Bempton

Red-tailed shrike

Now that me and my new boots are properly acquainted I thought it was time we had an adventure. I've been wargaming the train timetables to Bempton for a couple of weeks and the arrival of a red-tailed shrike to join the albatross there provided the impetus to give it a go. As it happens it's not much trickier than getting to Millom, though at three times the cost. The key to the trick is timing my arrival at Oxford Road such that I don't end up waiting the best part of an hour at Piccadilly or Sheffield, or both. I had four minutes in which to buy a ticket for the fast train to Sheffield, which gave me fifteen minutes for buying the ticket to Bempton (it's about twenty pounds cheaper to do it this way, train fare structures are insane).

I got off at Bempton Station and it started pouring down. It was like this, on and off, for the next half hour. It was an overcast, muggy sort of day and the showers weren't remotely refreshing which made the walking a bit unpleasant. I walked through the village and on towards the RSPB reserve at Bempton Cliffs.

Yellowhammer

Once past the village the hedgerows were busy with sparrows — mostly house sparrows near the village, nearly all tree sparrows further out — goldfinches, whitethroats and yellowhammers. 

I turned off to go down the lane to Wandale Farm where the shrike had been reported. The hedgerows were fizzing with gatekeeper butterflies, whitethroats, yellowhammers and reed buntings. A curlew flew overhead, calling all the while, and a corn bunting sang from the other side of the field.

Red-tailed shrike

As I got to the beginning of the lane to the farm I bumped into a chap who was scanning the far end of the field by the road. He reckoned he'd just seen the shrike on the hedge. We both scanned round. I noticed a lot of linnets perched on the telegraph wires and another, larger bird, perched off to the left of them, starling-sized but very top-heavy. I was pretty sure it was the shrike but it was silhouetted against bright clouds so it was hard to be sure and impossible of the identification. "There's a public footpath to the cliffs over there," he said, "If we follow that we should get a closer look." We walked down, the shrike clocked us, it didn't give a monkey's and we got very close views — about thirty yards — from our side of the hedge. I've never seen a shrike that close before, they've always been on the other side of a field (hark at the expert! This is my fourth). We watched as it preened and caught flies from the wire, often just snapping them up as they went past. I took loads of photos, bracketing the exposure like mad to try and make sure they weren't all silhouettes and I'm still not happy with any of them. I forgot to ask the chap's name, but thank you sir whoever you are.

Red-tailed shrike

Red-tailed shrike

Red-tailed shrike

As to the shrike, well the first impression I got was that it was very like the red-bscked shrike I saw last year. The black mask and big black bill were conspicuous. At first sight it looked like it had a grey crown but this was a trick of the light, the upperparts were cool, sandy brown, contrasting with the milky coffee colour of the underparts, the throat paler than the breast. I understand that's the most obvious difference between red-tailed and isabelline shrikes. The tail was dark mahogany red getting brighter and redder towards the tail coverts while the rump was paler and sandier than the back. The contrast in colour between the tail and the upperparts was very striking, and very different to the brown shrike I saw a few years ago.

(I think that officially we should be calling red-tailed shrikes "Turkestan shrikes" and isabelline shrikes "Daurian shrikes" to prevent any confusion now both firms have been split from the old "isabelline shrike" species.)

I wandered down the path to the cliff, assailed by ringlets and meadow browns in the tall grass as I walked through it. Reed buntings, skylarks, meadow pipits and corn buntings bobbed up and down or flew between fields. At one point there were three birds singing from adjacent fence posts, a mipit, a skylark and a corn bunting and they scattered as a crow passed low overhead before I could get a picture. The breeze coming in off the sea made walking a whole lot more comfortable.

Bempton Cliffs 

I haven't been to a busy seabird colony since before lockdown and I hadn't realised how much I'd missed them. The gannets, fulmars and kittiwakes were making most of the noise but there were plenty enough guillemots, razorbills and puffins to be seen and if you looked hard enough there were a few shags fishing round the bottom of the cliffs below.

Gannets

Razorbils

Kittiwakes

Puffin

Guillemots

The white dots are gannets

Gannets

Gannets

Some of the gannets are rebuilding their nests

Gannet

Puffin

Gannets

I had a dawdle round, looking to see what was about and remembering that the last time I was this close to gannets and puffins I had 36 photos to a roll of film. All the while I was scanning round for anything that might look like an albatross, letting myself get distracted whenever a two-year old gannet flew under the cliffs. I said: "Oh dear," when somebody told me I'd just missed it. As I'd walking over one of the headlands over a cliff the people at the viewpoint I'd just left were treated to its flying in and back out again. It repeated the trick as I was walking back again but didn't come back a third time.

Razorbill

Guillemots

Ah well, I'd had the shrike. I sat down for five minutes' seawatching to rest my legs and spotted a big object on the water just over a mile out. The visibility was good enough to see it but not identify it so I dismissed it as one of the buoys marking the channel used by cliff watching boats. Then the object took to the air. From that distance I assumed it was a lesser black-back then I realised it was looking as big as the gannets flying about half a mile further in. And there was something about the wings, they carried on where a gull's wing should finish. It flew by something that was either a kittiwake or a herring gull and that clinched the size factor. A very unsatisfying life tick but they all count in the end. Now I know Bempton's not as inaccessible as I feared I can save up for another go.

Record shot: black-browed albatross

Very heavily-cropped edit of the above photo

I got myself a cup of tea then walked straight back into Bempton for the train back to Sheffield. There were more tree sparrows, yellowhammers and whitethroats in the hedges and a lesser whitethroat called from the middle of a nettle patch in a hedge bottom. The only chiffchaff of the day was singing in the village as I passed through.

Yellowhammer

An excellent day's birdwatching, a couple of life ticks (my British list is now 289, the year list 191), the renewal of close acquaintance with seabirds and a nice five mile toddle to get a bit of exercise.

Female sparrowhawk, Sheffield Station on the way home.

Wellacre Country Park

Jay, Wellacre Wood

It was too warm, and I was too tired, to do overly much so I had a teatime wander round Wellacre Country Park just to keep my hand in.

Wellacre Wood was mostly quiet, a couple of blackcaps, a chiffchaff and some goldfinches being the most conspicuous birds in the trees. Coming out into the open fields the most conspicuous birds were the magpies and jays feeding in the grass, in contrast I had to look hard to find the woodpigeons and blackbirds. A ring-necked parakeet shouted the odds from the trees over by the pond.

Jay, Wellacre Wood

There were lots of warblers about on Jack Lane but it took a while to start seeing any of them. A couple of chiffchaffs and a blackcap sang from the willows and there were at least three singing reed warblers, plus a family quietly rummaging round in a patch of reedmace. A water rail broke the euphony and was soon joined by the squealing calls of young moorhens begging for food.

There seemed to have been a mass eruption of gatekeeper butterflies, they were everywhere. Half a dozen brown hawkers quartered Jack Lane accompanied by a couple of migrant hawkers. Oddly enough there were no dragonflies about on Dutton's Pond, possibly because every post had an angler fishing from it.

Gatekeeper, Jack Lane

It was too warm for a hike up Fly Ash Hill so I walked halfway up and skirted round the top of the mound, disturbing lots more gatekeepers along the way. A couple of whitethroats churred from hawthorn bushes and a chiffchaff stationed itself in a sycamore on one of the rises, the better to be heard.

Latticed heath, Fly Ash Hill 

River Mersey, Flixton Bridge 

I had a quick scan of the river from Flixton Bridge and found only a blackbird and a couple of woodpigeons this time. But it's always worth a look.

Home thoughts

It occurs to me that next Spring I should do some sort of data collection and analysis so that I can next Summer I could say: "The sunflower seeds in the feeder have gone down two inches so x spadgers gave probably visited." It would be easier in Winter when there's very little cover and I can see most everything in the undergrowth but the limited alternative food sources would mean I was measuring apples against pears. Spring would be better with enough lack of cover to see what's about and enough emerging insects, etc. to approach the situation in Summer. I can think of a dozen ways why this would all be statistically iffy —  mind you so is recording four sparrows a day in the garden when I'm refilling the feeder every two days. Anyway, it would be interesting to see if a correlation can be discovered or whether there are too many other factors getting in the way.

Mosses

Yellowhammer, Chat Moss

It's a sunny Saturday so a walk across the mosses was the order of the day. I set off mid-afternoon to miss the midday quiet period. It was still very warm but a very welcome cooling breeze came across the fields as I walked down Astley Road.

A feature of the whole afternoon was the movement of squadrons of woodpigeons overhead, mostly towards ripening fields of barley. The Irlam end of Astley Road was pretty quiet: a few goldfinches and a couple of whitethroats sang, a few blackbirds and dunnocks rummaged in the roadside vegetation, but even the great tits went about their business in silence.

Astley Road 

The usual kestrels weren't around by the Jack Russell's gate (the Jack Russell was asleep in the yard). I caught up with one of the youngsters sitting on the wires by Prospect Grange. As, indeed, did a crow which took advantage of its being on its own and gave it a hard chase across the field. Probably the same two birds involved in the drama last time I walked down here.

It was a little busier the other side of the motorway though still considerably quieter than usual. Across the whole acreage of turf fields there were two woodpigeons, a pied wagtail and half a dozen low-flying swallows. Things picked up a lot around the stables and horse paddocks with goldfinches and house sparrows twittering in the hedgerows with a few greenfinches and yellowhammers.

Skylark, Chat Moss

There were a lot of butterflies about, mostly large whites and small tortoiseshells with a few red admirals. I turned the corner at Four Lanes End. There were five painted lady territories along this stretch of path and when they weren't busy chasing each other out of their territories they were chasing off any other winged creatures. They're even more aggressive than the small tortoiseshells, which is saying some.

I had to stop for a couple of minutes to let a skylark finish gathering up a beakful of beetles. Very unusually I didn't hear a single one of them today.

Cinnabar moth caterpillar on ragwort, Little Woolden Moss 

The trees at the entrance to Little Woolden Moss were busy with willow warblers and wrens collecting food for hungry mouths. Small family parties of goldfinches fed in the treetops while linnets fed on the open ground and in the heather.

Yellow wagtail, Little Woolden Moss

A couple of dozen lapwings loafed on the pools while linnets, meadow pipits and pied wagtails fed round the edges. A yellow wagtail flew in, I thought at first it was the Channel wagtail that's been about but it was just the harsh light bouncing off a perfectly normal female yellow wagtail's head. The light was so harsh that from some angles even the backs of the male pied wagtails took on a silvery sheen. A lot of the youngsters are still very pale and a couple of times I looked twice in the hopes of a white wagtail (it still rankles that I missed their Spring passage).

There were still a few dragonflies about: a couple each of common blue damselflies and migrant hawkers and my first common darter of the year.

I didn't even bother checking the bus times in Glazebury and headed back to walk down Twelve Yards Road, passing a resting brown hare along the way.

Hare, Little Woolden Moss

The fields and hedges along Twelve Yards Road were busy with birds being mostly very quiet. A blackcap and a chiffchaff sang from the trees by the stables, a whitethroat sang from the willowherbs in a drain (there were more whitethroats going about their business in dead silence the length of the road). A few black-headed gulls flew over to the poos to the North. More woodpigeons flew to and fro between fields.

Juvenile kestrels, Chat Moss

Over by one of the farmyards I noticed that the kestrel nest box is still occupied, the youngsters sitting at the entrance waiting for the parents to deliver meals. The male ranged across the moss to do his hunting while the female kept to the fields immediately by the farmyard.

The yellow bird singing on the wires near Cutnook Lane this week was a yellowhammer. And very nice, too.

By Twelve Yards Road 

I had a quick five minutes up the path towards the pools North of Twelve Yards Road, adding coots and song thrushes to the day's tally. I didn't linger, I wanted to make sure not to miss the bus home this time.

I'd been conscious that I hadn't seen a buzzard all day so it came as a bit of a relief when one drifted over Cutnook Lane. Blackcaps, chiffchaffs and song thrushes sang me down the lane and a couple of chattering mistle thrushes escorted me onto the bridge over the motorway.

And this time I had two minutes' grace before the 100 bus arrived to take me back to the Trafford Centre.

Mersey Valley

Wren, Sale Water Park

I had all sorts of plans for today but after the second night's bad sleep in a row I didn't have the energy for the early start needed for today's adventure. I felt bad about it but then I gave myself a good talking to. The problem is that just lately I've been turning what should be a bit of exercise with interesting scenery and a bit of birdwatching into a job: something that has to be done rather than something to do. The targets I set myself — 200 species for the year, 100 per month — are there purely to get me off my backside and out for a bit of fresh air, not something I should be focussing and fretting about. I suspect I was triggered by the usual July doldrums hitting mid-June. (Interestingly, it looks like the usual late July passage migrations are starting early.)

So I had a pot of tea and a bit of a read then went for a stroll down to Stretford Meadows, through Stretford Ees and Sale Water Park and down to Priory Gardens before getting a bus back home.

The spadgers have been strangely absent from the back garden this past couple of days. I think they're coming in very early to top up then keeping undercover to avoid next door's builders. And there's not as much cover by the feeders as there was because I've made a start on cutting back on the rambling rose before it takes over the county. I've just been seeing a couple of the older male spadgers coming in for a few minutes and that's that. Oddly enough one of them was accompanied by a very young robin this morning.

Reed bunting, Stretford Meadows

I wandered over to Stretford Meadows, passing the allotments and their trio of singing blackbirds along the way. More blackbirds and a song thrush were singing in the car park at the top of Newcroft Road in the company of a pile of house sparrows and some goldfinches. Wrens, chiffchaffs and blackcaps sang in the trees by the path.

It's a bit unnerving how dry the paths on the meadows are at the moment. It doesn't seem to be affecting the flora too badly — the open spaces were a riot of vetches, clovers, medicks and buttercups and the thistle patches were in full bloom though the marsh thistles have mostly gone to seed. Last time I came the marsh orchids were starting to open, judging by the number of seed heads around I've missed a bumper bloom.

Stretford Meadows 

The warm sunny weather had coaxed the butterflies out of hiding, mostly ringlets and meadow browns skittering round in the grass with small tortoiseshells feeding on the thistles or sunning themselves on the paths. A few large whites and large skippers added a bit of variety.

There was plenty of birdlife about, not just the squadrons of woodpigeons passing overhead. Dunnocks, whitethroats and reed buntings sang in the bushes and bramble patches and families of magpies chased each other round the trees. A young kestrel called from somewhere near the cycle path but I couldn't see it. Nor could I see the lesser whitethroat calling from the bramble patch just near the top of the mound or the garden warbler singing by the cricket pitch.

Near the top of the rise I was bemused to find a pond I'd never seen before. A bit of investigation found it was being fed by a vigorous stream of water spewing out of one of the methane traps. I beat a retreat and headed off down the other side.

There were more chiffchaffs and blackbirds in the trees by the recycling plant. The trees along Kickety Brook were busy with wrens and titmice. Family parties of blue tits and great tits bounced around in the willows and hawthorns while a willow tit churred its displeasure at seeing me.

Large skipper and small tortoiseshell, Stretford Ees

The path was busy with cyclists so I followed the brook across Stretford Ees. There were more butterflies about, the meadow browns being outnumbered by gatekeepers. Reed buntings sang from the hawthorns, blackcaps from the trees by Turn Moss and a garden warbler sang from the trees by Stretford Cemetery.

The pool at the end of Kickety Brook baffles me because it's actually the start. The brook meanders westwards from here, joining with Ousel Brook and then the river just before Urmston Meadows. The baffling thing is this pool is literally ten feet away from the river. A heron and I pretended we didn't notice each other.

Heron, Stretford Ees

I walked downstream, crossed the bridge and had a wander round Sale Water Park. The trees were noisy with blackbirds, song thrushes and blackcaps (oddly, I didn't see or hear a ring-necked parakeet all day). The lake was noisy with black-headed gulls and young great crested grebes begging for food off their parents. There were a couple of families of coots and the herd of mute swans, which is nearly fifty strong now, was demanding food with menaces over by the watersports centre.

Broad Ees Dole was busy. A couple of dozen mallards loafed on the Teal Pool, most of them sheltering amongst the roots of the willows. The first thing that struck me from the hide were the seven herons loafing with the mallards and coots on the island. A couple of families of moorhens included very young chicks. The dabchicks were unusually self-effacing and it took me a while to find the youngsters being fed tiddlers in the reeds.

There were dragonflies about, mostly common blue damselflies with a few migrant hawkers zipping across the pool.

Herons, Broad Ees Dole

I walked down towards Cow Lane, the hedges busy with wrens, goldfinches and song thrushes, the lake busy with swans, coots and mallards. A southern hawker quartered the path in front of me (and yes, I did have to check to make sure I got the ID right). The bird feeders by the cafe were being contested by magpies and great tits, the great tits winning by strength of numbers 

I walked round the lake and across the bridge over the motorway and down into Priory Gardens. More blackbirds, song thrushes, blackcaps and great tits with a garden warbler singing in the hedge by the motorway. It struck me today that I'm starting to lose my ear for garden warblers again, it's taking me a minute or two to be sure I'm not hearing a blackcap. The difference is in the tone of the song — the structure can be unnervingly similar — the blackcaps having deep, rounded notes like a blackbird but more so while the garden warblers' song tends to be mostly harder notes that don't run into each other.

The Teal Pool, Broad Ees Dole 

Pennington Flash

Heron

Thought I'd best have a visit to Pennington Flash before the Women's Euro football kicks off at the Sports Village next door.

The walk down from St. Helens Road was very quiet, just a couple of woodpigeons, a few blackbirds and a wren, not untypical for a July lunchtime. There was nothing at the bridge over the brook save a small shoal of young roaches in the water. A family of six mistle thrushes were feeding on the golf course.

There was a crowd of Canada geese, black-headed gulls, coots and mallards on the car park. There wasn't a lot on the water: a great crested grebe and a distant raft of lesser black-backs. The Egyptian geese are back but I couldn't find them either at the car park or over on the sailing club side of the flash.

Black-headed gulls

Mallards and black-headed gulls loafed on the spit at the Horrocks Hide. A couple of pairs of oystercatchers fed on the grass and lapwings picked round the shingles.

From the Horrocks Hide 

I walked round to the Tom Edmondson Hide, relieved to hear a few chiffchaffs and blackcaps. There were a few mallards on the pool opposite the hide and the reed warbler managed ten seconds of song. For the first time in years I didn't hear a Cetti's warbler here today.

From the Tom Edmondson Hide 

There were a few coots and ducks on the pool at the Tom Edmondson Hide. We're at that time of year when three-quarters grown mallards are striking out on their own and mingling with juvenile gadwalls, which makes for an identification challenge. Every so often one might show pity on the observer and flex its wings and let you see whether the speculum is violet blue or chestnut brown and white. Most of the youngsters on the pool were mallards, a handful of gadwalls loafed and preened Inthe reeds. A juvenile dabchick sat preening in the middle of the pool. There were no herons loafing by the pool but a couple flew low overhead. There was a lot of rustling in the undergrowth by the hide, most of which turned out to be reed buntings or blue tits, a couple of wrens and reed warblers poked their heads out of the brambles a couple of times.

From Ramsdales Hide 

The inlet by Ramsdales was busy with Canada geese, joined by a couple of greylags. There were a couple of young moorhens with their parents and another mooren sat on its nest. No sign of any little ringed plovers but the lapwings were half-hidden in the long grass so they could have been lurking somewhere. Looking out onto the bight a dozen great crested grebes dozed by the shore.

The woodland birds stirred from their lunchtime slumber as I walked to the canal and then round to the Teal Hide. Blackcaps, chiffchaffs and song thrushes sang from the willows, whitethroats from the undergrowth. Just before I arrived at the hide I bumped into my first robin of the month(!) A bullfinch calling in the willows by the hide brought my attention to a flock of long-tailed tits, I never did find the bullfinch.

Oystercatcher

It occurred to me that I haven't any decent photos of common teal in eclipse plumage. I still haven't.

The pool at the Teal Hide was noisy with black-headed gulls, including half a dozen youngsters. They were actually outnumbered by gadwall but they were more self-effacing. The youngsters loafed on the pool, the adults kept close to the reeds so they could run for cover if need be (they've moulted most of their flight feathers at the moment). A handful of tufted ducks and a dozen coots made up the numbers.

Chaffinch

At first glance the Bunting Hide was very quiet with just half a dozen squirrels on the feeders and a mallard and her young ducklings feeding from the scraps dropped by the squirrels. A couple of stock doves flew in, and stayed in despite protestations by the squirrels. Somehow, I don't know how, the stock doves bullied the squirrels off the ground feeders. Once they'd gone the feeding station was suddenly filled with dunnocks, chaffinches, blue tits and great tits.

I had another unsuccessful scan round for Egyptian geese while I ate my ice cream then made my way home.

From the Teal Hide