar and see if I could find the king eider that's been staying the Winter, or failing that see a variety of other sea ducks. I've still got the travel vouchers: nearly every TPE train from Oxford Road was cancelled and mine was no exception. The chap at the ticket counter couldn't find an alternative arrangement coming cheaper than £96 which I declined with thanks.

With a whole day of fine weather to play with and no plans whatever I dithered atrociously. A series of half-dazed happenstances found me getting off the tram at Rochdale for to get the 528 to Wardle for a wander round Watergrove Reservoir. I had twenty minutes' wait so I toddled over to the Town Hall to look for peregrines and had a nosy at the river looking for dippers or grey wagtails and found none of them.

Wardle from Watergrove Reservoir 

I got off the bus at Wardle and walked up the road to Watergrove Reservoir. There were plenty of jackdaws about, robins sang in gardens and a mistle thrush was singing lustily from a tree in the car park. At first glance there wasn't much about on the reservoir save a few dozen black-headed gulls and half a dozen common gulls. As I walked round the reservoir wall I found a couple of lesser black-backs and a herring gull, then I noticed a cormorant fishing in the far distance. As I rounded the corner and joined the path to the water sports centre I got better views of the far corner where a drake goosander was escorting a couple of redheads and a pair of great crested grebes were indulging in some vigorous head shaking displays. I found a seat and watched them for a while. Apparently it's still a bit early to be finding them doing the penguin dance.

Watergrove Reservoir 

The trees in the memorial woodland by the reservoir were busy with robins, chaffinches, great tits and carrion crows. The crows were particularly boisterous, I got the impression that they were youngsters pairing up for the first time.

Sparrowhawk, Watergrove

I'd found the flight of steps up to the wall of the reservoir harder work than expected so I decided that knees and lungs both needed a bit of a workout and I headed off up the hillside path towards Shore. A few more crows passed by, followed by a very vocal raven. I hadn't gone far when a sparrowhawk shot over from the new woodland plantation, paused a while on a post then headed off for the memorial woodland.

Looking back towards Watergrove Reservoir 

Walking by Dobbin Hill 

Manchester city centre

Looking towards Oldham

The rest of the stretch of the bridleway past Dobbin Hill was pretty quiet, there were more cyclists than birds, the scenery was splendid and airborne dust blown in from the Sahara provided some wonderful lighting effects. A pair of goosanders dozed on the wall of a tiny reservoir by a copse of trees, the field adjoining the copse being full of jackdaws and carrion crows.

Heading towards Calderbrook 

The plan was to walk down to Shore but I missed the turn off the bridleway by convincing myself that it was the next gate along. I carried on towards Calderbrook, a new walk for me and the scenery continued to appeal. There were more woodpigeons and jackdaws and robins sang in farmyards. 

Heading towards Calderbrook 

I'd just passed the turn off for Clough, just North of Littleborough, and had started up the hill to Summit for the 528 back to Rochdale when I decided that I'd had enough. So I walked back and down to Clough along a damp and springy footpath and joined Hey Head Lane. At the bottom of the lane, on Calderbrook Road, I bumped into a bus stop. I checked it out: it was for the 528 to Rochdale and it was due in six minutes. I wasn't too proud to accept a miracle when I was handed one.

Herring gulls, Salford Quays

I got back to Rochdale and headed home, taking a detour for a bit of gullwatching at the roost on Salford Quays. There were a couple of hundred gulls when I got there, evenly split between black-headed gulls and large gulls, mostly herring gulls in a bewildering array of plumages and sizes. There were a few huge male herring gulls, including a definite Scandinavian argentatus bird, a beefy lad with a slightly darker mantle and a heavily streaked head. These brutes contrasted with some very small females that looked positively dinky. I could get burnt at the stake for saying this but a small adult female herring gull is quite a pretty bird. There were also dozens of first-Winter birds, scaly brown and with panda eye markings. The few lesser black-backs were mostly first-Winters, there were a couple of adults and nothing in between as far as I could find. The half a dozen common gulls were all first-Winters and they stayed in the black-headed gull rafts away from the large gulls. Try as I might I couldn't make any of the gulls any more exotic than they already were so after an hour I called it quits and went to catch a X50 to the Trafford Centre which appeared to be reversing its way back to Piccadilly Gardens judging by the progress tracking online.

Herring gulls, Salford Quays
Scandinavian herring gull (argentatus), the bird at the front with a dark head.

Herring gulls, Salford Quays

Not the planned day out but after a very stressful start it turned out to the good. I think I'll be knocking Transpennine Express on the head for a while.

Looking down towards Littleborough from the hills

Hindley

Great crested grebes, Amberswood

I thought I'd bob over to Amberswood to see if last weekend's scaup was still available to be added to the year list. As a grey morning turned into a bright, sunny lunchtime I got the 132 from the Trafford Centre, got off at Gregory Street and walked down the path into Amberswood from Manchester Road. (I'd wondered about getting off a couple of stops earlier and walking down Liverpool Road for the path straight to the lake but checking it out it's scarcely a shorter walk and not nearly as attractive.)

Gorse, Amberswood

A team of litter pickers were working the wayside to the path and most of the small birds weren't taking a lot of notice so long as they didn't go diving too far into the gorse bushes. Titmice flitted about willy-nilly, families of long-tailed tits bounced about in the alders and goldfinches sang in the treetops. I had no luck with the willow tits today. 

Roebuck with velvet on his antlers, Amberswood

I took the path into the trees that leads on to the Northern end of the lake. I hadn't gone far when I bumped into a pair of roe deer browsing in the scrub between the trees. They didn't take a lot of notice once they'd spotted me, I don't bark and they had the advantage of a couple of rows of trees and a ditch between us.

Amberswood

Reeds, Amberswood

On the lake a pair of great crested grebes rehearsed the preliminaries of their courtship dance, mirroring each other's movements in between performative bouts of preening. They didn't get round to their dance while I was there, sadly. A third grebe, an unattached male, wasn't overly impressed by the romance and took to a lot of aggressive displays, swimming over to them with his neck stretched out just over the water the better to emphasise the dagger bill and getting swiftly repulsed by the pair. In the end he settled for barking at them for five minutes before going to sleep in another corner of the lake (it really was a bark, very similar to the noise that a Brussels terrier makes when it's trying to be patient but will snap at something any minute now).

Moorhen, Amberswood

First-Winter (left) and adult male mallards, Amberswood

There were dozens of black-headed gulls being noisy on the water. A quick scan through found a few common gulls and a couple each of lesser black-backs and herring gulls. There were eight tufted ducks — four pairs — on the lake but it wasn't very often I could see more than two or three of them at a time. One of the females had a prominent white blaze at the base of her bill and this kept distracting me in my search for a scaup. I worked my way through the crowd of gulls and the tufties, scanned the dozen or so mallards loafing with a pair of mute swans by the reeds and watched pairs of coots and moorhens squabbling with each other. 

Amberswood Lake 

I'd pretty much given up on the scaup when I spotted a new dark shape by the reeds on the far side of the lake. It dived almost as soon as I'd spotted it and I would have marked it off as another female tufted duck had it not reemerged a little way along and given me a decent minute's view of a heavy-set diving duck before doing a vanishing act. 

Great crested grebe, Amberswood

I wandered over for a quick look at the pool on Low Hall (I'd spent longer in Amberswood looking for the scaup than I'd planned). There were pairs of teal, Canada geese, mute swans and mallards. A white shape I'd assumed was a black-headed gull as I was walking up turned out to be a shelduck, which seemed particularly out of place on a pond by a woodland. A little egret rummaged around in the far reedbed.

Low Hall 

I'd hoped to get the 559 into Ashton to pick up the bus to Pennington Flash but the mid-afternoon service doesn't run on schooldays (trying to work out whether or not it's half term in one place when it's half term in another is beyond me). I walked down to Platt Bridge to get the bus to Leigh and decided to call it quits for the afternoon and go home.