Longford Park and Rye Bank Fields

Longford Park and Rye Bank Fields

Longford Park's a fair-sized urban park in Stretford, Rye Bank Fields in Chorlton used to be Manchester Metropolitan University's recreation ground and is now a patch of "waste" liable to have a housing development put on it. From a birdwatching perspective neither is spectacular — "just" the usual parks and garden birds you'd hope to expect round here — but Rye Bank Fields does seem to be a regular point for passage migrants to stop of for a day to rest and feed.

Longford Park

Longford Park

Redwing, Longford Park

Goldcrest, Longford Park

Spotted flycatcher, Rye Bank Fields

Long-tailed tit, Rye Bank Fields

Rye Bank Fields

Rye Bank Fields

There are lots of entrance points to both and the boundary between the two areas is very porous. If you're coming in from elsewhere:

• The 15 bus travels between Manchester and Flixton via the University. If you're travelling from Manchester you want the stop on The Quadrant (a big roundabout filled with trees) where Greatstone Road crosses Kings Road), the entrance to Longford Park is next to the community centre by the bus stop. From Flixton the stop on Kings Road immediately before The Quadrant just round the corner and across the road.

• All buses going between Stretford and Chorlton go down Edge Lane. There are bus stops by the entrance at the southwest corner of Longford Park, the stops near the southeast corner are a couple of minutes' walk away.

The entrance to Turn Moss and beyond into this stretch of the Mersey Valley is on the other side of Edge Lane halfway between the bus stops.

Stretford and Urmston

Goldcrest

After a lazy morning where I decided to bin the planned outing because I couldn't be doing with a long train ride I bobbed over to Longford Park.

Grey squirrel

Squirrels and woodpigeons were busy in the leaves under the trees in the park, pretty much oblivious to passers-by. A couple of mixed tit flocks worked their ways high up in the trees, a third was doing the rounds of the conifers in the rock garden.

Longford Park

One conifer had four goldcrests flitting about in the gloom of its lower branches. One male broke off from feeding every so often to make sure the others knew it was boss.

An uncooperative goldcrest

I moved on to Rye Bank Fields which was pretty quiet save for a flock of house sparrows in the hedge by the sports stadium and yet another mixed tit flock at the North end.

Rather than retracing my steps I was going to get the 15 bus from The Quadrant back to Stretford but then changed my mind and stayed on the bus down to Woodsend to visit Davyhulme Millennium Nature Reserve. I've not been before so this was by way of a reconnaissance.

Davyhulme Millennium Nature Reserve

After a false start finding my way in I spent an hour doing a circuit of the reserve. It's one of those "left behind" corners of land bounded by the Manchester Ship Canal, Davyhulme water treatment works and a housing estate. Most of it is wooded parkland with a few small ponds dotted about. The sun was getting low so I didn't follow the path down to the canal this time.

Davyhulme Millennium Nature Reserve

It was late in the afternoon so there wasn't a lot of activity: the usual woodland subjects, including a great spotted woodpecker, and a few mallard on the large wooded pond near the entrance. I'll come back for another look soon, it's pretty easy to get to by bus.

Martin Mere

Kingfisher

A wander over to Martin Mere before the weather changes.

The walk down from Burscough Bridge Station was fruitful and despite a glowering cloud overhead there was not a drop of rain. A couple of stubble fields were still flooded — it was easy to spot from a distance which ones they were by the hordes of loafing gulls, mostly black-headed with a few common gulls and a couple of herring gulls. I was watching a small flock of tree sparrows busy in a field of mangolds when some more small brown birds flew in, it took me a while to realise it was a dozen corn buntings. There was a definite passage of skylarks going on: at least fifty were flying over at one point.

Greylag

Geese dominated the scene at Martin Mere. If it wasn't the greylags lining the mere it was the hundreds of pink-footed geese either flying over or calling from the fields beyond the reedbed walk. Plenty of ducks but not yet Winter numbers, rather more from the Ron Barker Hide than from on the mere. A couple of marsh harriers spooked the teal on Vinsons Marsh. One made a couple of return visits, it looked as if it had an injured foot.

Black-tailed godwit

Aside from lapwings waders were thinner on the ground: a handful of black-tailed godwits on the mere and a green sandpiper on Vinson's. A pair of kingfishers showed well as they hunted in the ditch in front of the Ron Barker Hide. The male divided his time between the fence and the "usual" dead branch, the female was a way away to the right of the hide.

Kingfisher

The Janet Kear Hide seemed to be being popular with young families on their half term hols. There were enough finches and tits on the feeders to keep them entertained though everything went very quiet when a young male sparrowhawk swooped by. Luckily he didn't stop and the show resumed where it left off.

I only had a quick sken at the geese from the United Utilities Hide as I'd just noticed the time (I was planning on going home via New Lane and didn't want to miss the train and have to wait three hours for the next one). A few hundred pink-footed geese together with fifty-odd lapwings. The next few months will be spent going bog-eyed working my way through huge flocks of pink-footed geese and teal hoping to spot something special hiding in plain sight amongst them.

Walking through the little wooded path to Marsh Moss Lane I was surprised to be buzzed by a migrant hawker. Yesterday's wasn't my last dragonfly of the year after all!

My walk to New Lane Station was accompanied by the sound of skeins of geese commuting between Martin Mere and the fields around Burscough. It's one of my favourite sounds, even though it does make me want to button my overcoat up against the cold.

Pink-footed geese, New Lane

Pennington Flash

A quiet afternoon stroll round Pennington Flash while the weather's behaving itself nicely.

Mute swans

The water was still high in the Flash, looking out from the Horrocks Hide a good part of the spit was underwater. This was fine for the mallards and black-headed gulls but the half a dozen lapwings that had decided to stick around didn't look too impressed by it. The cormorants that usually hang around at the end of the spit were a lot closer than usual.

Grey heron and cormorants

Black-headed gull

Most of the tufted duck were out on the open water, there were a few pairs of gadwall from the Edmondson Hide and rather more from the Ramsdale Hide with plenty of teal. A couple of pairs of shoveler lurked in the background.

Coming out of Ramsdales Hide my first four redwings of Winter were feeding in the hawthorn bush on the corner. Summer wasn't entirely over, though, as a minute later a hawker dragonfly flew over the same bush.

Redwing

There was a lot of activity on the feeders by the Bunting Hide with one of the willow tits showing well hopping in and out of the hollow logs immediately in front of the hide. Sadly, too close and too gloomy for any of my attempts at getting a photo to be any good.

Dawlish Warren and Exmouth

Started the day with a bit of seawatching from the seawall at Dawlish Warren. I'd hoped that last night's wet and windy weather might have brought something new in but sadly not and last night's ducks had also moved on. Still, a nice way to spend an hour.

Langstone Rock

I'd arranged to have lunch with friends in Exmouth. The cirl bunting was singing from one of the sycamores by Dawlish Warren Station, diving into the leaves every time I got my camera onto it. The tide was still high so plenty of ducks and waders could be seen from the train: plenty of wigeon and teal in the creeks and lots of oystercatchers and redshanks huddling up on the shoreline.

After a long lunch we had a brief walk along The Royal Avenue. The tide was pretty low by now and the estuary was dotted with gulls and brent geese.

Brent geese, Exmouth

Berry Head and Dawlish

A trip out to Brixham and thence to Berry Head, hoping for seabirds and perhaps a passage migrant or two.

Torbay from Berry Head

I got the train from Dawlish Warren to Paignton, then the bus over to Brixham. The coast was a bit quiet of birds — odd ones and twos of gulls and shags and a few pigeons at Dawlish — the river Teign was a bit more lively, with large numbers of oystercatchers and black-headed gulls.

Brixham Harbour

On Brixham Harbour there were plenty of gulls but no rock pipits (these were more thin on the ground that usual at Dawlish Warren, too). A seal bobbed up just by the "Do not feed the seals" sign then swam off between the boats.

Great black-backed gull

Instead of following the road round to Berry Head fort I took the woodland shortcut that climbs straight up. My good knee is telling me in no uncertain terms that it didn't enjoy all those steps. My dodgy knee is being ominously quiet. There's a packet of Anadin with my name on it. A small mixed tit flock was working its way through the woods.

Berry Head

After a cup of tea at the café in the fort I went down into the hide overlooking the cliffs to see what was about. There were plenty of jackdaws, pigeons and herring gulls and there were shags on the little rocky islets but no guillemots aside from a few flying low over the open water away from the cliffs. According to the board in the hide a couple of hundred had been on the cliffs the previous day.

I left the hide after the other occupants' discussion of the number of carriages on the main road out of Newport got too exciting. So I sat on a bench in the sun on top of a cliff, half-wondering why there weren't any fulmars while watching a large flock of gannets taking advantage of a pod of dolphins' attacking a school of fish.

Gannet

Gannet (? second calendar year)

Gannets

Gannet

Gannet

The only passage migrants I managed to bump into were a small flock of swallows flying out into the English Channel and a few red admiral butterflies.

Walking back I wondered what an odd shape was in the trees by the path. It turned out to be a buzzard.

Buzzard

I walked off the worst of the aching knee by getting off the train back at Dawlish and walking along the seawall back to Dawlish Warren. The tide was coming in and one of the juvenile shags was fishing quite close to the seawall.

Juvenile shag

I wondered about the thin black line in the water about a mile out, it turned out to be a raft of over two hundred eiders and common scoters settling down for the night over the mussel beds.

Eiders

Dawlish Warren, Exmouth and Topsham

Any morning that includes a singing male cirl bunting can't be all bad.

Cirl bunting, Dawlish Warren

A misty start to the morning, which made seawatching first thing a bit less rewarding than hoped. This wasn't a big deal as the plan for the day was to explore the length of the Warren anyway.

First port of call was the bit of woodland by the Wardens' office. A Siberian lesser whitethroat had been reported a couple of times over the weekend so I thought I'd try my luck. No joy for me, which might be as well as I'm not wholly convinced I'd recognise one if I saw one. A late juvenile willow warbler tagging along with a mixed tit flock was a nice consolation prize.

Greenland Pond, Dawlish Warren

No joy, either, with the Cetti's warbler that had been reported from the reeds by the Greenland Pond. A couple of coots and half a dozen mallard disappeared into the reeds.

The open heathland was heaving with meadow pipits, linnets and goldfinches with a couple of greenfinches bobbing about in the brambles. An unfamiliar bird was singing from one of the hawthorn bushes by the golf course. The song sounded a bit like the "A little bit of bread" phrase of a yellowhammer but with a more jangly note like a corn bunting. A couple walked up and disturbed the bird, which then to my immense relief flew back to the same branch once they'd gone. A lovely male cirl bunting.

One of the ponies grazing Dawlish Warren

Storms had knocked down the dunes between groynes 10 and 18 so the usual path from the heath round to the hide on the bight had been destroyed. This meant a detour along the beach and joining the path near the end of Warren Point. Not many waders on the beach: a few turnstones, a dunlin and a sanderling by one of the groynes.

Dunlin and Sanderling

Plenty of gulls — mostly herring and black-headed, with a couple of lesser black-backs — flying along the shoreline along with a dozen sandwich terns. Further out there were a few cormorants and shags and a couple of great black-backs. The mist had burnt off by now and it was possible to see a flock of kittiwakes out where the river meets the English Channel. Towards the point a few dozen herring gulls and black-headed gulls loafed on the beach with some oystercatchers and a couple of curlews.

Linnets

From here it was a matter of following one of the paths through the dunes that roughly follow the line of the bight. There were a couple of big flocks of linnets on this stretch, together with a pair of stonechats.

By the time I'd arrived at the hide it was well past high tide and most of the waterfowl and waders were well out. These included good numbers of dark-bellied brent geese, oystercatchers and wigeon; cormorants and great black-backs loafed on the sand. Amongst the dunlins skittering about the shorelines I could see a couple of ringed plovers and a single greenshank. Out in the water a pair of black swans were keeping aloof from the herd of mute swans drifting over towards Cockwood.

Old man's beard

Then a long walk back, taking a different couple of paths through the heath and past the Greenland Pond. The arrival of a low-flying kestrel was heralded by a sudden rush of finches and pipits into the brambles.

Hovering kestrel

I'd spent five hours traipsing round Dawlish Warren and was feeling the strain a bit so after a cup of tea I got the train to Starcross, got the last ferry over to Exmouth. The channel used by the ferry runs parallel with the curve of the bight and comes quite close to the north side of the point. This gives you the chance to check out the birds on the sand banks in the middle of the estuary and a second chance at the birds out in the open water. The crew pointed out a common seal perched on a nearby boat as we passed (it stuck its head behind the life jacket store when I tried to take its picture).

The usual Slavonian grebe isn't in its Winter colours yet so I had trouble finding it without the white cheeks acting as a flag. Eventually I spotted it when one of the distant lumps of mud protruding from the water suddenly dived, reappeared a few yards away then started swimming off to the right.

I'd aimed at immediately getting the train to Dawlish Warren once I'd arrived at Exmouth but by the time the machine printed my ticket the guard had closed the doors. Sherlock Holmes would have been screwed if the old railway companies closed the doors half a minute before leaving.

Anyway, I wasn't for kicking round aimlessly so I got the next train to Topsham and toddled over to Bowling Green Marsh to see if the long-billed dowitcher was still about. It was right in front of the hide. Fast asleep with its bill tucked into its back feathers. Behind a pintail duck. The pintail finally decided to move on, but sleeping beauty wasn't the most cooperative model.

Long-billed dowitcher, pintail in the background

Sleeping shoveler

Once twilight had firmly set in I called it quits and got the train back to Dawlish Warren.