Etherow Country Park

Mandarin duck
Lots of camera wobble with a 500mm lens at ⅙ second.

It was a dark, gloomy November day but as it was also surprisingly mild and dry I felt I couldn't spend the day with a pot of tea and a pile of Harold Hare comics despite having had two consecutive nights of not managing to get to sleep before five. I'd overslept, which limited my options so I decided to head off over to Etherow Country Park to take photos of mandarin ducks in the gloom. 

Etherow Country Park 

The mandarin ducks decided to make the challenge that more difficult by hardly bothering to get out of bed, lurking in the undergrowth below the canal banks. Taking photos with a long lens at one-sixth of a second is not so much pushing your luck as taking the Michael and it's a miracle not all of them were blurry abstracts. As is often the case the most interesting poor light photos turn out to be the ones where you're not frantically bracketing the exposure to get the most "natural" effect. Poor light and night photography really highlight the difference between the eye and the camera: the eye/brain combination makes a myriad micro adjustments and filling-in assumptions even within a matter of a second and what we see and the way we see it is more like the composition of a painting than the taking of a photo.

Etherow Country Park 

The supporting cast of Canada geese, coots and mallards were a bit thin on the ground and there was just the one mute swan about. Half a dozen tufted ducks drifted across the boating lake.

River Etherow 

The river was very high and with the Weir in full flow and only a couple of rocks projecting out of the water it was no surprise not to find any sign of a dipper.

Keg Wood 

I made brief nods to Ernocroft Wood and Keg Wood where most of the small birds had already given up on the day and the twilight shift of robins and blackbirds started early. Pairs of carrion crows sang their claims for prime nesting sites and a couple kept a watchful eye as a noisy buzzard floated in to roost in Ernocroft Wood.

Canada geese 

The drizzle started as I walked back to the car park and was proper rain as I stood waiting for the 384 to Stockport. Luckily there's a bus every twenty minutes and one was due in three minutes. It was that golden hour after the school run but before the rush hour when schedules are flights of fancy and the online information about bus times are at best a shot in the dark so when one turned up forty minutes later I decided to get off at Marple Station and get the train into Manchester, I'd have a five minutes wait at Marple and a good half hour to  get over to Oxford Road for the train home. Which turned out to be a very bad idea, the train was half an hour late into Piccadilly. So I both missed my train with an hour and a half to wait for the next and stuck at Piccadilly Gardens at the beginning of that hilarious period where you have to wait three quarters of an hour to wait for the two 256s that leave together (I'm really not making that up, I noticed tonight that the 255s were paired up, too, which is bad news as it's a less frequent service). Which is why it took three hours to travel fourteen miles. It's no wonder there's only us two old blokes birdwatching by public transport these days.

Lazy day

I decided to have a day off to give the joints a bit of a rest from the damp and the boots a bit of a rest from the considerably more than damp. There's a lot to do in the garden and not a lot of inclination to do much of it. The birds benefit from this lack of energy by having plenty of shelter in between forays to the feeders.

There were a couple of coal tits barging round the rowan tree, I think both were females, and a small flock of long-tailed tits made a cameo appearance before bouncing their way along the embankment towards the railway station. A collared dove and a carrion crow took turns to sing down the chimney (I think it's because the echo makes them sound big and butch).

• Blue tit 4
• Carrion crow 1
• Coal tit 2
• Collared dove 1
• Great tit 2
• House sparrow 18
• Long-tailed tit 5
• Magpie 1
• Robin 1
• Starling 1
• Woodpigeon 1

The wind's blowing a lot of black-headed gulls about. It's the first time for a few weeks there's been double figures amongst the lunchtime crowd at the school. There were plenty flying about while I was traveling about on the bus and I noticed a few flocks of a couple of dozen or so as we passed by some fields. It wasn't just black-headed gulls that were blown in, there was a right crowd circling the playground today.

• Black-headed gull 18
• Carrion crow 1
• Common gull 1
• Herring gull 7
• Jackdaw 18
• Lesser black-back 7
• Magpie 3
• Rook 12
• Starling 3
• Woodpigeon 1

Martin Mere

Pochard

A bright sunny morning looked like turning into a melancholic overcast lunchtime as I stepped off the train at New Lane but mercifully it changed its mind. I'd come for a visit to Martin Mere but decided to go the long way round to see if there were any Winter warblers by the water treatment works.

Pink-footed geese, New Lane

As I walked along the path by the railway line pink-footed geese and black-headed gulls flew overhead and robins and blackbirds bounced about in the hawthorn bushes. The filtration tanks on the other side of the line were busy with pied wagtails and starlings.

By New Lane 

At first glance there didn't seem much on the fields on this side of the line except carrots. The piece of set-aside had been mostly turned over, a few entirely stripped heads of sunflowers poking up here and there. Then I got to the field of fennel which was busy with small bird noises and the occasional appearance of linnets or meadow pipits. The field beyond that had sixty-odd woodpigeons feeding on it. There were more woodpigeons in the trees on the edge of the field, also a flock of a hundred or so finches, mostly chaffinches with goldfinches, greenfinches and linnets silhouetted against a sun that had decided to emerge from the clouds. I couldn't see any bramblings or buntings.

Stonechat, New Lane

A little egret flew by as I approached the crossing and a kestrel was hovering over the rough on the other side before it decided to head for the reedbeds at Martin Mere. I was escorted off the rough and onto the path around the reedbeds by two pairs of stonechats.

Windmill Farm

The sun was out good and proper now and provided an excellent golden modelling light across the mosses and Martin Mere.

Treecreeper

The path around the outside of Martin Mere was exceeding damp in parts and in a couple of places only navigable by taking a long detour through a patch of thistles. The hedgerows were quietly bustling. My first blackcap of the Winter, a female, was bustling about in a patch of hawthorn with a treecreeper and a couple of robins. Further along I started to bump into small tit flocks, equal numbers of blue and long-tailed with great tits in attendance.

There was a greenfinch there a moment ago

I stopped counting Cetti's warblers after the fifth one sang from the scrub I was skirting on a detour through a thistle patch. Water rails squealed at each other from the reedbeds on the other side of the hedge and every so often a moorhen would swim across the path. Small groups of greenfinches and chaffinches bustled through the treetops.

The path was a little damp

I walked up the path to the sewage works fence and had a look round. There was a very noisy wren and rather a lot of midges but nothing by the way of warblers.

By the water treatment works 

Walking past the pool by the gate to the outside world the only gadwall of the day was dozing with mallards in the corner of the reeds.

Despite all the rain the walk down to the road was less ghastly than last time though still grim. I was tiptoeing around the edge of an extremely deep and dank puddle, both hands holding onto the fence for support, when a Cetti's warbler leap out of the patch of mugwort on the other side of the mire and shot through the fence by my side, disappearing into the reeds by the drain. Not for the first time I wondered why I do this to myself. A little further on I stood ankle-deep in the mud as I checked out a big flock of chaffinches in the treetops hoping in vain for the first brambling of the year. Try as I might they were all chaffinches. Except for the ones that were mistle thrushes or great spotted woodpeckers.

Whooper swan

The wildfowl were starting to congregate on the mere ready for the afternoon feed scheduled for three o'clock. 

Largely whoopers and mallards

There was a good three quarters of an hour to wait but already the patch of water immediately in front of the Discovery Hide was wall-to-wall whooper swans, mallards, wigeons and pochards. The pintails and shelducks were keeping their distance and all the teal were over on the islands with the lapwings. At least a thousand pink-feet were on the reserve, a few hundred of them on the far bank with more incoming.

Whooper swans, pink-footed geese, cormorants, pintails, lapwings and shelduck

The long muddy walk had taken its toll on my knees (and I'd forgotten to put a new packet of painkillers in my pocket when I came out) so I decided not to make a long wander of my visit, I still had to keep some in the tank for the walk down to Burscough Bridge for the train home. I strolled down to the Ron Barker Hide, the hedges busy with titmice, finches and blackbirds but no sign of any tree sparrows.

Marsh harrier roost

There were a hundred or so wigeon on the pool by the Ron Barker Hide with perhaps half as many teal. A few whooper swans grazed with a Canada goose. A marsh harrier flew in and dropped into the trees at the end of the drain to join the four harriers already gone to roost. I had no joy in my scan round for owls but found a buzzard sat on a distant fencepost.

From the Ron Barker Hide

Fieldfare

Walking back I noticed a mixed flock of fieldfares, chaffinches and greenfinches settling into the roadside trees behind The Duckery, the low sun setting the fieldfares' chests ablaze against the blue sky.

Tarlscough Lane 

I'd had no luck seeing barn owls at the Ron Barker Hide nor any finding tawny owls in the ivy-covered trees by the Kingfisher Hide and I was to have no luck finding little owls in the paddocks in the fading light along Red Cat Lane. There were consolations: flocks of fieldfares and lapwings heading for roosts, large skeins of pink-footed geese overhead and the incongruity of a male sparrowhawk settling down to roost with a flock of pied wagtails deep in the treetops by Brandeth Barn. And the sunset was worth the price of admission.

By Brandeth Barn
(That's a field of Winter barley not a lake)

Moore

Long-tailed duck

It was one of those days where you don't realise how bad the light is until you glance at the shutter settings your camera's chosen for a photo. It started off dark and gloomy, drizzled heavily for an hour or so and then settled for being a dark and gloomy day. I've had Moore Nature Reserve in my sights for a while, having last visited it in the nineties, a long-tailed duck was reported there over the weekend, I've not seen one this year so off I went.

I got the train to Warrington and then the number 12 bus to the Gainsborough Road stop on Chester Road. I crossed the road, walked a little way down then dropped down onto the bit of the Transpennine Trail that runs by this stretch of the Mersey.

Blackbird

Walking through this strip of light woodland was damp underfoot and the long pool between the path and the houses was very high. I'm not sure if this pool is a relic of the old Runcorn and Latchford Canal. It was very busy with moorhens and mallards. A mixed tit flock — a couple of dozen long-tailed tits, some blue tits and great tits and a couple of goldcrests — bounced to and fro between the trees and the back gardens.

Goldfinches

A flock of a couple of dozen goldfinches worked the cones on some young alders in the company of a couple of siskins.

Eastford Road 

I joined Eastford Road, walked under the viaducts and turned onto the lane for Moore Nature Reserve. Almost immediately I hit a puzzle. Two jackdaw-sized birds flew into one of the trees on the embankment, disappeared into the rough grass, flew into the tree then were off, all in a matter of seconds. All I was sure of was dark wings and tail and a lot of white on the rump and lower back and an odd call like a very contented hen. They came back for a very brief repeat performance and I was none the wiser. A process of elimination narrowed the suspects down to either jays or an insoluble mystery. Jays seemed more likely but the call baffled me. So I had a hunt through on Xeno-Canto: it's the courtship song. Well I never.

By the East Reedbed

As I walked down the lane there were more mixed tit flocks and small flocks of goldfinches and siskins. I saw a sign for the Phoenix Hide on the East Reedbed and followed the trail for a bit until it ended in a hip-high bank of damp sandy mud. I wasn't up for trying to scale it, especially as it was raining at the time, making it even more treacherous underfoot, so I walked back to the lane and carried on to the Pumphouse Pool.

Pumphouse Pool, the rail viaduct over the Ship Canal is on the left

The long-tailed duck had been seen on this pool from Colin's Hide, about fifty yards up a side path. The long-tailed duck was the second thing I saw, the first being the bloke sitting in the hide playing his transistor radio very loud (I didn't think they still made transistor radios). The duck was showing well, if distant, in the company of half a dozen tufted ducks. Walking back I bumped into a small flock of chaffinches feeding in the hedgerow and checked them in the doomed hope there might be some bramblings in there.

Birch Wood 

The rain stopped and it became a gloomy overcast day. The birch woods beyond the Pumphouse Pool were very quiet, just robins and wrens with the occasional passing blackbird. 

Long-tailed duck

I noticed a little hide giving a view of the Western side of the pool so I had a look to see if anything else was about. By pure dumb luck the long-tailed duck came swimming over and showed really well. Unfortunately the light was so bad half the photos I got had camera shake (500mm lens at one thirtieth of a second is pushing your luck a lot). It was a nice little thing. I can't tell a female long-tailed duck from a first-Winter male, it was one or the other.

Dabchick

I carried on through the birch woods to Birch Wood Pool which was noisy with a dozen frisky teal. A dozen black-headed gulls floated about, dozing and bathing. A similar number of coots were dotted about and four dabchicks hunted near the bank. A few black-headed gulls and lesser black-backs flew overhead and I very nearly missed a Mediterranean gull that passed by.

Birch Wood Pool 

The birch woods at this side of Lapwing Wood were even quieter than the woods I'd been walking through. 

Lapwing Wood 

As the path turned back on itself to run beside Lapwing Pool there was more variety of trees sitting in the pools and puddles, including a lot of oaks and alders, and a lot more birds. A couple of mixed tit flocks passed by and up in the top of one clump of alders a mixed finch flock included goldfinches, siskins and at least a couple of redpolls. I was trying to work my way through the silhouettes in the canopy when they decided to fly over to another stand of trees fifty yards down the way. I though I was looking at a few dozen finches, there were more than a hundred.

Wigeon

Lapwing Pool was busy with gadwall, coots, wigeon and shovelers with a few teal and mallards as supporting cast. A mixed tit flock passed through the reeds and noticed that somebody (not me) had put bird food down on the path to the hide. They weren't unduly bothered as I tiptoed my way through them to get back to the path.

Coal tit

I'd had three hours' exploring the site and my knees were starting to notice the damp so I called it quits, walking into Moore for the bus back to Warrington. I checked the times, didn't fancy waiting forty minutes for the next 62 so I walked down Runcorn Road and got the X30 back from Walton Hall. It had been a good few hours' birdwatching despite the dismal weather. I won't wait another nearly thirty years for a return visit.

Ribble Estuary: Banks Marsh and Hesketh Out Marsh

Sketch map: Banks Marsh and Hesketh Outer Marsh

The Ribble Estuary is internationally important for wildfowl in Winter and a trip out to the marshes at Banks and Hesketh Outer is well worth it for a few hours' birdwatching. The rest of the year the numbers of birds are less spectacular but it's a pleasant walk which can still provide some good birdwatching. If you have the time and energy you can carry on the walk through Crossens Marsh to Marshside and into Southport. If you're pushed for time or energy you can walk either Banks Marsh or Hesketh Outer Marsh and catch the bus at the halfway mark at Hundred End.

Whooper swans, Hundred End

This is dead open countryside and you're at the mercy of the elements so if there's any hint of wind, rain or snow make sure to wear sensible clothing.

I've gotten into the habit of starting the walk at Hesketh Bank and heading West, partly because it feels like less of a walk to the bus stop at the end, partly because if I get into Banks or Crossens there's a wider choice of buses to catch, the number 2 bus that goes along Shore Road between Hesketh Bank and Banks is an hourly service. The 2 runs from Preston to Southport, you can pick it up just outside the train station at Preston or along Lord Street in Southport. The X2 also runs from Preston to Southport but takes the inland bypass to get between Tarleton and Banks. You can get this, get off at the bus stop on Ralph's Wife's Lane and walk up the Eastern bank of the Alt onto Banks Marsh. (At Preston don't get the 2A, this goes through Rufford and Burscough on to Ormskirk, handy for quite a few places but not the Ribble Estuary.)

Hesketh Out Marsh 

From Hesketh Bank, get off at the bus stop just as the bus turns into Shore Road. Walk a few hundred yards down the road behind the bus as it heads for the horizon and you'll see a small road, Dib Road, heading out into the marsh. This is the path to take to the RSPB reserve at Hesketh Out Marsh. Follow it down to the end where there are some farm buildings and a set of steps up to the bund. (Look out for tree sparrows round here). It can get very muddy as you get onto the bund so mind your step. Once you're onto the bund proper it's generally easy going though there are bound to be a few puddles and bits of mud after bad weather. 

Banks Marsh 

The bund stretches down into Banks Marsh. You can only go as far as halfway down then you have to drop down, go over the stile and walk down to Hundred End where Shore Road becomes Marsh Road. You then have to take three steps along the road to join the path that takes you back to the bund for a walk along Banks Marsh.

Walking along the bund by Banks Marsh 

Just over a kilometre down the path you have the choice of either dropping down from the bund and walking down Marsh Road to the bus stops at the top of New Lane Pace or you can carry on walking and join the path along the bank of the River Alt into Banks and either get the bus on Ralph's Wife's Lane or walk into Crossens.

Wigeon, Banks Marsh

If you're having a Winter walk expect to see a lot of pink-footed geese overhead or out on the marsh. Check out the fields for whooper swans and make sure there aren't any Bewick's swans in amongst them. Likewise check out the geese, there's often a couple of European white-fronted geese about; nearly always somewhere in all the thousands of pink-footed geese moving around this corner of Lancashire there'll be a tundra bean goose or two; most year a snow goose will be doing the rounds, usually white morphs but this year it's a blue snow goose; a Todd's Canada goose has been a regular Winter visitor the past few years, and there's always scope for something rarer to turn up (I missed a red-breasted goose by two hours). The resident flocks of greylags and feral Canada geese are topped up by Winter visitors.

Pink-footed geese and wildfowlers, Banks Marsh

The other Winter visitors are ducks and waders. At times the marsh is a sea of wigeon, which attracts wildfowlers to Banks Marsh where licensed shooting is permitted. There are smaller numbers of teal and mallard. There are large flocks of lapwings, black-tailed godwits and golden plovers, there are usually plenty of curlews and redshanks about, too. Keep an eye out for anything unusual because the unusual turns up surprisingly often on these marshes. The skylarks, linnets and meadow pipits that flit about the marsh are worth a second look to make sure there aren't any twite or water pipits about.

Where there are lots of small birds there'll be birds of prey. The marsh harriers and kestrels are resident on the estuary, the hen harriers and merlins are Winter visitors. There's no guarantee of seeing any of them, some days you'll see none, some days you'll see all of them and a couple of peregrines too. Short-eared owls are uncommon visitors.

Brown hare, Hesketh Out Marsh

The rest of the year tends to be quieter, some days a cursory glance at the marshes suggest they're deserted. They're not, you just have to work a bit harder as most of the ducks and geese will have moved on. Wader and wagtail passage often includes something unusual and a spoonbill or two will sometimes drop in to one of the small pools for a bit of a kip. Even on a slow day, though, if the weather's fine there's some excellent walking to be had.

Home thoughts

It's a strange thing but today was the first time in twenty-three years I haven't seen any house sparrows in the garden. All week there's been at least a dozen in the fruit bushes all day, not today. Nor did I see them on the feeders, which gave the titmice, including the now-regular female coal tit, a free ride on the sunflower seeds. Almost certainly they've been around but just not when I've been looking, they're fairly quiet this time of year (by their standards) so I don't always get the aural cues to look up and out.

On the subject of missing elements I haven't been seeing the collared doves this week. I don't know if they move on the same way that the woodpigeons evidently do. Perhaps they've been elsewhere profiting from a local plenty, it seems to be a good year for beech mast in the Mersey Valley. The collared dove singing down this chimney this afternoon was the first since the eleventh.

A couple of woodpigeons were feeding on the school playing field with a crowd of jackdaws and magpies this afternoon. With all the rain we've had lately and with it being Autumn and all I'd normally expect a flock of black-headed gulls worm-dancing on the field, there was just the one today. They haven't reached double figures yet this month. Perhaps the structure of the field has changed somehow so there's fewer worms but still plenty of insects for the corvids. Perhaps the avian flu's to blame. Or perhaps the gulls are as confused by the weather as the rest of us. There's a lot that doesn't feel quite right lately.

Mersey Valley

Blackbird, Chorlton Ees

I resisted the temptation to spend a nice Autumn day drinking far too much tea and headed off for a walk around the Mersey Valley. I'd noticed that for some reason I haven't seen any nuthatches or great spotted woodpeckers this month so I thought a long wander round Ivy Green and Chorlton Ees was in order.

Walking past the playing fields on Turn Moss I noticed that although all the noise was coming from a couple of black-headed gulls all the rest of the gulls, a couple of dozen of them, were common gulls. Round these parts common gulls tend to prefer at least a couple of acres of open space to feed on so there's only a handful of playing fields where I'll see them in flocks.

Hawthorn Lane

The carrion crows were singing noisily in the trees at the Turn Moss end of Hawthorn Lane. Elsewhere it was the ring-necked parakeets and robins making the noise while wrens, dunnocks and even magpies quietly went about their business.

Chorlton Ees 

I crossed Chorlton Brook into Chorlton Ees where a parakeet shrieked from the hawthorn bush by the river and robins fossicked by the side of the path. Blackbirds fussed about in the undergrowth, the hawthorns and rowans having been stripped bare. There were still plenty of berries on some of the spindle trees. 

Spindle berries 

I kept hearing a great spotted woodpecker but it took an age to find it deep in a larch tree. It took even longer to find the first mixed tit flock, by one of the newly restored woodland pools. I noticed the goldcrests in the elderberry bushes first, then a couple of treecreepers flitting between tree trunks. The great tits were feeding in the leaf litter, flitting up onto low branches to have a look round every so often before dropping back down. All the while I'd been hearing long-tailed tits but not seeing them. Then I looked up. A couple of dozen of them were feeding high up in the canopy of the ash trees.

Chorlton Ees 

Oddly enough there weren't any blue tits in that flock. I thought the same was true of the next flock I bumped into. The great tits and long-tailed tits were working the hawthorns along the path with a single goldcrest. It wasn't until I got to the end of the path that I could see the half a dozen blue tits working the line of brambles between the hawthorn bushes and the hay meadow.

I joined the path by the river, which was running fast and high. Mallards hugged the banks while herons and cormorants flew by without landing. Half a dozen parakeets screeched out of Chorlton Ees and over to Jackson's Boat.

Grey wagtail, Jackson's Boat

Jackson's Boat 

A grey wagtail flitted about the riverbank by the bridge at Jackson's Boat. Woodpigeons and magpies foraged on the tops of the banks and more mallards dabbled by the margins. A flock of magpies and a carrion crow in the trees on the Chorlton side of the river tried to outshout the parakeets in the trees by the pub on the Sale side.

Robin, Sale Ees

A mistle thrush silently shadowed me out of its territory at Jackson's Boat as I walked into Sale Ees. Blackbirds, dunnocks and robins foraged in the undergrowth by the path and a small flock of siskins flitted about the treetops. The constant noise of magpies and parakeets stopped its being a very quiet walk.

Ring-necked parakeet, Sale Water Park

I decided not to walk round the lake at Sale Water Park, preferring to get a cup of tea and sit and watch the bird feeders to see if a nuthatch would turn up. The feeders were being dominated by parakeets with great tits and blue tits flitting in every so often when the parakeets had been spooked by passersby. Occasionally a great tit or a coal tit would dash in and grab a sunflower seed from a feeder when the parakeets were busy on the fat feeders. At one point everything disappeared and all was quiet as a female sparrowhawk shot through the trees. The second she had passed the parakeets started screeching a roll call and the titmice dived into the feeders while they were busy.

Jackdaw roost, Hardy Farm

I walked back to Jackson's Boat, crossed the river and walked through Hardy Farm as the sun started to set. The noise of the magpies, crows and parakeets going to roost was overwhelmed by the sound of more than a hundred and fifty jackdaws settling down for the night.

Hardy Farm