Moore

Moore Nature Reserve 

It was a bright and sunny, and decidedly cool, day. I'd a few errands to do so it was early afternoon before I could take advantage of it. A yellow-browed warbler has been reported at Moore Nature Reserve so I decided to head over there for a change. It was vanishingly unlikely I'd see the warbler — imagine trying to find one specific sparrow in your back garden then make it the size of a coal tit then give it a bad case of the fidgets and then multiply the odds against you by several hundred — but it's a pleasant walk and don't look, don't see.

The sun had done its work and it felt quite mild when I got the train to Warrington. At the bus station I got the 12 to Gainsborough Road (the X30 stops there, too). I should explain that Google Maps is not your friend here, it insists that the only way into Moore Nature Reserve is through Moore Village. It isn't. This afternoon I walked down the stretch of the Transpennine Way running alongside a remnant of the Runcorn and Latchford Canal to the Mersey Viaducts then left the Transpennine Way, taking the path immediately to the left that runs parallel to the railway and into the reserve.

By the Runcorn and Latchford Canal
Taken from Chester Road.

I crossed Chester Road, walked over the bridge and took the steps down to the path running between the canal and the Mersey. This area is thickly wooded and was still damp underfoot after the recent rains. Robins sang, magpies and woodpigeons barged around. The canalside vegetation is so thick it's difficult to see it as a canal, and it wasn't easy to see many of the mallards and moorhens I kept hearing on it. I had no chance of seeing the Cetti's warbler singing by it. 

By the Runcorn and Latchford Canal 

I had a lot more chance with the jays flying about and, eventually, with the mixed tit flock bouncing through the willows. Ideally you want to stand where a tit flock is going to be and have them come to you so you get to see all the players but I had to play catch-up with this one. The long-tailed tits and blue tits were definitely working together, I'm not sure that the great tits and chiffchaff were part of the flock or just happened to meet. The blackbirds feeding on a guelder rose looked like new arrivals.

Mersey Viaducts 

The trees thin out a lot on the approach to the viaducts and I could see that although the river was running normally the banks were flattened and muddy and had definitely broken in places during the spate. If you're ever on a train going between Warrington Bank Quay and Runcorn East this is where you cross the Mersey. If you stand here and ask Google Maps how to get to Moore Nature Reserve it gives you an hour and a half's walk back to Chester Road, through Walton and Moore and over the river. It's five minutes from here.

Moore Nature Reserve 

I walked under the viaducts then took the path to the left, went through the gate and was onto Moore Nature Reserve. The path was mostly good, though wet, there were a few places where the mud had to be walked round. It was also very quiet of people, I met half a dozen: three joggers, three dog walkers and five dogs that were getting a bath when they got home. Magpies and robins fossicked by the path margins, chiffchaffs squeaked, great tits were integral parts of mixed tit flocks and jays shone golden in the sunlight as they ferried acorns about.

I could hear coots and moorhens on the pools in the East reedbeds. Every so often I caught a glimpse of water through the trees and the very occasional mallard. Although it was clear blue sky above there were thick clouds nearer the horizon and whenever the sun went in the sudden chill in the air was noticeable.

The Pumphouse Pool 

At the junction I took the path to the right and walked up to Colin's Hide to have a look at the Pumphouse Pool. 

Pochards and coot

Dozens of coots littered the pool. There were a couple of dozen pochards, too, together with a few gadwalls, teal and tufted ducks. A pair of mute swans cruised the far bank.

The path up to Colin's Hide was very wet, it gets muddier further along. I didn't fancy that so I walked back to the path by the railway. 

Moore Nature Reserve 

I was walking towards Birchwood Pool when I suddenly remembered I was in Cheshire and would do well to check the bus times. If I were getting the last bus back to Warrington from Moore I had twelve minutes to do the mile and a half walk which wasn't happening. I weighed up walking down to get the X30 which is the hourly bus from Chester to Warrington and decided the sensible thing would be to walk back whence I came and get the X30 at Taylor Street which would give me plenty of time to walk across the road from the bus station to the train station and get the direct train home. As it was, I was at the bottom of the steps leading up to the bus stop when the bus went by so I had to walk back to the train station. And managed to get there with twelve minutes to spare for my train. My knees will be reminding me of that all weekend.

As I waited for the train a few gulls flew low over the station rooftop. I assumed they were all black-headed gulls, and so four of them were. Luckily the Mediterranean gull decided to catch my attention by calling loudly and I took a proper look at it as it passed by.

Urban birdwatching

Juvenile moorhens, Alexandra Park 

I've held off putting out food for the birds in the back garden this past week because I didn't want to encourage the ring-necked parakeet that's been hanging round, and I've not been entirely gruntled with the squirrels either, but with the onset of colder weather I relented and filled up all the feeders. The magpies were there before I'd even finished and the robin wasn't far behind. It usually takes the sparrows a day or two to come back in after a hiatus, a couple of cock sparrows were in pretty quickly, sharing the sunflower feeders with a goldfinch. The cock sparrows are nearly always the explorers, they'll be letting the others know we're back in business. It'll be interesting this Winter to see if I can work out which flock's in at any time, the two family groups seem to have disintegrated and I've not worked out the new dynamics. Oddly enough, the blue tits and great tits have been in all week but I've not seen them today.

Wild cherry, Barton Clough

I had an excellent excuse for listening to the Test Match (records skittling left, right and centre) but end of play coincided with a long gap in the schedules for trains and buses. I went for a wander round the local patch to fill in a bit of time. No bonus little egrets today but there were more woodpigeons about this time, also a flock of half a dozen goldfinches. There was just the one chiffchaff tagging along with the mixed tit flock in the trees. There was just the one gull on the football pitch, a common gull which is a sign that the weather's changing.

Grey squirrel, Barton Clough 

I was going to go over to the Trafford Centre to play bus station bingo but the 150 to Gorton was due as I emerged onto Barton Dock Road so I got that. This bus goes through Stretford and Chorlton then goes through Fallowfield and Levenshulme before making a detour through Longsight and Belle Vue and ending up in Gorton. Broadly the choices along the way were Longford Park, Turn Moss and thence the Mersey Valley, Alexandra Park, Platt Fields or Debdale Park and the Gorton Reservoirs. Looking at the state of the traffic through Stretford and Chorlton it was likely I'd be seeing the sunset at Gorton so I got off at Withington Road and walked up to Alexandra Park.

Alexandra Park 

The ring-necked parakeets noisily flying about on Withington Road were a precursor of the racket they were making in the park. It was very difficult indeed to hear any small bird noises, even the robins and a nuthatch struggled to be heard. 

Juvenile moorhen, Alexandra Park 

The pond was modestly busy with ducks, the tufted ducks mostly loafing on the water or getting some sleep, the drake mallards jostling each other for the chance to start impressing the ladies. There didn't seem to be many coots, moorhens or Canada geese about and no mute swans. A flock of sixty-something pigeons crowded the bank by the play area with a similar number of black-headed gulls on the waterside.

Tufted duck, Alexandra Park 

Tufted duck, Alexandra Park 

Moorhen, Alexandra Park 

Tufted ducks, Alexandra Park 

Tufted ducks, Alexandra Park
Yes, I did look twice at the tuftie at the back.

Over on the football pitches a flock of six mistle thrushes shared a penalty box with a lesser black-back.

Mistle thrushes, Alexandra Park 

I'd intended to walk on from Alexandra Park into Old Trafford, taking a look at Merlin's Park, Hullard Park and Seymour Park along the way but I hit that period where the school run meets the rush hour and headed home while the going was good. I'd got a couple of short walks in while the weather was behaving itself.

Alexandra Park 

Longendale Trail

Guelder rose 

I decided to let the wind and rain of the night work itself out of its system before setting out anywhere for a walk then got engrossed in the Test Match so it was lunchtime before I started making tracks. I still wasn't convinced of the weather so I thought I'd head for somewhere near a railway station, the Longendale Trail starts literally just round the corner from Hadfield Station and the trains are every half hour, so off we trot then.

Longendale Trail 

It was a grey sort of afternoon but the wind had calmed down and it was quite nice walking weather. The jackdaws of Hadfield had decided it was gloomy enough to start congregating on rooftops ready for heading to roost. The stretch of the old line up to Padfield Main Road was very quiet indeed, a couple of robins quietly fossicking about in the undergrowth, a couple of magpies fossicking about noisily by the old trackside and half a dozen woodpigeons clattering about in the treetops.

Bottoms Reservoir 

Moving into the more open country above Bottoms Reservoir the hedgerows started to get a little busier, wrens, dunnocks and goldfinches letting me know they saw me passing by and robins bobbing out to see what the noise was about. A couple of dozen Canada geese grazed on one of the fields sloping down to the reservoir and a similar number were in a raft drifting over to the far bank where I could just about pick out a family of goosanders, the very slight pink flush on the drake clinching the identification. There was a black shape bobbing about midwater, it took a few moments to realise it was a duck and an age to realise it was a drake common scoter.

Longendale Trail 

I walked on a little way, jackdaws flitting about the fields up the hill on one side of the trail, woodpigeons and mallards feeding on the slopes on the other side. A chiffchaff squeaked as it flew across the path into a hawthorn bush, there was a lot of sad-sounding tweets and wheezes from a flock of siskins in the trees.

On the way back I took the little detour that leads to the Transpennine Trail going up the hill. I had no intention of following that trail, I just wanted to follow this loop as it goes behind the copse that separates it from the old train line. A couple of greenfinches were settling into the hawthorns to roost and another chiffchaff squeaked from within the depths. 

Under the track to the footpath 

I've often wondered how people got onto the path that goes down the fields towards the reservoir, it turns out the path runs under a little railway arch halfway along the copse. I decided to leave it another day to debate whether or not my knees are up to walking down that slope. 

Buzzard

As I rejoined the old track a buzzard floated overhead and was immediately escorted out of town by a couple of carrion crows.

Padfield Main Road bridge

Heading back to Hadfield the robins had started singing and a couple of great tits were calling from the trackside hedgerows. All the serious bird action was going on at the station where a mixed tit flock was bouncing round in the trees by the platform. At least half a dozen long-tailed tits flitted about with great tits and blue tits with a chaffinch tagging along. As the train back to Manchester pulled into the station it started raining. For once I'd managed just the right window of opportunity for going for a walk without getting wet. They should make it a national holiday.

Foulridge

Hoopoe
A pretty poor record shot but it's there.

It was a nice, sunny day so I thought I'd have a try at seeing the hoopoe that's been on Lower Foulridge Reservoir just outside Colne over the weekend.

Google Maps gave me all sorts of peculiar routes to take to get to the reservoir, all of them dead straightforward from Colne onwards. Getting from Manchester to Colne is a lot easier than Google thinks it is. Unfortunately, the way my trains into Manchester work I'm getting the Barrow train North and have the choice of changing at Bolton for the Blackburn train and missing the Colne train by five minutes and having best part of an hour's wait or staying on to Preston and missing the Colne train by five minutes and having best part of an hour's wait. So I went to Preston, got the York train, got off at Burnley and got the M3 bus to Colne. The M5 or M6 would take me directly to Foulridge but I had a wait for either of them. In the event the M5 passed me on Skipton Road just as I got to Upper Foulridge Reservoir. It's about forty minutes' walk from the railway station or just over half an hour from the Market Street bus stop I got off at.

Upper Foulridge Reservoir 

I had a look at Upper Foulridge Reservoir seeing as I was there. The far bank was lined with cormorants and herons, a couple of dozen Canada geese and a farm goose grazed the bank and thirty-odd lapwings wheeled about before settling into the grass. A bunch of black-headed gulls and jackdaws were bathing by the near bank. There were a few more black-headed gulls midwater together with a couple of great crested grebes and a couple of little egrets were grubbing about by the reservoir outlet channel.

The path to Lower Foulridge Reservoir 

Crossing the road I joined the path going clockwise round the lake. The hoopoe had been reported from the North side and I could have gone straight to the bunch of people with binoculars and telescopes but it was a nice day, I needed a walk and it was an unfamiliar landscape so I went the long way round.

Lower Foulridge Reservoir 

Carrion crow, teal and shelduck
Everything was keeping its distance.

The water looked low despite this year's weather. There was a wide expanse of exposed ground littered with distant teal and a single shelduck. A few mallards dabbled at the water's edge and four wigeon loafed on the bank. There were a few great crested grebes and a couple of tufted ducks out on the water.

Great crested grebe 

The path wound round between a couple of dry stone walls. For most of the way there was willow and alder scrub on the reservoir side, fields and oak trees on the other. Wrens and robins sang, jackdaws mooched around in the fields and I kept hearing hints of a mixed tit flock but could only pick up a couple of long-tailed tits and a great tit.

By Lower Foulridge Reservoir 

I bumped into a couple of blokes and one asked: "Have you seen the bird?" "I'm assuming it's with the crowd over there," I replied. "Aye, get round quick before someone or their dog spooks it." It turned out he was the one who found the hoopoe on Friday, I congratulated him on his find and moved on.

There were plenty of people out walking their dogs around the reservoir and all of them were polite and splendidly behaved. I wasn't so sure about the birdwatchers, every time I looked over they were further and further beyond the cover of the trees by the path until in the end they were clustered on the beach.

Lower Foulridge Reservoir, turning onto the Northern shore

I looked in vain for any wagtails, which is unusual on reservoirs in my experience. As I turned past the sailing club and started walking the North sure I could see a flock of linnets working the beach with a dozen or so meadow pipits. At this distance I was relying on the white flashes on the wings to identify the linnets, it was only as I passed a couple of bends and started being behind cover of trees I was getting close enough to identify the meadow pipits. I couldn't see any birdwatchers.

Lower Foulridge Reservoir 

I got to an open space and saw the knot of birdwatchers. They'd shifted round a good way. Then I saw why they were keeping moving…

Birdwatchers
A detail from the photo above.

There was one lady way ahead of the group who was trying to get a photo of the hoopoe and kept getting too close and flushing it. I got close enough to hear an exchange of pleasantries and in time the lady started walking back. I kept my distance and didn't get involved.

Hoopoe (on second big rock from the left) and carrion crow

The hoopoe was showing well but now very distant in the wide stretch of beach where I started my walk round. (I was spoilt rotten in that my first-ever hoopoe was on a cricket pitch in Collingham and wasn't much fussed by the people crowded round the boundary.) A couple of carrion crows fossicking around nearby provided a bit of scale, a hoopoe's a smaller, slighter bird than they look on their own in photographs.

Hoopoe (lower right) and carrion crows

I returned to the path and carried on walking. A little way along I was able to get a few record shots of the hoopoe through the trees. A bit further along there was a gap in the trees and I was yet closer to where I thought I remembered the hoopoe being (there was a convenient big rock to use as a point of reference) but I couldn't see it at all. There was a little path leading out to the beach here which I didn't take, the poor bird had had plenty enough disturbance.

Along the Northern shore of Lower Foulridge Reservoir 

I was standing by the church yard checking the bus times back into Colne when the bus went past so I had quarter of an hour to wait for the next one and missed the train back. By five minutes. No one to blame for that one but myself. I waited for the next train and changed at Blackburn for the train into Manchester via Bolton, the one via Todmorden being cancelled.

The Colne train's a stopper, unlike the York train I came over on. As we whizzed by Rishton Reservoir on the way up there was a great white egret lording it above the black-headed gulls on the near bank, on the way back it was a crowd of Canada geese and black-headed gulls.

Lower Foulridge Reservoir 

Wellacre Country Park

Comma, Wellacre Wood 

I wasn't for wasting what might be the last mild, sunny day before what the newspapers are promising might be fifteen feet of snow but will really be a week of grey and damp in the mid-fifties so I got the 256 into Flixton for a walk round Wellacre Country Park.

Wellacre Wood 

As I walked in from the bus stop by Delamere School the rooks, jackdaws and ring-necked parakeets in the trees were making a racket and blackbirds rummaged about in the undergrowth. The moment I stepped into Wellacre Wood it went dead quiet. It was fairly windy so the creaks and groans of the trees echoed those of my knees and further emphasised the quiet of the birds. I didn't see a one and it was only as I got to the edge of the wood I started to hear the carrion crows and magpies in the fields beyond. A comma butterfly sunning itself in the sunshine at the edge of the wood was a welcome bit of non-leaf movement.

It wasn't terribly busy out in the fields either. A handful of magpies bounced about, a couple of carrion crows fed in a field of cattle and a few woodpigeons flew overhead. It came as a relief to hear a robin singing in the hedgerow.

The long-tailed tits at Jack Lane weren't for having their photos taken.

At first it felt like it was going to be the same in Jack Lane. A couple of magpies cackled in the trees and a moorhen muttered in the reeds as I passed. I was most the way through the path through the reeds when the appearance of a dozen long-tailed tits heralded a mixed tit flock. The long-tailed tits were noisy and conspicuous as they barrelled along through the willows like monkeys. The great tits, blue tits and chiffchaffs were very hard work indeed. They were a lot easier (but not actually easy) to pick up when I bumped into the same flock by the railway embankment a little later, despite the distraction of the blood-curdling cries of a water rail in the reeds on the other side of the path.

By Jack Lane 

There was a smaller mixed tit flock at Dutton's Pond where the mallards were keeping well away from the squabblings of the moorhens. 

Green Hill 

I walked down past Green Hill to Flixton Road, the blue tits and great tits in the hedgerow not really making up any sort of flock. The only birds on the river were three woodpigeons getting a drink.

October's a funny month, very famine-or-feast. Still, if it were predictable it would be boring.

Local patch

Little egret, Lostock Park

If I had my time again I'd be driving all over the shop and let the planet burn. I'd overslept and it was going to be an impossible push to get out for the Liverpool train before ten so I didn't even try. In theory it was perfectly possible to get any number of later trains to go out on the planned excursion, in practice this was Saturday and the service was going to be flaky. In the event the service was non existent after ten o'clock, there just weren't any Northern rail services running the rest of the day. Any suspicion I had of engineering works or some type of unfortunate incident on the line were confounded by all the express trains running by almost punctually, it was just Northern being crap, as per.

I had a plan B which involved waiting for that bus that's always due in nine minutes' time until it disappears and you're waiting for the bus after it. I got fed up of it and went for a walk round my local patch.

Wild cherry, Barton Clough 

The park was, unsurprisingly, busy with people and quiet of birds on a relatively warm, sunny Saturday. Thus it was that I was astonished to see a little egret flying low over the trees over the other side and continue on into Urmston. Not a patch tick I'd anticipated.

Lostock Park 

Other than that it was another very quiet hour's wander about though the blackbird numbers are starting to pick up again. It's been a particularly quiet year for small birds: the chiffchaffs stuck around but the other warblers gave it up as a bad job mid-August and the flocks of goldfinches have been uniformly small family parties. Robin numbers have been down this year and I saw or heard none today which is a worry. I think an overzealous bout of tidying up at the beginning of the year can't have helped.

• Black-headed gull 1 overhead
• Blackbird 6
• Carrion crow 1
• Chiffchaff 1
• Feral pigeon 1 overhead 
• Goldfinch 2
• Great tit 1
• Jackdaw 1
• Little egret 1 overhead 
• Long-tailed tit 4
• Magpie 6
• Woodpigeon 11
• Wren 2

Barton Clough, the old freight rail line