Starr Gate

Seawatching
One of those days where the sky doesn't get lighter at the horizon.

It was another cool and dreary day. I decided against the planned adventure and checked out the other options. I didn't much fancy Martin Mere on a Bank Holiday Monday or half term so thought I'd head thataway today. If the weather got worse en route I could bail at Wigan, wait five minutes for the train to Orrell and have a quick dekko at Orrell Water Park without getting atrociously wet. Which would have been fine if the Southport train hadn't been cancelled.

So I got myself an old man's explorer ticket and played first train out bingo, the first train happening to be the one to Blackpool North. I decided not to hop off at Bolton for the Southport train from Victoria, if it was running, and I didn't want to push my luck any by going North of Lancaster… I've not been on the Fylde yet this year. I thought a bit of seawatching at Starr Gate would be a nice contrast to recent trips out. I changed trains at Kirkham and Wesham, having about quarter of an hour to wait for the Blackpool South train. 

It's difficult to imagine a bigger contrast than the big new trains going to the big terminus at Blackpool North and the two coach stopper terminating at not much more than a pretty halt. It's quite a nice run. Woodpigeons, rooks and jackdaws fossicked about in fields, hares and lapwings lurked in tall grass and the occasional swallow twittered past, which came as a relief because despite all the leaves on the trees there was an end of March feel to the day.

The beach by Starr Gate 

I got off at Squires Gate and walked down to the seafront by the tram terminus at Starr Gate. I was in luck, it was high tide. May isn't the optimum time for seawatching on the Lancashire coast but a high tide might tempt something to pass within the range of a pair of binoculars. (August and September are usually better when there's more birds on the move.)

Most of the gulls inshore were herring gulls. There were a few lesser black-backs and three great black-backs flew in to loaf on the sea. A common gull flew by, I had to look twice to be sure it wasn't a herring gull looking dark in the glum light. Offshore there were far more lesser black-backs and great black-backs than herring gulls. The great black-backs towered over the waves, a dozen or so lesser black-backs on the horizon seemed to have found a school of fish to prey on. A few cormorants skittered over the distant waves. Five shelducks flew South. Half an hour later a drake eider headed the same way. A distant common scoter flew low over the water heading towards Blackpool. And a swallow flew by. 

And that was it. 

Seawatching very often involves spending a lot of time searching for something you know not what that isn't there anyway, today's was one of the more extreme examples. Which is okay, an excellent day's birdwatching would have been wasted on me in that mood. The sun came out for quarter of an hour and it felt slightly warmer but nothing less than my adding a great auk to my life list would have dented my grumpiness and I wouldn't have bet the farm on that.

Lytham St Anne's Local Nature Reserve
(There's a lot more of it over the top of the dune)

The tide started to retreat and the beach filled with people walking their dogs. I had a wander into the dunes on the nature reserve. A couple of sand martins hawked over the dune tops, a couple of jackdaws rummaged in the hollows, house sparrows and magpies flitted to and fro across the main road. Linnets, meadow pipits and skylarks were notable absentees. On the plus side, there were some delightful drifts of dune pansies.

Dune pansies 

I had thought to get the 68 bus back to Preston to spec out the way to Warton Bank but I just missed it. I had a longer than advertised wait for the next one so gave up and got the train back. I had an old man's explorer ticket burning a hole in my pocket so I checked out the various permutations for moving on to someplace else then checked the listed cancellations then got the train back to Manchester then the bus home because the train back was cancelled.

Not one of my good days.

Xanthoria lichen

Dreich

Adult (left) and juvenile goldfinches, Irlam Moss

A mild, very wet Wednesday was succeeded by a cool, wet Thursday. The rain (and a refill of the fat ball feeders) brought the blue tits out of hiding and they brought a couple of small primrose yellow youngsters with them. The youngsters aren't up to tackling the feeders themselves, settling for sitting in the rose bushes fluttering their wings as they begged for bits.

Juvenile blue tit, Stretford 

Juvenile blue tit, Stretford

I got fidgety and decided I needed to go for a walk anyway before the joints seized up with the damp weather. I got the lunchtime train to Irlam, timing it just right to watch the swifts swooping round the station as the train pulled in. I wondered if I might be better just having a quick look at Wellacre Country Park rather than across the mosses. If it was still pouring down at Irlam I'd wait the five minutes for the train back to Flixton.

Wren, Irlam Moss 

Robin, Irlam Moss 

The rain had eased along the way and was barely drizzle as I arrived at Irlam Station so I headed over to Astley Road. Blackbirds, collared doves and robins sang and house sparrows bustled about in the hedgerows. As I moved onto Irlam Moss they were joined by goldfinches, wrens and woodpigeons. There were more woodpigeons and blackbirds feeding on the fields with a few lapwings and a pair of grey partridges over on the Roscoe Road side of the fields just beyond a patch of grey something in the young barley. Pairs of stock doves and collared doves flew by and a few crows and jackdaws commuted between fields. One pair of lapwings were being particularly skittish so I had a close look to see what was disturbing them. It turned out to be another lapwing encroaching on their nesting territory. 

Greenfinches, goldfinches and a blackcap squeaked and sang in the hedgerows by the Jack Russell's gate. The only chiffchaff of the day was singing by the lane to Prospect Grange. About fifty woodpigeons were rummaging about in the field here.

Pheasant, Irlam Moss 

I decided not to push my luck by crossing over the motorway into Chat Moss, the clouds looked a bit threatening, so I turned onto Roscoe Road. A couple of pheasants strutted about the field edge with a small flock of starlings. Goldfinches, blackbirds and robins bounced about the boundary fences and along the path margins. A couple of juvenile goldfinches were still young enough for their parents to respond to their begging once every so often. A couple of fields away a couple of dozen lesser black-backs were dancing for worms in the wet grass.

Goldfinch, Irlam Moss 

Blackbird, Irlam Moss 

I looked in vain for the partridges, a couple of blackbirds and a song thrush were the only birds on that stretch of field. The patch of grey something turned out to be half a dozen drake mallards having a siesta.

Song thrush, Irlam Moss 

I walked into Irlam and got the buses home. As I sat having a cup of tea the carrion crows brought a youngster into the garden to show it off. They look almost innocent straight off the nest.

Juvenile (top) and adult carrion crows, Stretford 

Stretford

I was feeling very complacent about the after- effects of yesterday's walk right up to the point when I decided to trot upstairs for something and my knees said: "Told you so!" Which turned out to be nothing a bit of a walk couldn't sort out. I was in a mood for a bit of a potter about so I decided to give a couple of local parks a good going over rather than the glances in passing I've been doing since lockdown. Neither have the bit of wild scrub joining onto them like Lostock Park and it shows in the general lack of warblers to be found in them.

Victoria Park 

Victoria Park

Victoria Park's about the same size as Lostock Park but has a lot more trees in it and more of a mixture including mature conifers, mostly larches. Any other time of year this is a good place for titmice and nuthatches, this time of year they're busy and mostly staying undercover. And so it was today. Unusually it was a coal tit that came closest to being conspicuous as it sang in the canopy of a larch tree.

• Blackbird 8
• Carrion crow 1
• Coal tit 1
• Dunnock 1
• Goldfinch 2
• Great tit 1
• House sparrow 7
• Jackdaw 1
• Lesser black-back 1
• Magpie 3
• Robin 6 
• Woodpigeon 3
• Wren 1

Moss Park

Moss Park

Moss Park is a smaller bit of grass and play area next to Moss Park School, perhaps two-thirds the size of Victoria Park. In Winter this is the likeliest place for me to find chaffinches locally and a couple of pairs breed in nearby gardens. Just this once a didn't find a one of them, it doesn't do to take anything for granted.

• Blackbird 6
• Blue tit 1
• Carrion crow 2
• Goldfinch 3
• House sparrow 6
• Jackdaw 2
• Lesser black-back 1
• Magpie 5
• Robin 1 
• Starling 1
• Swift 5
• Woodpigeon 15

Horwich moors

Stonechat, Burnt Edge 

After last week's wanders on the fringes of the Peak District I thought I'd treat my knees to a bit of a walk on level ground around Martin Mere.

Well I got that wrong.

I wanted a lazy morning and had to drag myself kicking and screaming to the station in time for the train. We got held up outside Deansgate because the Southport train was running late (the Southport train and the Warrington train both terminate on platform five; nothing uses platform one) so I missed the Blackpool train. No matter, I could get the Barrow train and still get to Bolton in time to catch the Southport stopper from Victoria and get to New Lane before lunchtime. The Barrow train was packed standing solid (the Edinburgh train had been cancelled and its passengers told to change at Preston) and I was damned glad I wasn't travelling further. Until the Southport train was cancelled. Still, I could wait ten minutes longer and get the next Southport train and walk up to Martin Mere from Burscough Bridge rather than New Lane. Except I couldn't because that was cancelled, too. I took the hint and got a refund on my tickets.

Pied wagtail, Georges Lane

I was in Bolton so I decided it was high time I went for a stroll on the Horwich moors. I got the 125 to Bottom o'th' Moor and started walking up Georges Lane. The day had started a bit chilly but it was warming up in the sunshine and a breeze was keeping everything fresh. Blackbirds, willow warblers and chaffinches sang in the trees, woodpigeons, jackdaws and a pied wagtail fossicked about in the fields, a few carrion crows flew by.

Georges Lane by Wilderswood 

As I walked by Wilderswood dunnocks, robins and whitethroats joined the songscape, spadgers and yet more chaffinches and goldfinches bounced about in the hedgerows, swallows swooped across the road and greenfinches and linnets called from the trees.

Rivington Pike from Georges Lane

Passing Wilderswood and heading for Rivington Pike Café a few meadow pipits flitted about in the fields and skylarks sang above them. I scanned the dry stone walls looking for stonechats and found myself a female wheatear sitting on a stone before she dived into the bracken. A kestrel hovered over the slopes before drifting downhill and two pairs of ravens convened to do aerial acrobatics before going their separate ways.

At the Rivington Pike Café 

Starlings, Rivington Pike Café 

I had a cup of tea by the café, trying to see if any of the lapwings had babies and watching the baby starlings begging from their parents as they ran amongst the sheep with the jackdaws. Swallows swooped around the café, a chaffinch sang in the back garden, God knows where the mallard came from. Down the slope a few black-headed gulls drifted across the fields. It was all rather pleasant.

Swallows, Rivington Pike Café 

Looking down into Horwich 

I walked up the road into Lancashire, scouring the fields below me for stonechats. Great tits and robins joined the willow warblers singing in the plantations and a pair of swifts skimmed the treetops. I was pretty sure I didn't want to walk into Rivington today, I had a yen to walk up towards Winter Hill. Any doubts I had were dispelled by the arrival of a group of young women orienteers with a strong Sing As You Go ethic. I turned and walked back to the café, along the way I discovered that the stonechats were nesting uphill of the road this year.

Rivington Reservoir and Rivington Pike 

Rivington Pike 

I walked up to Two Lads, stepping aside for a large group of young lady orienteers to descend. I bumped into some last week in Glossop, too. Evidently I've missed a trend. The weather was fine, there was a cool breeze to help the climb and the moor was chock full of singing skylarks and meadow pipits. Every so often a black-headed gull would pass by and there were jackdaws and carrion crows by the cairns.

Skylark, Two Lads 

Winter Hill from Two Lads

I walked down to the road, had a potter up towards Winter Hill just so I could say I did then walked down to Bottom Hole to join the path to Burnt Edge. Stonechats, linnets and goldfinches bobbed about in the bushes by the path and willow warblers sang in the mature trees in the hollows. A familiar unfamiliar "kyack!" made me look up as I was negotiating a steep climb and I spotted a female ring ousel flying low up the other side of the gully.

Walking between Bottom Hole and Burnt Edge 
The steps down and up this gulley are hard on the knees, not least because they end three feet above the bank of the stream.

See?

Walking between Bottom Hole and Burnt Edge

Walking between Bottom Hole and Burnt Edge

Approaching Burnt Edge 

Kestrel, Burnt Edge 

Kestrel, Burnt Edge 

The walk over to Burnt Edge was splendid. Willow warblers, skylarks, mipits and chaffinches sang. Swallows twittered by. Blackcaps joined the songscapes in the plantations, whitethroats in the open scrub and curlews over the open moor. It made a change looking down on a kestrel as it preened and surveyed the ground from a telephone pole. A tree pipit singing by the plantation at Burnt Edge was a nice find.

Burnt Edge 

Burnt Edge

Walking from Burnt Edge to Walkers Fold 

Approaching Walkers Fold

The walk between Burnt Edge and Walkers Fold provided more of the same, with a lot more singing goldfinches about in the trees. There was a passage of black-headed gulls flying up to moorland roosts. Swifts and swallows hawked overhead, and a buzzard soared over the farmland below.

The path to High Shore Clough

I arrived at Walkers Fold with every intention of walking down Walkers Fold Road to get the 125 back to Bolton from Chorley Old Road so imagine my surprise when I found myself walking along the rough footpath to Barrow Bridge with the sun on my back and the breeze in my face. Blackbirds, blackcaps and robins sang in the trees, wrens, goldfinches and whitethroats in the bushes, starlings and greenfinches muttered their disapproval anytime I got too close as I passed by.

Marsh thistle, High Shore Clough 

Willow warblers dominated the songscape as I walked across the meadow towards Higher Shore Clough, they were singing from the trees along the clough. There was a huge drift of meadow horsetail, something I don't see often enough to recognise instinctively (I'm all too familiar with field horsetail!). It provided a lacy backdrop to the pillars of marsh thistle dotted throughout. I would have expected a lot of butterflies but I saw none, and not that many bees, either.

Steps down to Dean Brook 

I thought I'd been clever and taken the path avoiding the staircase leading down to Dean Brook and I thought wrong. I considered sliding down the bannister until I remembered the dirty big stone wall at the bottom. 

Grey wagtail, Dean Brook

The brook was running fast and clear, I had a scan round for dippers or grey wagtails, just in case. I checked the buses and found I was fine for catching the 526 back into Bolton. I was just approaching Barrow Bridge Road, thinking to myself that the brook really ought to have dippers and grey wagtails when a dipper flew past me downstream. I hurried to the bridge to see if I could see it and found a grey wagtail fossicking about on the rocks by the bridge.

I walked down to the bus stop feeling pleased with myself. The first chiffchaff of the day sang in the trees with a coal tit and another grey wagtail flew up the brook by the road. Sometimes Northern's inability to provide a train service is a blessing in disguise.

Walking between Bottom Hole and Burnt Edge

Local patch

Blackbird, Lostock Park 

It was a sunny and somnolent Sunday suitable for something alliterative about listening to the cricket so I limited myself to a short dawdle about the local patch. Half the world had settled down to watch the football and the other half had sweated cobs walking their dogs in the midday heat so I had a nice quiet time of it. The birds were singing and all was well in the world. 

Barton Clough 

Apparently there are two whitethroat territories this year, one in the bramble patch that missed the strimmer's touch last year and the other at the Eastern end of the site where nobody can be bothered to go. I thought we were down to two chiffchaffs but a third was singing over by the skateboard park. The great tits and blue tits were all lying doggo, I know for a fact there were at least two pairs of each but they've done the same disappearing act here as the ones in my garden. The pair of ring-necked parakeets in the poplars were a mixed delight.

There were two lesser black-backs on the rooftop of one of the industrial units, I'm pretty sure they were loafing rather than nesting but they're the two that gave the buzzard a hard time the other day so I wouldn't be surprised to be wrong.

• Blackbird 15, 8 singing
• Blackcap 3 singing
• Carrion crow 1
• Chaffinch 2, 1 singing
• Chiffchaff 3 singing
• Dunnock 1 singing
• Feral pigeon 2 
• Goldfinch 10, 2 singing 
• House sparrow 2, 1 singing
• Lesser black-back 2
• Magpie 6
• Mistle thrush 2
• Ring-necked parakeet 2
• Robin 6, 3 singing 
• Song thrush 1 singing 
• Whitethroat 2 singing 
• Woodpigeon 19, 4 singing 
• Wren 4 singing 

One that got away

Binn Green 

Yesterday afternoon when I was fossicking about by Binn Green car park I kept hearing a bit of song that I wasn't sure about. There wasn't much of it, and what there was was intermittent and interrupted, much in the way that a mistle thrush song never quite seems to get going. The song was coming from somewhere in a bit of birch scrub further along the road but I couldn't pin down the singer. A couple of blackbirds chased each other across the trees and a dark shape, probably another blackbird, flitted between some bilberry bushes but I couldn't find the mystery singer.

At the time I concluded that it was probably a song thrush warming up then getting distracted before getting into full song. The warm up practice notes of some birds can be puzzling, one of our local robins will do a few blackcap calls before starting singing in the afternoon and there have been a couple of times at Barton Clough where it's taken half a minute before I could be sure which of the singing thrushes was cranking up the engine. And I had a head full of wood warbler so wasn't paying all that much attention anyway. So I concluded it was probably a song thrush.

Sometimes these things nag at me. When I was writing up the last post last night I was reviewing the songscape in my head and something didn't quite fit. And there was something about that dark shape flitting between bilberry bushes that wasn't quite. The song sounded like a bit like a fragment of song thrush song, sung slow and sad. Two loud call notes repeated then a pause then a slow few seconds of something more complex like somebody learning and practicing an unfamiliar bit of music concentrating on the notes not the tempo. Sometimes it would just be the call notes.

I'd given up on the puzzle and was idly browsing bird reports later on when I noticed somebody mention seeing ring ousels further up Holmfirth Road. I hadn't been hearing and not recognising a ring ousel song had I? I had no idea what they sounded like. I went onto the Xeno-Canto web site and looked up some ring ousel songs. The first one I heard wasn't like the song I'd been fretting about. The second one was, though. And the third. And the fourth.

In all probability I'd been hearing a ring ousel singing, hadn't paid enough attention to the unconscious observation that this was something different and didn't put enough effort into finding the singer. It happens, it's part of the game. Usually it'll be a fairly common bird and I'll realise what I hadn't been registering when I hear another one singing or calling a couple of hundred yards down the path.

So I dipped on a ring ousel. Ah well. Next time I'm up that way I almost certainly won't remember what its song sounds like but if I hear something unfamiliar I will remember to check that it isn't a ring ousel.

Dove Stone

Red-legged partridge 

I slapped the sun cream on and set out on what was forecast to be a not bad day, remembering to take my cap to keep the sun off my bald patch and the rain, too, if I was unlucky. Both knees were aching and needed a bit of exercise in them so I thought a few inclined planes would be in order. A wood warbler had been reported singing in the usual territory by Dove Stone Reservoir so I thought I'd try and find it.

I got the train to Greenfield and walked through town to Holmfirth Road. I could have waited twenty minutes for the bus but it's less than a mile onto the walk. I checked out the canal and the rivers for grey wagtails or dippers, just in case, but no joy.

Chew Valley from Holmfirth Road 

It was pleasant walking weather and after the first rather steep hundred yards the rest was a nice gentle incline up to the car park at Binn Green where the wood warbler can be heard.

Beside Holmfirth Road 

There were plenty of jackdaws and woodpigeons in the fields on the approach to Dove Stone Reservoir. But no starlings, which struck me as odd. Blackbirds and song thrushes sang in the trees accompanied by robins, chiffchaffs and willow warblers. A nuthatch made sure I hadn't noticed it was using an old woodpecker's nest for its own purposes.

Chew Valley 

Looking over at Chew Valley I felt guilty for not having had a walk up there in decades. I really should, it's just a long drag up from the station to the car park by the reservoir where the path up the valley begins. I'll have to get the bus to the Clarence and start from there when I finally get round to it. I can't say I fancy the walk back up Park Road, mind.

I'd spotted a couple of pheasants in the fields and I'd accidentally spooked a buzzard which was feeding on beetles in the sheep droppings before it noticed me coming and flew sharply off, I almost overlooked the red-legged partridge sitting on the other side of the wall. I only noticed it when I was putting the lens cap back on the camera after taking a photo.

Dove Stone Reservoir 

Drawing level with the reservoir chaffinches and blackcaps joined in with the singing in the trees. I thought for a moment I could hear a cuckoo but at that moment half a dozen cars came hurtling down the road, drowning out all save the song thrushes. Once they'd passed I tried again but could only hear the yapping of a distant dog.

As I approached the marker for the start of the Peak District National Park I heard a faint trill in the trees ahead which made me prick up my ears. I couldn't catch it again but strongly suspected it was the wood warbler, which was encouraging. Just as encouraging was hearing an unambiguous call from a cuckoo somewhere in the trees on the other side of the woodland below the road.

Binn Green 

I arrived at the Binn Green car park where the first bird to greet me was a coal tit wanting me to move on so it could visit its nest, which I did. It had chosen a tiny crack in a dry stone wall for its nest hole.

Binn Green 

The trees were lively with birdsong. The blackbirds, song thrushes, chiffchaffs and willow warblers were joined by chaffinches, robins and a mistle thrush. I've been giving the Merlin app another try so I thought I'd let it sift through the songscape. It struggled to find the song thrushes and chiffchaffs but it picked up a couple of blackcaps before I did. I think the dunlin it flagged up was a bit of road traffic noise. 

I didn't need the app to find the wood warbler, it was trilling in the conifers by the car park. There's something almost grasshopper-like about the song, quite different to our other leaf warblers. Hearing it and seeing it were quite different things, despite the relative lack of leaf cover in the conifers. A moment's quick glimpse as it flitted between trees was the best I was getting today.

The cuckoo was singing from this plantation on the other side of the reservoir

I had a nosy round, bumping into great tits and pairs of chaffinches in the undergrowth along the way. A cuckoo started calling. It may have been the same bird as before but this time it was singing from the plantation over on the other side of the reservoir. I looked out from the viewpoint by the car park but couldn't find it.

Binn Green 

I was back in the car park and I tried and failed to find the wood warbler as it sang in the trees. I had a bit more luck looking in from the road, a full half-second's sighting before it disappeared into the canopy of a conifer. I was happy just to be able to hear it.

Red-legged partridges

The walk back down Holmfirth Road was much the same as on the way up. The clouds had rolled in a bit which made for a few dramatic lighting effects on the landscape. A pair of Canada geese bobbed about in the middle of the reservoir, the only birds I saw on it all afternoon. Even the passing black-headed gulls kept on passing. The red-legged partridge I'd passed on the way up was joined by a friend.

Dove Stone Reservoir 

Holmfirth Road 

The sum total amount of tawny owl I've seen this year

I walked the way down into Greenfield, got the 350 bus from the Clarence into Ashton-under-Lyne and thence home. As hillwalking goes the afternoon had been a lazy doddle but it had sorted out the aching knees and the year list had been boosted up to 181.