Finningley

Mute swan and cattle by Fiveeighths Road 

I decided that I needed an adventure to boost morale. A black-winged pratincole had been showing very well for the past few days just outside Finningley near Doncaster and the public transport looked very doable so I headed over thataway. As always the tricky bit involved getting to Oxford Road and making the connection but I got to Doncaster safely just before lunchtime, walked over to the bus stop indicated by Google, (the centre of Doncaster has horribly signed bus stops by the way) and half an hour later the 357 dropped me off at its terminus on Wroot Road in Finningley.

By Croft Road 

It was a short walk to the corner of the main Bawtry Road and not very much longer to Croft Road, the beginning of the path down to where the pratincole had been sighted. The couple of dozen cars parked at the top of the road confirmed a twitch was on. There's a look to cars parked for a twitch that I can't explain but immediately identify.

I walked down the road, encountering smiling people on their way back telling me the bird was showing well. It was a muggy, cloudy lunchtime and the sun was busily burning through the clouds, it promised to be a warm afternoon. The large whites and ringlets were already fluttering about the long grass along the verges. Blackbirds, blackcaps, dunnocks and chiffchaffs sang in the trees, greenfinches flitted about and magpies bounced about in the adjoining fields.

The end of the metalled road was marked by a workmen's cabin and a locked barrier. Luckily I'd seen enough people limbo dancing under the barrier to know to carry on beyond. What looked like an old quarry pond by the cabin was well-stocked with coots and black-headed gulls and a pair of dabchicks hinneyed at each other. The first damselfly of the day, a blue-tailed damselfly, distracted me as I was negotiating the barrier.

Fiveeighths Road 

The maps tell me that the rough path beyond the barrier is Fiveeighths Road and it forms the local boundary between Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire. It felt like it was going on forever but the journey wasn't much more than half a mile, just dead straight. Along the way there were lots of singing chiffchaffs, wrens and reed buntings, goldfinches twittered about and blackbirds and a pair of bullfinches rummaged about in the bushes. The ringlets and large whites were joined by meadow browns and a red admiral and common blue damselflies zipped by at ankle height.

By Fiveeighths Road 

A large pool hove into sight on the Nottinghamshire side of the road. A herd of mute swans loafed on the bank with a herd of cattle. A lot of coots and a few mallards and tufted ducks drifted about on the water. I could hear but not see a curlew, an oystercatcher and a few lapwings on the far bank with some coots were a bit easier.

I was told to walk down as far as a big yellow gate and the pratincole could be seen from the end of the pool there. I got there and could see that the road got wilder and more heavily wooded further along, confirmed by a lot of gatekeeper butterflies and speckled woods in the verges. There was a scrap of reeds by the roadside, enough for a sedge warbler to sing from. But there were no people. A chap walked in from the field by the side. "Just round the corner, mate, showing nicely." Thank you sir.

There's a black-winged pratincole in that there grass

Just around the corner in the field were a group of people scanning the far end of the pool. There were constant to-ings and fro-ings but there were never more than a dozen people there at a time which is a nice size for this sort of thing. A big twitch isn't fun. The pool was a bit distant, the naked eye could pick out black-headed gulls and the dark objects were probably the lapwings I'd been hearing. A quick scan with the bins confirmed these and found a few mallards and a redshank, too. "It's been showing well but it's sat in the grass at the moment and you can't see it," I was told.

Any fears that it might have been one of those days was almost immediately quashed when a bird rose from the grass and started wheeling round. I've never seen any variety of pratincole before so I wasn't sure what to expect. Photos and pictures tell you to expect a swallow-winged wader with hardly any bill but the immediate impression I got was of a large pale brown swift. It was an odd shade of brown, too, a cold olive tan or greyish yellow ochre that I've only ever seen on cars in the 1970s. The black underwings were very apparent as it wheeled around, rising above the trees on the horizon and the next minute skimming over the water. Distance and the speed of the bird were too much for my reflexes and the camera's response time. As quickly as it had appeared it disappeared into the grass. A few minutes later it was back again and just as big a challenge to keep track of. A very nice bird. And a tip of the hat to the patch watcher who found it, this isn't the sort of site you just stumble across.

Lapwing and black-headed gull
I could manage to get a photo of some of the supporting cast.

I made my way back with a couple of whitethroats joining the chiffchaffs along the way. I stopped at a gate overlooking an island of drowned willows in the pool and had a scan round. I was joined by another chap who said he'd been told there was a black-necked grebe here. "I've found a few dabchicks," I told him, "But there's a bird in those willows at the end of the island that could be it." The bird in question had been puzzling me as it looked not right for a dabchick but I couldn't get a good view of it, either it was obscured by willow twigs or it popped up from underwater into a brightly sunlit patch of water and was straight back down again. It was the length of time underwater that was leaning me to think it was a black-necked grebe. At last a grebe bobbed up in a dark patch of clear water and was immediately identifiable as a dabchick. So I was kidding myself then. Well no, a readily identifiable black-necked grebe then bobbed up in the middle of a lot of willow twigs behind and bobbed back down again almost immediately.

A further scan of the pool added pochard and little egret to the day's tally.

The walk back to the bus stop was considerably shorter than the walk in. I had ten minutes' wait for the next 357 to Doncaster and half an hour for my train back to Manchester. We were running a bit late and I became concerned that I wouldn't have time to get a ticket for my train home — my monthly travel card ran out on Sunday and my local train was ready to leave Oxford Road the minute the train I was on reached Deansgate, giving me about a minute to make the connection. Then I remembered I had eight free single tickets in my pocket, compensation for cancelled trains, so that was all right then.

Home thoughts

Juvenile blackcap

It was another of those odd days for July we've been having and I had a few jobs to do that I had no intention of doing. I'd woken late for the dawn chorus, just hearing the last finale of the blackbird and the coarse repartee of the carrion crows calling down the chimney. I cat-napped awhile until the cat I was napping with explained that it was time for breakfast. By which time the blackbird was back for the second act.

The spadgers are around, I can tell by the furtive cheeping in the roses and the steady erosion of the fat balls in the feeder. I might see as many as three of them. The woodpigeons and magpies are significantly more conspicuous, the young magpies are at that irrepressible stage where they've left their parents behind and explore the world with their siblings. I hope they don't try and take liberties with the local cats, they're not all as old and rheumaticky as the one I live with. The woodpigeons seem intent on making more woodpigeons, when they're not denuding fruit bushes.

It's been the best part of a week since I've seen any of the baby blue tits or great tits. The adult male great tit's been in a couple of times, he seems to have completed his post-breeding moult, unlike the bald blue tit that made an appearance yesterday. There are two young robins about, one of which is already colouring up foxy orange on its breast. 

There have been a couple of new additions to the roll call today. I noticed a large warbler bouncing about by the living room window and took an age to work out what it was, I couldn't be sure because it was overall dull brown and kept its head under cover. It might have been a garden warbler but the odds were on its being a blackcap and so, eventually, it proved: a young juvenile blackcap that had a distinctive cap that wasn't very much different in colour to the rest of the upperparts and only hinted at the caramel brown of typical juvenile plumage. The young dunnock in the roses was considerably easier to identify.

Rixton and Glazebrook

Swift, Rixton

Plans A to D had been scotched because I overslept, a mixture of a bad night's sleep and catching up after election night. A few more options, including nipping over to Sandbach to see if I could catch the Caspian tern on the flashes there, were scotched by train cancellations and I didn't fancy the Mersey Valley or Pennington Flash on a sunny Saturday afternoon. I wasn't going to waste a sunny afternoon so I put my boots on, opened the front door and it started pouring down. So I sulked in my cave for a bit, the sun came back out, I noticed one of the trains wasn't cancelled, I went out and got it.

There was a cold wind cutting through the warmth of the sunshine. I got on the Warrington train and wondered where I was going. Ordinarily I'd be getting off at Irlam for a walk across the mosses but I didn't fancy the walk over to Astley Road, I wanted instant countryside gratification, or at least not half a mile of suburban roads. Which ruled out getting off at Padgate and walking down to Woolston Eyes. I could always get off at Birchwood and wander over to Risley Moss…

So I got off at Glazebrook. I could walk up to Little Woolden Moss but then I'd be doing the walk across the mosses I'd already ruled out. I wandered up that way then turned onto Dam Head Lane, I've been wondering what sort of a walk this would be.

Along Dam Head Lane 

I was soon walking past fields of ripening barley and their attendant woodpigeons. Swifts swarmed high in the air above the fields and a few lesser black-backs cruised by. Chiffchaffs sang in the roadside trees and goldfinches twittered in the hedgerows. 

The old Irlam to Wigan railway

After a while the road turns sharply and goes over two railway bridges, one for the old Irlam to Wigan line that's just a commemorative ridge curving towards Culcheth, the second for the Manchester to Liverpool line.

That straight line to the trees on the horizon is the Manchester to Liverpool railway

By Dam Head Lane 

Over the bridges the landscape opened up, the barley fields coming to the roadside. The swifts over these fields were flying at head height. "You aren't going to spend quarter of an hour trying to get photos of swifts as they zip by you at speed are you?" I asked myself. "No I am not," I answered.

Third-calendar-year lesser black-back, Rixton

Dam Head Lane 

By Dam Lane, that footpath goes back into Glazebrook 

I followed the lane down to where it joins Dam Lane and walked down there to Hollins Green. A couple of magpies and some house sparrows at the farm on the corner provided a bit of variety but else it was woodpigeons, swifts and lesser black-backs. Which was fine, it was a very pleasant walk and I need to be reminded every so often that it's not all ticks and numbers.

Approaching Hollins Green 

I got to Hollins Green and the 100 bus was sitting at the bus stop ready to go in five minutes. It would have been rude not to so I got on. I'd had a bit of a walk, barely two miles, and I hadn't filled my notebook with records but there are worse things in this life than standing by a roadside on a sunny teatime as swifts whiz by your shoulders.

Mersey Valley

Buzzard, Stretford Meadows

I've had a lazy week and the joints in my knees were making no bones about it so I tottered off over to Stretford Meadows to have a wander about then find out where I got to.

The scratchings about by the living room window while I'm trying to read are either woodpigeons or squirrels, the both of them pinching boysenberries,

It was a cloudy day with a fair, cool breeze that made for pleasant walking weather. The spadgers on Newcroft Road grumbled mightily as I interrupted their dust baths (I could walk around them quite easily but they were disinclined to put much trust in that). 

Blackbirds, blackcaps and chiffchaffs sang as I negotiated the baked mud around the palettes at the entrance to the meadows and the first of what would be a proliferation of ringlet butterflies skittered about in the long grass. Great tits called in the trees and young robins made squeaky contact calls to their parents. A couple of wrens sang and another chiffchaff sang from the birch scrub by the path. There first of what would be a constant traffic of woodpigeons, carrion crows and jackdaws flew overhead.

Juvenile goldfinch, Stretford Meadows 

Out in the open meadows it was relatively quiet. Magpies muttered in the long grass but weren't often seen. A pheasant called from deep in a big clump of great willowherbs that could easily have hidden half a dozen sheep. A few whitethroats and reed buntings sang, rather more were fleeting figures skipping between hawthorn bushes or disappearing into thistle-deep grass. Small parties of goldfinches were already unpicking barely ripened heads of thistledown. The sun had brought out the ringlets and they were very active indeed, never settling for more than a second and even then not often. Every so often I'd see a touch of russet brown and think I'd found a gatekeeper or meadow brown and each time find it was the light glinting obliquely on the sooty chocolate brown wings of a ringlet. It came as a bit of a relief to bump into a couple of large skippers.

Stretford Meadows 

I was trying to get a photo of a latticed heath moth (and trying to remember that's what it's called) when I heard a buzzard calling in the nearby trees. It flew out and did a low circuit round before returning to the trees. There was an answering call from above. I looked up and saw three buzzards soaring high up, one rather higher than the others. The three drifted over this way and the calling got louder then the two lower birds disengaged and floated back over the motorway and calm was restored.

Northern marsh orchids gone to seed, Stretford Meadows 

I started off on the path down towards the cricket pitch, noting that the marsh orchids had all gone to seed, and hadn't gone a hundred yards before I almost trod on a young partridge. It was about three-quarters grown, a body of grey-brown fluff with grown-up wings and the diagnostic bright orange tail feathers of a grey partridge. I watched it fly off into the cover of some hawthorn scrub then got the shock of my life as three more flew off and followed it from the grass just in front of me.

The South slope of the rise, Stretford Meadows 

l wandered over to the metalled path, followed it up the rise then took the steep path down the other side, giving the hay fever a bit of a workout. A few more whitethroats, reed buntings and goldfinches sang in the hawthorns, greenfinches and song thrushes sang in the small oak trees South of the summit and a linnet and a lesser whitethroat sang in the scrub down the Eastern slope. A big green and blue flying pencil of an emperor dragonfly zipped past me on the summit, a pair of brown hawkers chased each other over the willowherbs by the Transpennine path as I reached it.

Juvenile dunnock

I walked down to Stretford Ees to a sporadic chorus of singing blackbirds, blackcaps, chiffchaffs and wrens and the contact calling of goldfinches, blue tits and great tits. The pigeons had a couple of noisy new nests on the go under the tramline, the older youngsters were arrayed on the canal aquaduct.

Walking over to Stretford Ees

Stretford Ees was noisy with the songs of blackbirds and reed buntings and the squabbling of ring-necked parakeets in the trees.

I passed over the river, a grey wagtail fossicking about in the rocks at the bankside, and into Sale Water Park.

Great crested grebe, Sale Water Park
Watching a passing tern.

More blackbirds, blackcaps and chiffchaffs sang in the trees. Out on the lake a few lesser-blacks and black-headed gulls dozed midwater, a pair of mute swans mugged for scraps over on the far bank and a pair of great crested grebes cruised by the near shore. Low overhead a couple of common terns made a lot of noise of circling round the lake but never got round to diving for any fish. Mind you, the carp in this lake are enormous and would probably over face them.

Great crested grebe, Sale Water Park 

One of the grebes was the one that's had the damaged wing. At the moment it's flightless because it's moulted all the remaining flight feathers from its left wing.

Mallards, Broad Ees Dole 

A gang of eclipse male mallards cruised the teal pond at Broad Ees Dole. A couple of females with almost full-grown ducklings nursed the reed margins. All the reed warblers were singing from the tiny patches of reed by the lake. A few more mallards dozed on the island on the pool by the hide, a moorhen sitting on a nest in the dead tree on the island. A pair of herons had a couple of very tatty youngsters with them, chasing off a first-Summer bird that got too close.

Broad-leaved helleborine, Sale Water Park 

I walked down along the lakeside to the car park. More mute swans joined the mallards and Canada geese begging on the slipway on the far bank. I kept an eye out for the broad-leaved helleborine I'd spotted by the path this time last year and was rewarded by a tall flower spike just where I remembered it being.

The feeders by the café were monopolised by great tits, most of them juveniles. A blue tit snuck in when the great tits scattered as a noisy dog passed by but it was soon barged off when they returned.

The woodland walk 

I had a quick look at the woodland walk and quickly concluded that the aching knees weren't up to either walking down to Kenworthy Woods or walking up into Chorlton so I got the tram into Chorlton and got the bus home. I'm going to have to get some miles under these feet to get the knees working properly again, it only takes a few lazy days to get them stiffened up again.

Wellacre Country Park

Moorhen and chick, Dutton's Pond

It was an uncertain sort of a day and as I had things to do I decided to stay local with a walk around Wellacre Country Park.

Wellacre Wood 

I got the 256 into Flixton and walked past Delamere School into Wellacre Wood. For all the rain over the past couple of nights the ground wasn't atrociously muddy underfoot and the puddles could be avoided. There was a hint of the quiet days to come with just a couple of blackbirds singing with a song thrush and a blackcap. A chiffchaff assayed half a phrase before deciding it couldn't be bothered. Wrens, robins, great tits and spadgers in deep cover told me to keep on moving as I passed them by. Once every so often I'd see one or other of them flitting between bushes. A mistle thrush high up in an ash tree rattled disapprovingly as I walked by. Even the magpies were being unusually coy.

Wellacre Country Park 

I emerged from the wood and found it had become one of those afternoons of low light and maximum glare and for a minute or two I stood blinking like an extra on Lawrence of Arabia while a wren sang in the hedgerow and a whitethroat sang in one of the hawthorns out in the field. Blue tits, house sparrows and blackbirds rummaged about the hedgerows as I walked over to Jack Lane. A few sand martins flew overhead, there was a steady traffic of woodpigeons and black-headed gulls called as they floated over to Irlam Locks. A chaffinch sang in the trees by the stables and a couple of swallows hawked over the paddock. I got my first mosquito bite of the season and narrowly avoided my first horsefly bite (I swear it was as large as a Shetland pony).

Jack Lane nature reserve 

Jack Lane nature reserve was noisy with magpies and chiffchaffs though both were tricky to find in the trees. I had even less luck with the wrens and blackcaps, a kestrel hovering over the reedbeds possibly being the cause. The reed warblers quietly ticked at each other as they rummaged about the bases of the reeds. An all-clear must have sounded as soon the three singing reed warblers were competing to be heard by reed buntings, chiffchaffs and song thrushes. No Cetti's warbler or water rail today.

Reed warbler, Jack Lane

I walked along the path by the embankment. Great tits silently rummaged about in the willows and a pair of bullfinches disappeared into the leaves. Song thrushes sang in the larger trees. I stopped to watch a family of long-tailed tits flit by and gave up trying to get a photo. By the time the twentieth youngster bounced past I suspected there was more than one family in the party, a suspicion that heightened as a couple of coal tits and a chaffinch tagged along. Approaching Dutton's Pond chiffchaffs and blackcaps sang in the trees and a flock of swifts hawked low over the field.

Last time I visited Dutton Pond there wasn't much about, even anglers. Today was a bit different. There were plenty of anglers and there were a couple of dozen mallards, mostly half-grown ducklings, a pair of Canada geese with six half-grown goslings and a couple of families of moorhens. It was far too cool for there to be any dragonflies about.

Ringlet, Green Hill

I had a walk up and round Green Hill, the chiffchaffs of the trees by the railway line giving way to the whitethroats of the hawthorns in the open. Great tits and blue tits bounced between hawthorn bushes and I was surprised to find a treecreeper working the trunk of a small hawthorn by the path. I was also surprised to find dead moles on the path at hundred yard intervals like macabre milestones. I hadn't expected to see any butterflies in this weather, a ringlet basking in the little sun it could get was a bonus.

An ex-mole, Green Hill

River Mersey, Flixton Bridge 

There wasn't anything on the river as I walked to Flixton Bridge for the bus back though a grey wagtail flew overhead and onto the fields on the other side.

Back home later, after the rain, the long-tailed tits were back at the fat feeders in the garden. I've had ring-necked parakeets fly over a couple of times, today was the first time one stopped to screech at the top of one of the sycamores. I have mixed feelings about that.

Goatsbeard

Spike Island

Ruddy shelducks 

After a ropey old night's sleep a cool, grey and miserable July day rather fitted my mood. So I went over to Spike Island to see if I could add ruddy shelduck to the year list.

I got off the 110 bus from Warrington, walked down the road and through the car park to the canal where a pile of pigeons clustered by the bank and a dozen mallards cruised up and down in the company of a couple of families of coots and a couple of Canada geese.

Ruddy shelducks 

I crossed over the canal onto Spike Island and looked down towards the estuary. The first birds I saw were a pair of ruddy shelducks dabbling in the mud.

Ruddy shelducks 

Ruddy shelducks 

Male ruddy shelduck

Female ruddy shelduck

Ruddy shelducks and common shelduck 

It was just gone low tide and there were plenty of common shelducks dabbling about in the mud. Small flocks of gulls — none more than a couple of dozen birds — sat on mudbanks, mostly black-headed gulls close to this side of the river, a mixture of herring gulls and lesser black-backs further out. Over by the far bank about fifty lapwings were spaced out on the mud like chess pieces on a board. A few redshanks rummaged about amongst them. Closer by, at the corner by Victoria Gardens, there were half a dozen waders with the loafing mallards on the rocks. I was about to give up on them when one bobbed up onto one of the rocks and showed a black belly. I know we can usually assume any group of small waders are likely to be dunlins but it's good to be sure of it. Cormorants swam in channels, carrion crows rummaged about in the mud, egrets were notably absent.

Coots

I took a walk round the island. A dozen mallards dozed and dabbled in the pond while a pair of coot kept their very young chicks well away from a heron. A single cob mute swan and a single drake tufted duck pottered about, hopefully a sign that their mates were sitting on nests somewhere. The drake mallards were in that motley phase of the eclipse moult where patches of brown feathers poked through the grey and vice versa. A couple of near full-grown ducklings were showing hints of green about their heads. Amidst this assortment of sizes and plumages I almost missed the pair of gadwall lurking by the reeds, the drake in his eclipse plumage looking very similar to the mallard ducklings.

A swarm of house martins were hawking over the path, some swooping down to ankle height. I spent ten minutes trying to get a photo of one or any of them. I don't know why I do this to myself.

Mersey Gateway Bridge 

Upstream near the Mersey Gateway Bridge a herd of about thirty Canada geese were grazing on the bank on this side. I looked in vain for any waders on the mud below the bank.

Walking through the trees to the canal I kept hearing robins ticking at me as I passed but couldn't find them. The singing chiffchaff and song thrush were equally invisible in the tree cover. A few blackbirds and moorhens feeding on the ground let me preserve a little honour.

It was way too cold for butterflies or dragonflies and the rain in the air was becoming ominous. I had one last look at the ruddy shelducks and went for the 110 back to Warrington and thence home.

Female ruddy shelduck

Half-year review

Puffin and razorbills, Bempton

It's been an oddly busy few months. I'm somehow ahead of myself on the year list despite still not getting to Northwich or Frodsham and pretty much neglecting Rochdale, Bury, Bolton and Blackpool, and despite Spring's being just a continuation of our long Autumn with cold northerly winds the main feature of June. I think I'm mostly caught up with updating the changes in bus routes and times in the sites posts on this blog, too, I hope.

Common scoter, Davyhulme

I finally got round to a trip out to North Wales and another over to the Yorkshire coast as well as out for short visits into Shropshire and Staffordshire. Cancellations have thwarted attempts to get further than Millom in Cumbria. On the other hand I've been giving more attention to the Peak District. And I've added a whole pile of "must have a nosy round there" places to the list.

Juvenile woodpigeon, Stretford

The year list stands at 189, rather to my surprise. I'm still missing snow bunting, long-tailed duck and white-fronted geese. And Bewick's swan, don't forget Bewick's swan. I'm a bit shy on waders having missed purple sandpiper and sanderling and still not picked up green sandpiper. The Northwest's been a bit shy on scarce waders passing through on Spring passage, black terns too if it comes to that, but there's time yet for they on the return journey and I still have hopes of osprey and green woodpecker round Morecambe Bay.  And spotted flycatchers and redstarts eluded me in that short window of migration between bad weather in Spain and North winds in England. But I've done well by seabirds and, surprisingly, owls.

Short-eared owl, Chat Moss

The roseate tern at Hodbarrow has been the only addition to the life list. I hadn't expected to see one, it's been a very long-standing bogey bird I gave up on years ago. Now I've got my eye in I'm confident that sometime over the next two or three years I'll see another. I haven't really dipped on any lifers yet, which is comforting, though I know I must have been within a hundred yards of two at least without knowing it. It's a subtle difference but a psychologically significant one.

Black-headed gulls, common tern and roseate tern, Hodbarrow

Half-year totals of recorded species by BTO recording area:

• Caenarfonshire 25
• Cheshire and Wirral 105
• Cumbria 75
• Denbighshire 19
• Derbyshire 57
• Flintshire 19
• Greater Manchester 122
• Lancashire and North Merseyside 138
• Shropshire 24
• Staffordshire 28
• Yorkshire 72

The next quarter embraces the relatively quiet days of post-breeding moult and the start of post-breeding migration. I'll try and catch up with the neglected places of Cheshire and the washlands of Yorkshire. And I've no doubt that any predictions I may care to make will be well off the mark.