Sefton bumper bundle

Sanderlings, Crosby Beach

A cool, breezy but bright sort of a day saw me heading over to Merseyside to try and catch up on waders. Martin Mere had reopened its doors but I thought the first day of half-term might be a bit hectic, better to have a tour of the Sefton coast and see what was about.

Herring gulls and black-headed gull

First stop was Crosby Marine Park. It was approaching high tide and the grass was covered in gulls. There were equal numbers of black-headed and herring gulls with handfuls of lesser black-backs and common gulls. There were as many coots on the grass around the boating pond as on it, and plenty of them, but there weren't many mallards, just the one tufted duck and no swans or geese. A dozen turnstones huddled together and dozed on the far bank.

A couple of little egrets worked the banks of the marine lake. The water was very choppy and there seemed to be just the one herring gull sitting in it. A cormorant and a great black-back loafed on one of the floats. A few starlings picked their way amongst the rocks, most of them were huddled noisily in the stand of sea buckthorns in the corner. Just as I'd checked the gulls for exotica so I checked the starlings and had equally negative results.

Carrion crow

Apparently I have a look of somebody who has dog treats. I'm frequently approached by dogs under this impression. One of the carrion crows had the same idea and accompanied me for the next ten minutes, begging all the way. I shall have to be careful and not weaken and start carrying dog treats, Heaven knows where it would end.

Sanderling

I had wondered if I hadn't dressed too warmly. I needn't have worried, it was a brisk wind blowing sand across the beach. All the gulls at the water's edge were black-headed gulls. They were accompanied by sanderlings which scampered along the surf like clockwork mice.

Crosby Beach 

The sun rendered silhouettes of all of the birds on the pools on Seaforth Nature Reserve. The shelducks and curlews were easy enough to pick out. The redshanks were trickier and if there were any other Tringa waders out there I missed them in the mix. There were scores of godwits and the flare and glare didn't make it easy to spot the subtle structural differences between bar-tailed and black-tailed. Luckily, both have a habit of stretching their wings when they're loafing so the plain wings of the barwits separated them from the black-and-white winged blackwits. Dozens of cormorants and oystercatchers crowded the big island but I couldn't see any lapwings. The Canada geese I hadn't seen by the pool were grazing on the grass by the fence I was looking through.

Robins and wrens sang in the little nature reserve by the sailing club. Blue tits and great tits fidgeted about and goldfinches twittered in the tree tops. Otherwise it was surprisingly quiet.

Alt Estuary 

Next stop was Hightown. I walked down to the sailing club and parked myself down on one of the seats overlooking the Alt Estuary. It was high tide but there were plenty enough sand-and-mud bars over on the far side for gulls, waders and cormorants to loaf on. The loafing gulls were mostly herring gulls, the black-headed gulls were busy flying about. Most of the curlews were loafing with the gulls, a few dozed in the grassy mud this side of the river and a couple strutted about between the very active redshanks and fast asleep grey plovers. (I confess: I spent half a minute wondering what the grey, plover-sized birds were before what's left of my brain joined the dots.) Meadow pipits flitted about but it looked like I was going to have no luck with ringed plovers, which I had expected to see here. Eventually one flew in and immediately disappeared behind the lumps and bumps in the mud so I dare say I'd just not been able to see dozens of them.

Stonechat

As I walked back from the sailing club a skein of pink-feet called from somewhere over Altcar. I thought to myself that there should be stonechat about and as if by magic a female stonechat jumped up into a bush by the path. She flew over into a bush a few yards away and was joined by her partner who saw me on my way.

Stonechat, the same bird as above

Greylags

Last stop was Marshside. I wondered if I had the energy for it but was glad that I made the effort. A couple of ruffs flew low overhead as I walked down Marshside Road, which I took as a good omen. A white-winged black tern had been reported over the weekend but hadn't turned up today, and nor did it while I was here. On the other hand, there were family groups of pink-feet amongst the greylags and Canada geese, the wigeons were coming out of eclipse plumage and ruffs skittered about amongst the lapwings. Pintails and shovelers dabbled on Junction Pool, gadwalls and wigeons in the land drains. I had nothing to complain about.

Wigeons

Lapwings and ruffs

Shovelers and friends

The cattle were grazing the marsh near Sandgrounders. There was a time a few years ago when cattle egrets looked set to be Autumn staples here. I wasn't surprised not to see any today.

Grey wagtail

A grey wagtail was bobbing about on the island in front of Sandgrounders and pied wagtails skittered about with the lapwings and black-tailed godwits on the marsh beyond. Gadwalls, mallards, teals and wigeons fossicked about on the pools closer by.

At Sandgrounders 

I wandered back out and had a scan of the outer marsh, resisting the temptation to carry on walking round to Crossens. Resistance made the easier because I remembered I'd have to do a full circuit because roadworks were blocking the path by the water treatment works. At first all I was seeing was a pool full of mallards and shovelers and small skeins of pink-feet flying about. A great black-back cruised past and disturbed a few meadow pipits and skylarks. Then a female-type marsh harrier floated in and disturbed a lot of meadow pipits and skylarks before carrying on past the sand plant.

Pink-footed geese 

I called it a day, walking back up Marshside Road as skylarks, pink-feet and lapwings passed overhead. I got to the corner of Elswick Road when the 44 swung round and sailed past the bus stop. I walked up to Fleetwood Road in the hopes of catching the 40 into Southport and missed that, too. The next 44 was late so I just missed the train back to Oxford Road so I had a half hour wait and went home in the dark. I was too tired to be much fussed about it. It had been a long day with plenty to see and that was good enough.

Bolton

Gadwall (top) and dabchick, High Rid Reservoir

It was another cool and fitfully sunny day so I headed for Bolton, the plan being to have a look on High Rid Reservoir to see if the scaup that was on earlier in the week was still about then to walk down Old Hall Lane into Doffcocker to see what was about on the lodge there. By the time I got off the bus and started to walk up Fall Birch Road it had become a sunny afternoon with a cold, stiff breeze to blow out the cobwebs and much else besides.

Winter Hill from High Rid Lane 

High Rid Reservoir 

Just how stiff the wind was became apparent when I got to the reservoir where there is no cover in any direction. I put my cap in my pocket, I don't have enough hair these days to secure it with a hatpin. The intense light rendered the very choppy water a dark inky blue and the glare off the black-headed gulls hurt the eyes. A crowd of mallards clustered by the near quarter of the reservoir, no doubt hoping for scraps from the passing dog walkers. There were a lot of coots about and quite a few gadwalls. The tufted ducks were keeping pretty much to themselves. I looked in vain for anything that might be a scaup, even the upended tufted ducks preening their bellies looked unequivicably like upended tufted ducks. The first female goldeneye of the Autumn was a nice consolation prize.

Dabchicks 

Mallards

Gadwall, a tad windswept 

There were also plenty of dabchicks about and a couple of great crested grebes. Half a dozen wigeons were a nice surprise. A less welcome surprise was how quickly I lost them when they steamed off into the glare of the sun, I didn't find them again. I think there were half a dozen cormorants about, it was hard to tell as most of the time they were just black sinewy necks arising from violently sparkling water.

Goldeneye

Wigeons and black-headed gulls 

Cormorant 

Coot

A more typical view of the cormorants

Geese may safely graze…

The usual mob of grazing Canada geese on the hill above the reservoir were joined by a gaggle of a couple of dozen greylags. Further along a flock of about a hundred gulls — roughly equal numbers of herring gulls and black-headed gulls with a few lesser black-backs and common gulls mixed in — loafed and preened.

Herring gulls and black-headed gulls 

High Rid Reservoir 

Unsurprisingly there were no small birds about. Unlike me and the dog walkers they had the sense to keep to cover from the wind. It did seem strange, though, not to bump into any wagtails at all here. Completing the circuit the great crested grebes floated closer to hand but I was jiggered if I could see where the goldeneye and wigeon had got to.

Coot

Great crested grebe

It was a relief to drop into the shelter of High Rid Lane as it became Old Hall Lane. Odd rustlings in the bushes were mostly fallen leaves, every so often they'd be a robin. Carrion crows, woodpigeons and jackdaws fossicked about in the fields and the pied wagtails I hadn't been seeing on the reservoir were chasing each other round barns.

Old Hall Lane, damp underfoot

I carried on and joined Old Kiln Lane where the hedgerows were bustling with house sparrows then walked down the main road into Doffcocker and took the footpath into Doffcocker Lodge Country Park.

Doffcocker Lodge 

The causeway 

It was still breezy but lying in a hollow surrounded by trees and houses made a big difference. I walked down the causeway path between the lodges, the small one on the left was busy with mallards, coots and gadwalls, the considerably larger one on the right had a raft of black-headed gulls and was peppered with coots and great crested grebes. Way over on the other side by the car park a crowd of mute swans, mallards, farm geese and black-headed gulls were mugging for scraps. The causeway was fringed with moorhens.

Great crested grebe

Having got the stiffness out of my knees walking round the reservoir like a fool I jarred them doing a brisk trot across the main road while there was a gap in the traffic. I sat down for a few minutes to let the painkillers kick in, in the company of a kestrel hunting over the scrap of grass by the bench.

Kestrel

Walking to the car park

I walked down to the car park. Blue tits, great tits and long-tailed tits moved furtively through the trees, never making up a coherent mixed flock. Goldfinches twittered from the tree tops but were surprisingly difficult to find.

Bird food vending machine. No bread.

At the car park I found that this is another park where Bolton Council has installed a bird food vending machine. Which explained the tonnage of birds sitting near the machine.

New Moss Wood

Moss Road 

I've been feeling very aimless this week, no idea why. There's been a passage of glossy ibises in Northwest England (going where to where?), including one making a cameo appearance on Chat Moss the other day when I was at Pennington Flash. Yellow-browed warblers are starting to be reported. The passage of crossbills is starting to wane. It's another Autumn of madness in the Scillies and the Northern Isles. And I've been twiddling my thumbs. 

Yesterday Martin Mere announced that it's had to close temporarily because of a suspected case of avian influenza which is devastating news. I hope for everyone and everything's sake tests come up with an all clear. I've seen reports of unwell Canada geese at Chorlton Water Park, too. Sad times.

I found myself standing at the station in the drizzle with no idea where I was going or why. Which is not altogether uncommon but it's usually because I've got too many options pinned up on the mental noticeboard. Today I had none. I got off at Irlam because that's the limit of my monthly travel card and I didn't want to be paying train fares to unknown destinations for unknown purposes.

Along the way the clouds had moved on and a light drizzle was falling from a mostly blue sky. I decided to walk through the allotments to New Moss Wood, which is good for an hour's wander about even at times when the birdwatching's a bit quiet. The walk might get some of the aches and pains out of the knees and I might then feel up to strolling up to Little Woolden Moss.

Blackbird
I try to include at least one bird photo in each post of this birdwatching blog. The birds aren't always cooperative.

Robins sang in the gardens by the allotments and blackbirds gorged themselves on haws. This has been a very good year for them, the hawthorn bushes stand out as dark crimson beacons in the landscape. Which was as well here as there were plenty of blackbirds. There weren't any woodpigeon about, nor were there at home, I noticed a fair size flock on the hawthorn trees on Green Hill as the train passed by. I don't know, and probably never will, if our Summer breeding woodpigeons move on and are supplanted by Winter visitors or if they just take a break to fatten up on the hawthorns and acorns of the wet woodlands of the Mersey Valley, and the leftovers on the surrounding stubble fields, then come back for business as usual. 

Arriving at Moss Road I looked down the path by the railway leading to the junction with the old Wigan to Altrincham line. Yet more blackbirds were busy in the hedgerows and more again were bathing in puddles and all were very skittish. More robins sang and chaffinches and great tits appeared to be competing to see which could sound the most like the other.

The sun came out properly for a while as I walked up Moss Road to the wood. A field of yellow and white mustards glowed acid yellow in the light. I think it's a green manure sowing, as I scanned through to look for any birds — I didn't find any — I could see odd patches of purple Phacelia flowers. A late bonus for the bumblebees that were flying about. Goldfinches twittered in the hedgerows as I passed and robins sang in the gardens.

New Moss Wood 

It was a very pleasant hour's wander round the wood, even if it was very damp underfoot with the wet grass cleaning the mud off my boots and making them wetter than the muddy puddles ever did. It was very quiet. A couple of robins and wrens sang but most just struck poses and scuttled away. Blue tits and great tits weren't organised in flocks and passed by without comment. A jay screeched a couple of times in the depths. Goldfinches and chaffinches flew overhead. Squirrels scampered, dunnocks skulked and even the magpies were furtively silent. This time of year there's no particular reason for birds to call attention to themselves but this was going to extremes.

New Moss Wood 

Looking over towards the River Glaze 

At the edge of the wood I looked over the pasture by the Glaze. Black-headed gulls bustled about noisily, as did the carrion crows and a buzzard called loudly in between digging for worms. It was a stark contrast to the woodland I drifted back into.

One of the rides through the wood. This one leads to the car park.

New Moss Wood 

I did a full meandering circuit, emerging back onto Moss Road at the Southern entrance whence I came. I'd added a pheasant to the day's tally. House sparrows and goldfinches fidgeted about in the hedgerows, pigeons flew overhead, robins sang in the gardens and a couple of pied wagtails called from rooftops.

New Moss Wood 

The sky was ominous, the knees were more mobile but definitely achey, I wasn't for walking up to Little Woolden Moss. The rain started as I walked back through the allotments and stopped when my train pulled into Irlam Station. I couldn't grumble, I'd had a pleasant, if quiet, afternoon stroll.

Balance

In the interest of Transpennine balance and all that, given my comment the other day, I should point out that any connection involving a change of buses at Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester is at least as tricky as changing trains at Leeds.

Pennington Flash

Gadwalls 

I thought it was time I had a wander round Pennington Flash. As a reward for the morning's good behaviour and my not crying after my flu jab the rain eased off and it became a fitfully sunny afternoon. The 588 to Plank Lane was sitting in the next bay ready to go when the 126 pulled in so I took that and walked into Pennington Flash from the Plank Lane car park and wandered round and down to St Helens Road.

Pennington Flash Country Park 

? Brown rollrim 

The woods were damp and quiet, the mixed tit flocks barely making a sound except when I'd turn a corner and surprise a great tit or blue tit. A quick scold later they'd be quietly back at their business.

Mallards

The paths leading into the Ramsdales Rucks were more damp than I was willing to negotiate (I wanted to keep my ankles dry) so I drifted back up to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal and walked along the towpath a stretch before dropping down into the rucks¹. The mallards had the fires in the blood up, the drakes competing madly for the attentions of ducks that weren't all that bothered thank you. A pair of mute swans cruised down to the marina and a couple of tufted ducks minded their own business.

Tufted duck 

Dropping down into the rucks

I dropped down into the rucks and joined the path along the flash. The noise of workers strimming back the reeds and scrub by Ramsdales Hide almost drowned out the calls of black-headed gulls about the spit. The usual crowd of cormorants, lesser black-backs and herring gulls congregated at the end of the spit. There were also a couple of great black-backs, a few herons, a little egret and three great white egrets. Mute swans and great crested grebes cruised about and coots dived for mussels when they weren't quarrelling amongst themselves.

Cormorants, lesser black-backs and mute swan at the end of the Horrocks spit 

It was warm enough for a couple of speckled woods to flutter by. I thought the frantic fluttering in the grass and Michaelmas daisies on one of the verges were more of the same and was astonished to find they were large skippers. I've never seen them this late before. I don't know what had upset them but after a couple of minutes of rushing about they all retreated into the depths of the dead grasses.

Walking by the flash

Cetti's warblers sang in the reeds and brambles, chiffchaffs and great tits squeaked in the trees, robins and wrens sang in the undergrowth and carrion crows called almost incessantly in the background. Despite all the vocal cues I found myself spotting more leaves falling through the twigs than birds. I eventually found the calling coal tits and dunnocks and a family of long-tailed tits put me out of my misery by bouncing to and fro the willows by the path near Ramsdales Hide.

Mallards and teal

I decided to give Ramsdales Hide a miss. The pool opposite the Tom Edmondson Hide was liberally scattered with mallards and teals.

At the Tom Edmondson Hide 

The pool at the Tom Edmondson Hide hosted a pair of mute swans, a few pairs of gadwalls and a couple of shovelers. The gadwalls swam through the reeds to join what looked like a crowd of them on Pengy's Pool while a few mallards drifted in from stage left. I kept hearing dabchicks, eventually they drifted out from the drowned willows on the far side and bobbed up and down amongst the shovelers. Most of the movement about the reeds on the near bank was wrens, dunnocks and long-tailed tits fossicking about. A migrant hawker patrolled the tops of the reeds.

Mute swans 

I quickly gave up trying to see where the water rail was calling from and wandered down to Pengy's Hide where the pool was awash with gadwalls with a few shovelers and mallards at the edges and a little egret fishing from a willow tree down the end.

The feeders at the Bunting Hide were nigh on empty though the nuthatches, great tits and robins tried their best to find something. A couple of chaffinches fossicked about on the ground with a couple of moorhens. I was just about to leave when half a dozen blue tits descended on the feeders. I hung on a few minutes to see if anything else might be tagging along, nothing was and the blue tits didn't linger.

Shovelers 

The pool at the Charlie Owen Hide was a lot different to my last visit: only the crest of the island was above water. Here the shovelers outnumbered the gadwalls two to one.

Moorhen and mystery sleeping wader

A small brown object on the edge of the island caught my eye. It was a wader of some sort. I was looking at it end on and it had its face and beak firmly tucked into its back feathers. Judging by the shape and relatively short legs I came to the conclusion it was a snipe, which is a nice find here, and the hint of a tramline on its back suggested it was a first-Winter bird. I still wasn't satisfied though, it seemed a bit small. Mind you, when you factor out the long bill a snipe isn't a big bird. I kept hoping one of the other birds bustling about that end of the island might wake it up so I could confirm the ID. Instead they seemed to be actively avoiding it. A shoveler drifted by and had a bath, the splashing must surely wake the bird? No.

I'd taken to trying to find the dabchick that was making so much noise when something moved in the corner of my eye. A moorhen had barged into the wader causing it to wake up and take a few steps out into the open. Had anyone else been in the hide I would have had to apologise. I was right to wonder. There was the pear-shaped body, the double set of tramlines, the upper one more like a thick ribbon, and the halfway-long beak of a jack snipe. I hastily snatched a couple of photographs before it scuttled back and went to sleep again.

Gadwall, shoveler and (right) jack snipe
Pretty lousy record shot but I'm glad to get any one at all.

A bit giddy with the surprise of it I wandered round to the F.W.Horrocks Hide, usually my first port of call, today the last. The scrub on the spit had been strimmed back, giving a clear view of the end and the bight. There were a few lapwings with the cormorants and gulls at the end, closer by the banks were dotted with loafing mallards and coots. There was enough scrub left for a Cetti's warbler to be singing from it.

Pennington Flash 

Out on the flash the beginnings of the large gull roost was starting to assemble, small rafts of lesser black-backs and herring gulls keeping one from the other. The rafts of coots were significantly bigger, a couple had more than fifty birds in them. There were lots of black-headed gulls scattered about but just a couple of common gulls, both first-Winters. The first Canada geese of the afternoon were the crowd mugging for scraps on the car park.

I'd been luckier than expected with the weather and luckier yet with the birdwatching.

Walking down to St Helens Road 

¹ Somebody asked me: locally a ruck is a heap of waste. The rucks in the Leigh area are coal mining spoil that have scrubbed over over time. Some bits of Bickershaw Country Park (which was formerly called the Bickershaw Rucks) are still largely bare of vegetation.