South Stack

Chough, South Stack

I've had my Senior Railcard a couple of days so I decided it was time it got christened. The other week's timetable changes have brought back the Manchester to Holyhead train so I thought I'd have a trip out and walk down to South Stack.

I was reminded how long it is since I last did this trip: I was baffled by a "new" bridge from the station into the town centre that turned out to have been built in 2008. What surprised me greatly was that once I'd got my bearings in the town centre I could walk up to South Stack from memory (though I'd forgotten how steep that last stretch of South Stack Road is!)

A hopeful scan round of the harbour before setting out netted the inevitable herring gulls and pigeons and a great crested grebe.

Starlings, Llaingoch

Once I'd passed through Llaingoch the country started to look wild, with rolling farmlands on my left and the heather-thick base of Holyhead Mountain on my right. Dozens of herring gulls passed overhead and the hedgerows were busy with goldfinches and linnets. I could hear buzzards calling but it took ages to find them: they were soaring and dipping over the brow of the hills on the other side of the valley.

View from South Stack Road

About half a mile beyond Llaingoch there's a small reservoir or four large square ponds, I'm not sure of its function. A flock of a dozen each of herring gulls, lesser black-backs and greylag geese loafed on the field by the ponds while a couple of dozen herring gulls bathed in the water.

Buzzard, South Stack Road

I'd almost reached the point where you turn right for South Stack when I saw my first two choughs of the day as they tried, and failed, to mingle with a large flock of jackdaws. A buzzard made an even worse fist of it.

South Stack Lighthouse

South Stack was busy. Very, very busy. It's too late in the season to hope for auks nesting on the cliffs, though there were still a few kittiwakes and plenty of herring gulls. There were a few too many loud voices around to hope for many small passerines but a large flock of spadgers took advantage of the dust raised by all those feet.

House sparrows dustbathing

I found a quietish spot and did a bit of seawatching. Plenty more gulls. An adult gannet passed by in the mid distance and a dozen Manx shearwaters seemed to track the fishing boats' buoys past the cliffs. A scan through a crowd of gulls at the base of one of the cliffs added shag to the year list.

Holyhead Mountain

The walk back to Holyhead was more of the same though I was largely distracted by the air sea rescue helicopter landing in a dip in the side of the hill by the road. I hope it was a training exercise and not some poor devil hurt themselves.

Holyhead Harbour

I walked down to the harbour at Beach Road and had a nosy round. More herring gulls and pigeons, a great black-back with a large youngster and a passing curlew.

Back off home on the stopping train to Chester which doesn't connect to anything anywhere and so was nice and quiet.

Leighton Moss

Great crested grebe, juvenile and adult, and eel

The weather forecast promised everything except possibly snow so I decided on a trip to Leighton Moss so that, if necessary, I could dive for cover into a hide. It turned out to be mostly a bright sunny day.

I had a quick scan of the pools by the coastal hides as the train slowed down for Silverdale. The black-headed gulls were outnumbered by black-tailed godwits. Five spoonbills were asleep out on the pool by the Eric Morecambe Hide, they're getting to be quite regular.

Leighton Moss was fairly quiet, both of birds and people (I had less patience for the people). Aside from a couple of woodpigeons the skies were empty nearly all the time, a distinct change from earlier in the Summer.

At the Tim Jackson Hide there were a few coots and mallards and half a dozen black-tailed godwits fed by the reeds on the far side of the pool. The star turn was a lone red deer feeding in the reeds by the trees.

Red deer

There had been a couple of chiffchaffs in the trees near the sky tower. Walking through the reedbeds to the Griesdale Hide there were half a dozen juvenile willow warblers skittishly flitting about in the willows. The only other warbler of the day was a reed warbler flying across the reeds from the Griesdale Hide. (There wasn't much else to see from there.)

At Griesdale Hide

I walked back to Lilian's Hide. Half a dozen adult black-headed gulls lingered on the raft with a few mallards. A couple of dozen gadwall appeared to be in rehearsals for the breeding season with lots of chasing round and head bobbing

The gadwall were getting frisky

I walked over to the Causeway Hide, not seeing very much birdlife along the way though there were both common and ruddy darters sunning themselves on the boardwalk.

The first thing that struck me at the Causeway Hide was a couple of hundred coots loafing around in rafts on the pool. A young great crested grebe was very noisy, and yet more so when it spotted its parent with an eel. I suspect it took the youngster longer to manage to eat the eel than it took the parent to catch it.

Juvenile great crested grebe begging for an eel

Full begging posture by the juvenile

The reward is given

Making a bit of a meal of the meal

A few minutes later the eel is almost eaten

The great black-backs that have taken to nesting on the island have raised a huge brute of a youngster.

Juvenile great black-back having a bath

A flock of a couple of hundred sand martins flew in and restored a sense of high Summer to the proceedings. The wind picked up and the clouds rolled in and the martins were joined by a few swifts.

I wandered back towards the visitor centre. High up, over towards Warton Crag, a couple of buzzards soared briefly over the woods before disappearing over the tops. They were the only raptors I saw all day. A jay sat in the blackthorns by the brook, not much fussed by my being so close but taking umbrage when one of a family having a picnic shouted: "Ooh look, a jay!" Still, they got to see it.

Jay

I hadn't seen any of my target birds for the day (marsh tit, marsh harrier and Cetti's warbler) so far. As I arrived at the visitor centre the bird feeders were busy with greenfinches, great tits and chaffinches. I was watching them for a minute or two when a marsh tit decided to take exception to my being there. After a lot of angry churring from the undergrowth it came and sat in the bush next to me at head height, the better to eyeball me. Once I'd been suitably intimidated it flew off and got itself some sunflower seeds.

On the way home it clouded over completely and looked quite dark when the train slowed down completely at the junction and right-angle turn at Golborne Dale. A flock of eighty or ninety swifts hawked low over the barley fields by the track while we waited for the Newton le Willows train to pass.

Home thoughts

Very pale house sparrow

Another very wet day. The sparrows came in mob-handed and stayed the day, only retreating from the feeders when the squirrels got too insistent on their turn. At one point there were thirty-three spadgers out there, including the very pale individual that seems to be getting slightly darker on its back and wings.

Game but damp

The pair of collared doves brought one of their youngsters in with them (I think there are two of them, they nested a few doors down). A couple of juvenile goldfinches came in with one of their parents but they didn't stop long once they saw the queues for the sunflower seed feeders. I'll get some more nyger seed in for them to give them a chance.

Juvenile collared dove

There's a touch of Autumn in the air besides the gloomy wet weather. Most nights over the past few weeks there's been a couple of dozen black-headed gulls on the school playing field have a pre-roost loaf. Tonight there's one hundred and fifty-five. 

Elegant tern

Elegant tern and Sandwich terns

The weather being set for pretty damned miserable I decided to go to the seaside. The elegant tern that had stayed at Cemlyn has moved over to the Sandwich tern roost at Hightown, and seeing as it's only ten minutes' walk from the station I thought I should try my luck with it.

Half a dozen chaps with telescopes pointed out where the bird had last been seen. It was one of a flock of dozing Sandwich terns less than a hundred yards out. I spent two hours staring and scanning the flock in the gloom. After a while I had to consciously pull my eyes back into focus every so often as the terns kept on snoozing. Once in a while I'd catch a flash of yellow in the corner of my eye only for all the birds to have their beaks tucked into their back feathers when I turned to look at them.

Sandwich terns

Sandwich terns

Sandwich terns

Sandwich terns and common gulls

Sandwich terns

Something spooked the birds and they all rose up. I cursed, thinking I'd had my chance. By a stroke of luck the elegant tern landed at the front of the flock and showed very well. Though by this time I'd gotten to the stage where I was staring at it for an age without seeing it. In the dim light the bird's bright straw yellow bill was far less striking than the Sandwich terns' black bills. The thing that particularly struck me was the shaggy plumage, even more so than the Sandwich terns, and the length of the curved bill. A challenging bird but well worth the effort.

Elegant tern and Sandwich terns

The supporting cast was pretty good, too. A couple of hundred Sandwich terns, at least a couple of dozen common terns, a few young "commic" terns that defeated me, a couple of definite young Arctic terns, a couple of Mediterranean gulls, and the usual selection of seaside gulls. Redshanks, curlews and ringed plovers fed on the mud with pied wagtails and meadow pipits and I had a brief view of a common sandpiper fossicking round in one of the creeks.

I took up the offer of a look at the elegant tern through one of the telescopes (thank you, sir), took a few photos, took a look at the weather and called it quits. It had been a good session and a nice addition to the life list.

Local patch

Barton Clough

The sparrows spent yesterday morning complaining that there was hardly any food left in the feeders. I filled them all up yesterday teatime and haven't seen a sparrow since. It'll be their own fault if the squirrels scoff the lot.

I was feeling a bit low energy today so I just had a wander round the local patch. It was another quiet afternoon visit.

Whitethroat, Barton Clough

At least one pair of whitethroats have been successful, two young birds were flitting round one of the bramble patches by the footpath.

It's been quiet on the goldfinch front lately but it's been a bad year for thistles and there's better pickings over in Trafford Park. On the plus side, numbers should pick up in Autumn: after somebody decided to strim one of the bramble patches last Winter it's going to be a very good year for goldenrod.

I only had a brief sighting of the buzzard. It had been perching in the copse by the school when it was buzzed by a couple of black-headed gulls. A quick flourish of claws persuaded them to leave well alone.

• Black-headed Gull 4 overhead
• Blackbird 3
• Blue Tit 3
• Buzzard 1
• Carrion Crow 3
• Chiffchaff 1
• Feral Pigeon 20 overhead
• Goldfinch 1
• Great Tit 1
• Greenfinch 5
• Lesser Black-backed Gull 1 overhead
• Long-tailed Tit 2
• Magpie 11
• Mistle Thrush 1
• Whitethroat 5
• Woodpigeon 21

I had an errand to run in Altrincham. Some of the gulls loafing on the roof of Carpet Warehouse looked odd so I went over for a closer look. There were sixteen lapwings amongst the black-headed gulls.

Flixton

Long-tailed tit, Fly Ash Hill

After yesterday's perambulations I decided on a gentle wander round Flixton this afternoon. I walked down Carrington Lane from the station and popped my head over the parapet of Flixton Bridge in the hopes of seeing a wagtail or perhaps a dabchick on the river. I certainly didn't expect to see a dipper! It's definitely a sign of how clean the river's become these days. I'm pretty sure it was a young bird given the pale fringes to so many of its dark feathers.

Dipper, River Mersey

I'd barely gotten to the entrance onto Fly Ash Hill when I bumped into the first mixed tit flock of the afternoon, a large family of long-tailed tits with six or seven blue tits skittering round the bushes by the makeshift car park.

There's been some tittivating of the place since my last visit. A new path has been drained and laid between here and the railway bridge, which is no bad thing but a bit disorienting. There's also been a bout of tree planting on the steep slope alongside the railway line. I'm probably on my own here but I don't altogether approve of this. If you're landscaping an area that's been ravaged by industry or a century of overgrazing then yes, plant away and the more the merrier. If it's an area that's already established as a natural habitat I don't see the point, given sixty years or so it'll become woodland on its own without anyone giving it the hurry-up.  I'm not convinced that a self-grown bramble patch that will naturally be succeeded by trees is any less carbon-friendly than strimming an area bare, bringing a load of nursery-grown wands on a truck and adding a machined wooden pole support and a manufactured cylinder of rabbit-proofing to each. And I do wish tree planting gangs didn't plant them in regularly-spaced serried rows like municipal garden bedding plants.

Anyway…

Fly Ash Hill

Squadrons of woodpigeons flew overhead, most heading towards the fields by the Ship Canal, a few heading back towards Carrington Road. Three buzzards wheeled overhead. One was a particularly noisy juvenile trying to induce a bit of aerial food-passing from the parent. Given that there was no food to pass the noise went on some time.

Gatekeepers, meadow browns and large whites fluttered round in the long grass and my first small blue of the year was sharing a bunch of ragwort flowers with a couple of honey bees. Good to see some dragonflies about. A few common darters flew low while a common hawker buzzed round at head height. I'll admit to having had to look up the female black-tailed skimmer that patrolled the hawthorn bushes. 

Another mixed tit flock, including great tits and a chiffchaff this time, fossicked around in the willows and poplars by the railway. While I was trying to keep track of them a male bullfinch silently crept into the tree by my side and started feeding on the buds on the twigs just over my head. 

Moorhen, Dutton's Pond

I passed under the railway and had a nosy round Dutton's Pond. It was fairly quiet, the mallards and coots loafing by the side and the moorhens managing not to squabble in the waterlilies. A few more common hawkers patrolled the fringes.

Dutton's Pond

I walked down the path by the railway to Jack's Lane. A mixed tit flock in the willows near Dutton's Pond included blue tits and great tits and a bird which sounded almost but not quite like a willow tit and which actually turned out to be another great tit. I actually found a real willow tit in willow scrub in a ditch at the bottom of the railway embankment. I wouldn't have spotted it had it not been disturbed by a party of great tits that bounced past.

Jack Lane local nature reserve

I walked through Jack Lane nature reserve by the reedbed path. Another buzzard rose from the reedbeds to a chorus of scolding reed warblers. They were as happy to see me there, too: every time I looked round I'd see one of them peering suspiciously at me through the reeds. I could hear a sedge warbler and a water rail but had no luck seeing either. I added a couple of brown hawkers to the day's dragonfly tally.

I carried on down Jack Lane and on to Irlam Road for the bus. I had a bit of shopping to do, the spadgers have cleaned me out completely.

Horwich

Burnt Edge

The spadger production line may have slowed down but it's still productive, with yet another new spadgling sitting in the roses being fed by a male adult as I opened the bedroom curtains.

Lesser black-back, Bolton Bus Station

It was a cool, cloudy morning so I decided on a stroll on the Horwich Moors for a change of pace, the idea being to get the bus to Walkers Fold Road, walk up and over to Burnt Edge then come back down Georges Lane, perhaps with a detour via Wilderswood.

That was the plan. It didn't survive more than twenty yards. Walkers Fold Road was closed to both traffic and pedestrians for roadworks. I was told that it if I took the footpath towards the golf course I could loop round and get back to the road further up past the roadworks. And so I did, a couple of hours later.

I followed the path along then took the turning that would bring me back to Walkers Fold Road. Which it did, bang in the middle of the tarmac lorries. So I retraced my steps and carried on towards the golf course. The path was easy going through short grass skirted with brambles and willowherb. Swallows hawked low overhead and goldfinches and linnets skittered about between patches of thistles. 

Walking towards Bolton Old Links golf course

There must have been about a hundred meadow pipits about judging by the noises in the fields and the dozens flitting about from fields to walls and back again. I'd become so used to the milling mipits that I almost didn't register the two tree pipits that flew out of a bramble patch into a clump of small trees. The difference in appearance was subtle: the head slightly more front-end heavy, cleaner underparts with the streaking virtually disappearing below the breast, hindclaws that didn't look like abnormal growths. Needless to say, they weren't up for having their photos taken.

Descending from the golf course

I walked along the edge of the golf course, supplementing my diet with whinberries along the way, then descended into an unexpected and rather lovely woodland walk. Looking at the map on my 'phone I hadn't expected much of the walk here, just a sharp West turn on reaching Dakin's Brook then on to Walkers Fold. In fact there was quite a steep descent through the trees down to Barrow Bridge Road then the path took a hairpin bend, crossed Dakin's Brook then followed Dean Brook for a hundred yards or so. I was accompanied most of the way by a camera-shy male grey wagtail.

Dean Brook

I could hear, but not see, treecreeper and robins and barely got a glimpse of a calling great spotted woodpecker. I'd reconciled myself to another frustrating bit of high Summer woodland birdwatching when a mixed tit flock bounced through the trees. Mostly juvenile blue tits and coal tits with a family of long-tailed tits and a chiffchaff along for the ride.

Harebells

The path petered out rather. A younger, dafter, me would have persevered but I decided to turn back a little way to the steps up to the main path. How steep and how many steps wasn't apparent from the bottom, my knees were happy once I was up at the top. The walk from there to Walkers Fold was easy going. There were more swallows, goldfinches and linnets but the highlights of this stretch were the huge swathes of harebells and sneezewort running through the grassland.

Walking up to Burnt Edge

I walked up the path from the car park at Walkers Fold up to Burnt Edge. More goldfinches and linnets, a lot more swallows and small flocks of sand martins and house martins passed over. 

I had a nosy round the small conifer plantations on Burnt Edge. A few goldfinches and chaffinches twittered about and a chiffchaff foraged its way round a couple of spruces. I was just on my way back to the top of Burnt Edge Lane when a small bird flew in from the hilltops. It sat obligingly at the top of a tree though I had to manoeuvre myself through a clump of nettles so's not to be staring straight into the sun. Even so, it took a while to be able to work out that it was a whinchat rather than a stonechat (and only then because it turned its head just enough for the white eyebrow to emerge from silhouette.

Looking over to Winter Hill

I had a gentle amble down Burnt Edge Lane and Matchmoor Lane and down to Bottom o'the Moor for the bus back to Bolton. Lots more swallows, a flock of pied wagtails on a dungheap by a paddock of horses and a hovering kestrel, the only bird of prey of the day.