Mosses

Goosanders, Glaze Brook, Little Woolden Moss

It was business as usual in the garden, the spadgers giving the feeders a bit of hammer all morning. It's interesting watching the male blackbirds having their territorial spats, for such noisy birds they go about it very quietly. The song thrush crept in very quietly and disappeared somewhere in the undergrowth at the blink of an eyelid.

The weather forecast was cloudy but dry so I decided to get a long walk in before the foul weather we're promised for the rest of the week. The schools are staggering their kicking-out times, which is eminently sensible but makes it tricky if you want to avoid bumping into a crowd of kids giddy on escape; I got caught twice yesterday. Getting round any of our local green spaces without coming close to a school is a challenge to say the least so I decided to go a bit further afield. It's much less of a risk to take a ten minute ride on a nearly empty train to Irlam for a long walk away from crowds. In a five and a half mile circuit across the mosses I passed eighteen people (six of them were Lancashire Wildlife Trust volunteers working on Little Woolden Moss) and I missed the crowds at kicking-out time, which is a pretty good bit of social distancing.

Stock doves, Irlam Moss

As I walked down Astley Road onto Irlam Moss the hedgerows were thick with chaffinches and goldfinches (try as I may to turn some of the former into bramblings they were all chaffinches). Pairs of blue tits and great tits fed in the birches and alders and there were plenty of singing robins, dunnocks and wrens. There were a lot of magpies and carrion crows on the fields and just the one cock pheasant. Further on the farmers were already cutting and rolling the turf fields so there weren't many birds out on there. A pair of mallard dabbled in a big puddle next to one of the farm buildings. Strangely there wasn't a sign of any raptors, I could usually rely on a couple of kestrels and at least one buzzard on this stretch.

Yellowhammer, Irlam Moss

I crossed over the motorway and headed towards Four Lanes End. Halfway down a couple of the farmhouses have ponds, one had a couple of moorhens, the other a singing reed bunting. Further along there was a flock of stock doves in one of the fields which seemed to be mixed stubble and grasses. A small flock of yellowhammers fed on the field margins with a few blackbirds and song thrushes.

Little Woolden Moss

Little Woolden Moss was fairly quiet. I could hear oystercatchers but it was a while before I found them, sat on one of the bunds with half a dozen lapwings. A curlew called and was answered by a moorhen. Some LWT volunteers were working over the other side of the reserve, accompanied by a noisy flock of black-headed gulls. A couple of buzzards soared high over the fields onto Chat Moss. 

Oystercatchers and lapwing, Little Woolden Moss

I'm pretty sure this is a foliose lichen but I don't know which one. An example of the the small plants and fungi covering the tree stumps and fallen branches round the moss.

At the far end of the reserve, just before the path turns sharply to the right, a female stonechat hunted in the sedges by the pools. Other than that and a couple of meadow pipits there wasn't anything on at this end. The new path was a delight, last Summer walking along here involved being ankle-deep in peat. A curlew flew low over, wheeled a couple of times and headed North.

Restoring the carbon storage capacity of peatlands

Goosanders, Glaze Brook

I passed Little Woolden Hall and took the path to Holcombe Lane. There was a flock of Canada geese in one of the fields behind the hall, where the cackling goose was in January. A pair of teal whistled from a big puddle in the field with the horses by the hall. A pair of oystercatchers and a mute swan stood on the bank of Glaze Brook North of the bridge. Looking South there was another flock of Canada geese on the bank, two pairs of goosander close to the bridge, and further out there were more teal, a few mallard and a pair of gadwall.

I walked down Holcombe Lane into Glazebrook. Yet again I was surprised by how many collared doves there are down Glazebrook Lane. Thence into Irlam and back home on the train. Five and a half miles and I encountered fewer people than I would have done wandering over Stretford Meadows for an hour, and considerably fewer cyclists. I should have done this before, it's much safer.

Local patch

Long-tailed tit

Another cool day with bits and bobs of rain and business as usual out in the garden. I'd spent some time cutting back some of the shrubs and grubbing up brambles that had popped up over Winter yesterday, which led to some bad language from the spadgers and great tits. I left well alone today once I'd checked the feeders were topped up. Of course, yesterday when I wasn't armed with a camera the long-tailed tits came in close, stayed relatively still and struck photogenic poses, with a gold star for the one that hung from a branch with one leg while it held half a sunflower seed in the other. The one that visited today provided a few consolation shots.

• Blue Tit 2
• Carrion Crow 1
• Collared Dove 3
• Dunnock 1
• Feral Pigeon 1 overhead
• Goldfinch 3
• Great Tit 2
• House Sparrow 10
• Jackdaw 3
• Lesser Black-backed Gull 1 overhead
• Long-tailed tit 1
• Magpie 1
• Robin 1
• Rook 2
• Starling 1
• Woodpigeon 4

It feels like gull season's winding down with just a handful of black-headed gulls and a second calendar year herring gull amongst the jackdaws and woodpigeons on the school playing field though the strong winds and rain promised later this week might bring in a few more.

Greenfinch, Lostock Park

Song thrush, Lostock Park

I decided that I didn't want a long walk today so just pottered about the local patch for an hour. There were plenty of paired-up songbirds and a few songsters, including robins, goldfinches and greenfinch. One of the carrion crows in the park was collecting sticks for its nest, which appears to be somewhere over the road amongst the warehouses. At the other end of the scale, a pair of long-tailed tits were collecting nesting materials from the seedheads in the rosebay willowherb patches. A couple of redwings lingered as a reminder of Winter while forty-odd starlings chattered in the tops of the poplars.

Long-tailed tit, Barton Clough

• Black-headed Gull 1 overhead
• Blackbird 9
• Blue Tit 6
• Carrion Crow 2
• Chaffinch 3
• Common Gull 4
• Dunnock 6
• Feral Pigeon 28 overhead
• Goldfinch 24
• Great Tit 8
• Greenfinch 2
• House Sparrow 5
• Lesser Black-backed Gull 3 overhead
• Long-tailed Tit 7
• Magpie 29
• Mistle Thrush 3
• Nuthatch 1
• Redwing 2
• Robin 11
• Song Thrush 1
• Starling 44
• Woodpigeon 20
• Wren 3

Stretford

Carrion crow, Kickety Brook

It was a cool day that got progressively sunnier so I decided to go and have a short walk (to be honest, I just wanted to fill a gap in my local coverage and get and hour or so's exercise). Looking at it on the map when I got home I'd done slightly over five miles by accident.

A fairly quiet morning in the garden, even the great tits hadn't turned up by lunchtime. The song thrush is odd: it sings every morning at dawn, occasionally sings in the evening and is dead quiet all day. 

Two of the four buzzards soaring over Stretford Meadows

I'd not been on Stretford Meadows long before I concluded I'd dressed too warmly for what had become a mild, sunny afternoon and had to pack a layer in my camera bag. The trees were lively with great tits, blue tits and goldfinches and the brambles were lively with long-tailed tits. No sign of the usual pair of kestrels but four buzzards soared on the thermals overhead.

Lapwing, Bradley Lane

I crossed over the motorway and took the path down to Bradley Lane. The fields between the lane and the motorway were littered with woodpigeons and jackdaws but by far the most numerous — and most noisy — birds were the carrion crows. Upward of forty carrion crows demonstrated the limitations of the old saw that one crow is a crow and a dozen crows are rooks. The stubble fields between the lane and the river were a lot wetter, one was pretty much one big puddle filled with black-headed gulls and a handful of lapwings.

Kickety Brook and blackthorns

I walked up Chester Road and on the other side of the motorway I dropped down to the path along Kickety Brook to walk through to Stretford Ees. By now it had become pretty busy, particularly busy with cyclists riding two abreast. Consequently it was a lot quiet for wildlife. Stretford Ees was busy, too, this time with rather loud people who seemed to think their dogs were deaf. Much to my surprise a male siskin was taking a drink at the edge of the pool at the end of Kickety Brook.

Stretford Ees

I looked at the crocodiles of walkers along both banks of the river and decided to call it quits for the day, I'd had the intended walk after all.

Flixton

Collared dove
He had a full tail yesterday

Another, slightly cooler, day today and the wind had an edge to it and the spadgers and goldfinches only left the garden to go and hide in the brambles whenever the magpies got a bit boisterous about arguing with the squirrel about access to the fat feeders. The unpaired male collared dove looks like he's had a narrow escape recently: he had a full tail yesterday, today he's got half a dozen ragged feathers a quarter of their usual length. The number of times he had to spread his wings to keep his balance in the trees shows the purpose of the tail.

Over on the school playing field we were down to just four black-headed gulls, plus six herring gulls (two adults, two first-Winters, a fourth-Winter and one I concluded in the end was a third-Winter).

I desperately wanted a lazy day lolling round the house drinking too much tea so I dragged myself out for a walk round Flixton. Every so often the sun would come out and I'd wonder if I hadn't dressed too warmly for the walk then it would cloud over and I'd wonder if I shouldn't have put on a topcoat.

I had a quick dekko along the mile road while I was passing. There were three male mallards on the river and flocks of rooks and magpies on the fields. The only buzzard of the day sat on a distant electricity pylon.

Fly Ash Hill

I had a wander round what I've got to get into the habit of calling Fly Ash Hill. The paths were considerably drier than last time I came so I took the lower path round the edge of the hill. The trees and bushes were busy with small birds, all the usuals but no joy with willow tit today. One of the trees on the far side of the lagoons, next to the railway line, was thick with redwings.

Dutton's Pond

Dutton'sPond was mostly quiet: a couple of pairs each of mallard and Canada geese lolled about and half a dozen moorhens tried to work up the energy to squabble and never quite made it. 

Not as bad as last time

The walk down to Jack Lane was considerably easier than last time: I could see the bottoms of the puddles and didn't get my trouser bottoms wet, so I decided to chance it and take the path through the reedbeds on the nature reserve. A couple of reed buntings sang in the reeds and there was another couple of moorhens deep in there. I could hear short snatches of what could have been a water rail but couldn't be sure and the bird, whatever it was, went quiet so I'll have to wait to add one to the year list.

Jack Lane

I walked over to Irlam Locks in the rain. There wasn't much on the water upstream of the locks, just three mallards, a moorhen and a drake gadwall. Most of the action was going on on the water treatment works: fifty or more starlings, thirty or more magpies and thirty-odd wagtails. At first I thought they were all pied wagtails, there were a few that were distinctly paler but all had the smudgy grey flanks that confirmed that they were pied. Once I got my eye in I found a grey wagtail feeding on the concrete margin of one of the filter beds. My eye was caught by one of the wagtails flitting round the moving parts of one of the pans. It was another pale bird, a male, with clear white underparts. A male white wagtail. The grotty light meant that perhaps it wasn't as silvery-grey above as I'm used to but it was a white wagtail all the same, and very welcome too. Downstream of the locks there were only a mute swan and a cormorant.

I decided to call it a day. I'd had my exercise, had a bit of luck with the wagtail and the weather wasn't looking to be getting any better. 

Ring-necked duck (again)

Ring-necked duck

A colder, cloudier day than yesterday and the sparrows dropped anchor in the garden the minute I refilled the feeders. The blue tits and a long-tailed tit didn't stray far either. I think the blackcap's moved on, I'll have to wait a few weeks for our breeders. The male goldcrest's still about, it was singing from one of the trees by the station this morning.

I decided to go over to Alexandra Park for another look at the ring-necked duck. I'd be killing a few birds with one stone: I'd be getting some exercise; all that pavement walking would knock the mud off my boots; I'd be getting a refresher on a plumage that's new to me; and I could go to Old Trafford and get a shop done from the Asian supermarket and Marks & Sparks.

A fairly uneventful journey through Stretford and Chorlton: lots of magpies flying around with sticks in their beaks, woodpigeons display flying and pigeons strutting and cooing on the pavements.

Ring-necked duck with tufted ducks

The ring-necked duck was on the pond at Alexandra Park, in the company of a few tufted ducks (there were about half as many tufties as last time I visited). It was nice to be able to review the identifying features. There's no way I'd mistake it for a tufted duck or scaup: the soft mid brown of the plumage immediately makes it stand out. The shape of the head, particularly the slope from the peak behind the crown down to the end of the beak is unlike anything else I'm likely to see round here. And the pattern of the head is surprisingly like an immature mandarin duck. Finally, the beak; the pattern should be the most obvious thing but I'm most struck by its shape: relatively narrow at the base then a flare out then back in again to that huge back nail at the end. It reminds me very much of some Victorian pen nibs I've got that were designed to hold a reservoir for Gothic script. For a while she climbed out of the water to preen, giving me the chance to see the contrast between the warm brown flanks and the cool, spotty pale greys of the belly. A bonny little bird.

Ring-necked duck with mallards and tufted ducks

Ring-necked duck and female tufted duck

Ring-necked duck

Ring-necked duck

Heron on its nest

A heron was sitting in the best on the island with no sign of its mate anywhere.

Walking through Whalley Range at Old Trafford I was struck again by how many more goldfinches than house sparrows I was seeing and hearing.

Urmston

Treecreeper, Urmston Meadows

I started the day listening to what is effectively my first dawn chorus of the year, robin and blackbird singing in the dark and the song thrush waiting until grey light. The collared doves and woodpigeons and dunnocks waited for the sunshine before letting rip. The breeding season weighs particularly heavily on the dunnocks, as the robins and spadgers would testify. There's no delicate way of saying this: this time of year your average dunnock is an indiscriminately-directed flying bollock. Most of the morning the most usual source of noise in the back garden is small birds expressing outrage at the importuning of dunnocks. It all got a bit quieter once three dunnocks got involved with each other in the blackcurrant bushes.

A dozen black-headed gulls mingled with the jackdaws and woodpigeons on the school playing field while a couple of adult herring gulls and a first-Winter hunted for worms over near the netball court.

Cob Kiln Wood

It was a bright, clear, cool day so I decided on a lunchtime wander through Cob Kiln Wood down to Urmston Meadows and back however the spirit bade me.

Stock doves, Cob Kiln Wood

We've had a few dry days so the paths through Cob Kiln Wood weren't so muddy but were a bit more treacherous: the reassuringly solid dry crust on top had a habit of gliding over the wet mud underneath whenever I put my weight on it. Nearly all the usual local woodland species were present and correct, great spotted woodpecker being the only absentee. A lot more bullfinches than chaffinches, which is becoming a recurring feature this year. A pair of stock doves billed and cooed in the trees in one of the horse paddocks, for some reason they always cheer me up when I see them. I stopped awhile to watch a pair of long-tailed tits collecting moss and spiders' webs for a nest they were obviously constructing in a bramble patch. Fifty yards further down the path another pair were collecting webs off the legs of one of the electricity pylons. Their nest site was less obvious, somewhere in a mass of brambles and ivy just within a line of alder trees.

I walked on and joined the meadows by the river. Robins and wrens sang from the scrub and chaffinches and greenfinches sang from the trees along the margins. Every alder or birch seemed to have either a handful of goldfinches or a pair of blue tits in it. A heron flew low over, wheeled round and headed for the paddocks by the brook. The further I walked the worse the path got, the mud chopped deep by horses' hooves and at times only passable by using the bases of trees as stepping stones. It was good practice for the next time I'm able to visit Elton Reservoir.

Pond by Urmston Beach

Just before the path reaches Urmston Beach (a flattering name for a bit of litter-strewn shingle on a bend of the river) there's a deep bowl thickly filled with willows, reeds and muddy water. It's one of those uncomely places I always associate with water rails, willow tits and warblers, today it was home to a moorhen and a pair of mallards. A treecreeper landed on a tree by the path and obligingly posed for photos.

From entering Cob Kiln Wood down to here I'd seen four people. There were a few kids playing on the beach and a couple of people on bikes headed off towards Urmston Cemetery. As the afternoon progressed the paths got slightly busier but nowhere near as bad as it gets over by the water parks.

River Mersey
The spit below the distant electricity pylon is Urmston Beach.

I walked down the path that follows the meanders of the river. The river should be beautiful here but the waterside willows trap all the passing rubbish. A distressing number of the objects were offerings to the Dog Shit Fairy in their unlovely gift wrappings. Ironically, there's nearly always a pair of grey wagtails fussing about the worst of the mess and today was no exception. It won't be long before we start seeing sand martins along this stretch, they nest in the banks on the Cheshire side of the river.

I walked down to the farm track and back along the path by Old Eea Brook. A great spotted woodpecker drummed in the trees by the barn in the next field. A little further on I was puzzled by a loud song coming from the treetops behind the barn: a 1,2,3 1,1 call that had the clear notes of a bunting but wasn't any bunting I know. The general rule of thumb is that any small bird noise you don't know is a great tit proved true again: I eventually caught the singing male in the act. His mate, calling back from a hawthorn on the field edge, had an unusual — if less baffling — call like the rattle of pebbles in a tin can.

Urmston Meadows

I decided to walk round Urmston Meadows proper. Three buzzards wheeled overhead, calling all the while. Over in the dip in the middle of the hay meadow two herons hunted frogs and squabbled over the winnings. A blackcap sang from the scrub amongst the trees alongside Riverside Drive.

Then a walk down Chassen Road to Davyhulme and thence home for a pot of tea.

Mersey Valley

Male bullfinch feeding on blackthorn buds, Kickety Brook

A mild, cloudless weekday so I decided to go out for a few hours' walk over Stretford Meadows and towards Sale Water Park.

It had been a quietish morning in the garden: the spadgers, goldfinches and great tits hovered round the feeders most of the time and the male goldcrest made an appearance. I haven't seen the blackcap for a couple of days; one's been singing near the railway station, I wonder if it's the same one. Over on the school playing field we're down to a dozen black-headed gulls, a couple of common gulls and a first-Winter/second calendar year lesser black-back.

Stretford Meadows

We've had a few dry days so I thought I'd wander over the top of Stretford Meadows, the path was only fairly horrible underfoot. The trees at the Newcroft Road end were full of goldfinches, robins and greenfinches. I'd barely got onto the open ground when I bumped into the male kestrel on one of his favourite perches, the female turned up on the other side of the rise. A buzzard rose from the trees by the cricket club and floated overhead and over the motorway. As I turned back to the path another buzzard rose from the same trees and floated off over towards Urmston town centre. As usual there were plenty of magpies kicking about and there were some very vocal robins and reed buntings in the brambles. I'm counting the days to the arrival of the first whitethroats.

Kickety Brook

The hedgerows along Kickety Brook were busy with small birds. Robins, wrens and dunnocks sang, great tits called, blue tits flitted among the treetops and every other hawthorn bush seemed to have a pair of long-tailed tits in it. A few of the blackthorn bushes had come into flower and a male bullfinch sat in one of them pulling apart unopened buds. We seem to be a bit shy of chaffinches lately (I only saw one all day, and that in Sale Water Park).

The floodwaters had abated on Stretford Ees, just a large puddle by the willow trees and the usual pool at the end of Kickety Brook. There had been reports of half a dozen stonechats here over the weekend. I had the place virtually to myself today but didn't even see one, not even one of the pair that's been overwintering here. I suspect the weekend's tally was part of the Spring migration, birds stopping off on their way back to more rugged scrublands. A pair of raven overhead, flying towards Sale, were a nice consolation prize.

There had been reports of a possible white wagtail on the river near Broad Ees Dole this morning. By lunchtime it had probably been disturbed by the work being done on the paths and embankment on that side, there wasn't anything at all on this stretch of the river.

Mute swans, Sale Water Park

I took a chance on Sale Water Park which turned out to be busy but not silly so, though it was starting to get crowded by the time I left. Gulls were thin on the water on the lake, just a couple of dozen black-headed gulls and a couple of first-Winter lesser black-backs. The small herd of mute swans that's usually here had dispersed into pairs evenly spaced around the lakeside. Not many ducks: a few pairs each of mallard and tufted ducks and just the one pair of gadwall. Interesting to see a pair of dabchicks on the lake, probably overspill from what seems to have been a productive year on Broad Ees Dole,

Teal pool, Broad Ees Dole

Appropriately enough there were a couple of dozen teal on the "teal pool" on Broad Ees Dole, most of them loafing in the reeds while a dozen Canada geese dominated centre stage. The pool in front of the hide was quieter than usual: a few coots, one tuftie, three pairs of dabchicks and a pair of goosander. The water's still high here: the island's a good six inches underwater. A wagtail calling by the embankment turned out to be a pied wagtail (there's nothing wrong with pied wagtails).

I bought a coffee and watched the bird feeders by the café for half an hour in the hopes that a willow tit might turn up. The nuthatches pretty much monopolised the bird table and there was a steady stream of great tits, blue tits, dunnocks and robins. A coal tit arrived and was immediately scared off by a lady who seemed to think it wanted her to sing to it. A couple of ring-necked parakeets strafed the car park providing a more melodious accompaniment. 

It was getting busy now and I was on the verge of getting bad-tempered about it so I sloped off down through Sale Ees towards Jackson's Boat. I'd just climbed onto the river embankment by the bridge when there was a lot of indignant screeches from the parakeets in the trees by the pub. Followed very shortly by a female sparrowhawk which shot in front of me at waist height and over the river and into Chorlton Ees. The parakeets reassured themselves with a lot of squeaky toy noises then went about their business pulling ash keys to pieces.

Sale Ees

Through Hardy Farm with its half a dozen singing greenfinches and back home through Chorlton and Stretford town centre.