Moore Birds and Birding...

Karma, stilletos and the optimistic Skylark...

2011-02-13T16:22:00.000Z

Well, today was not as I intended. In fact, the whole weekend, truth be told has been turned on its head and the patch today was simply escape. Karma decided to play the bitch, strap on her stilletos and kick me where it hurts. Such is life. The patch though, didn't care a fig / give a fuck (delete as appropriate) and so my 83 minutes worth were time well spent. Not that I saw much! But it got me thinking. Well actually it got me NOT thinking, which was what I needed most.

My new phone has been buzzing this week (I have limited ring-tone choice) with news of patch birds; Pintail, Goosander, Med Gull, Iceland Gull and I've not been able to go for any. It's been weeks! The chance to stroll in the rain was, therefore, just too good an opportunity to pass up. First stop was the eastern river... where there had been a pair of Goosander in the week... emphasis being on the word HAD. There was nothing today save 2 'domestic' Mallards, a Skylark optimistically singing overhead in the drizzle and the shouts and cheers from an unseen football match upriver somewhere.

Soggy, yet surprisingly unphased by my damp lack of birdage of trudged back to the old Volvo and headed for the Eastern Reedbed. As I walked up the short path to the 'hide' I could scarcely contain my excitement. Coots. I could hear Coots!! Three of them as it turned out and 2 Tufted Duck too!!! Is that yesterday's pork stuck between my teeth? No. A piece of apple I'd eaten in the car just now. My coat is blue. My boots are muddy. There's a carrier bag in a nearby tree. This was going to be hard work! Focus dammit!!!

Millbrook Pool; 2 Mute Swan, 5 Tufted Duck, 11 Wigeon, 8 Coot, 2 Gadwall, 7 Teal, 3 Shoveler, 4 Grey Heron, 14 Mallard, 4 Pochard, 1 Canada Goose. See? It's possible if you just focus! Rain. Coffee beckons. Shelter beckons. Pumphouse Pool east hide beckons.

Pumphouse Pool (east hide). Lots of stuff here / Not much stuff here. Now THIS was actually a useful observation. Why? Because it reminded me that things are as they are. If I want there to be lots of stuff here, there will be 'lots'of stuff'. If I want there to be not much stuff here, there will be 'not much stuff'. It's all just a matter of perspective after all... there's just 'the stuff here' whatever I think, but it's good to be reminded of the fact and I can now enjoy the Teal, the Shoveler, the Gadwall, the Mallard, the Tufties and the Mute Swans...

...AND ... subsequently at the Feeding Station the Blue Tits, the Great Tits, the Coal Tit, the GSWoodpecker, the Chaffinches, the Reed Buntings and the Moorhen.

Yes. Today was not at all as I intended... but that's the patch for you. It's honest. It has no agenda.

The fox, the geese and me...

2011-01-30T17:37:00.000Z

I asked myself a question. What do you seek? I’ve asked it of myself many times before and until recently would have answered something like ‘Inner Peace’ or ‘peace of mind’ or ‘to be happy’ or ‘to feel alive!’ and it struck me yesterday that what this translates into is Freedom. Freedom from all those irritating self-imposed habits, foibles, prejudices etc. Or at least the freedom to choose to be free from them or not. It’s like we’re in a kind of sleep, behind glass. I’m not the first to notice this! Persig talks about the difference between riding a motorbike and driving a car in terms of your experience of the world. Riding is like being PART of the landscape. You’re there, in the moment, experiencing it, not merely observing it as you do behind the window of a car. It’s the same with gigs... and once in a while the patch.

Many years ago I vowed, never willingly to go to a gig and SIT ever again. It always felt afterwards like I’d just watched it on the big screen... probably because, at least in part these days, you can end up literally watching it on the big screen if you’re not in the thick of it. OK, so you might catch a whiff of the atmosphere, but you’re not IN the picture... not unless you’re wedged like sardines with thousands of other bodies. Not unless you feel the push and shove, duck the crowd surfers, get swept into the circle pit, smell and taste the sweat of countless strangers, see into the eyes of the band, feel the bass pounding in your chest, the cool breeze from the on stage fans, reach for half a cup of water among the swirling sea of arms and horns and pumping fists, scream at the top of your lungs every word you can manage, even though you never hear the sound that comes out above the throng of everything else. It’s like you’re IN the sound, part of it. You’re not you anymore. You’re part of some big ‘thing’. You are, if I can get a lil Zen for a moment, at one with the band, the crowd, the whole thing. You are alive! In the moment. There.

And afterwards, it stays with you... for a while... this affirmation of being... and yet when somebody asks you about it, you’re lost for words. You can’t explain WHY it felt as it did, just that it was... ‘something special’. After one recent gig, a friend of mine who was with me up at the front said “It’s weird, I can’t remember a single song from beginning to end. I can remember bits of various ones, but not one from start to finish”. It’s true. It’s like you get swept up in the moment. You live it there and then. I had other friends at the gig who were seated. Their perspective was different; they KNEW what songs were played and in what order. They knew what the band did for the encore. They could rewind and replay it in their minds. We couldn’t, because we WERE it and I came to the conclusion that THAT is how life SHOULD be! Being IN the moment. Today I was reminded of this again... for just a little while.

I am watching a Fox sneaking up on a small flock of Canada Geese on the other side of the lake from where I’m sitting. I can see his fur blowing gently in the wind... the same wind I’m feeling on my face, warm from the west carrying with it the smell of woodsmoke... The same smell the Fox detects as it lifts its head and sniffs the air. The geese spot him and start to cackle, moving towards the water and safety. We all hear them together, me, the Fox, the gull overhead and the Jackdaws in the nearby tree. A Heron rises on lazy wingbeats as the geese approach. The gull jinks and we all take note. A cloud covers the sun momentarily and suddenly it cools. I feel it on my neck, the Fox’s fur pricks up and the geese ruffle their feathers as they enter the water. We’re all part of the same picture, all reacting to the same sensations. For a moment... a fleeting moment, there’s just ‘it’... that ‘something’ that isn’t the lake, the wind, the Fox, the cool, the noise, the geese or me.

Ah well...

Soggy Trousers...

2011-01-27T19:13:00.008Z

I can highly recommend singing along :)

Naughty gulls on nasty pools

And Herons breaking all the rules

Having fun and playing fools

Smashing up the woodcock's tools

All the Grebes is in the pub

Passing 'round the Roach and Chub
Trying not to think of when

The Canadas will come again.

Oh what fun I had

Yomping through the Snipe Fields lad

How I learnt to pull

The thorns and shit from in my leg

Oh what fun we had

But at the time it seemed so bad

Just a flock of geese

To make a difference to... the...

Birding's kinda tough today
All the birds have gone away
Gone to fight on next-door's pool
Every winter, that's the rule
Sits alone and waits for Roy
Robin needs his daily joy
Biscuits, mealworms, bread and stuff
Blackbird's gone off in a huff

Oh what fun I had
Counting Teal and Shoveler lad
How I learnt to check
Each silhouette and tiny speck
Oh what fun we had
But at the time it seemed so bad
Jack Snipe's gone away
That makes a difference to the day.

Ain't no girls, but lots of boys

Lots of smells and lots of noise

Listening for an early Lark

Checking owl fields after dark

Soggy trousers, dirty shirt

There's a Snipe it's eating dirt

Owl is in its ivy tree

add to the year list, 1 2 3

Oh what fun we had

But, did it really turn out bad

Sparrowhawk makes four

It's time to hit the road some more

Oh what fun we had

But at the time it seemed so bad

Trying different ways

To make a difference to the days.

Soggy trousers, Soggy trousers, Soggy trousers

Patch Year List 78...

Unabashed Crp(t)sis and other Shameless P(n)unnery...

2011-01-19T22:16:00.000Z

Hot nuns are unlikely to be overlooked on most patches; they're not exactly cryptic after all, but delightful as these creatures undoubtedly are you can't exactly add them to your year list. Well, you could, but I think most people would consider that cheating. No, our sisters from the crypt are untickable. So too it would seem are Woodcock at the moment. The reason? Their crypsis (without the 'T'). Take for example this morning. I'd hit the patch whilst it was still dark with the aim of yomping some of the damp areas of Upper Moss Side, come first light, to look for Snipe, Jack Snipe and Woodcock. Now the latter two species are definitely about, as other patchers have had them, but I've yet to hear of anybody coming across a Common Snipe since last December's cold snap. Nevertheless, my hopes were high. Thing was, I had some time to kill before it would be light enough for my scans for Scolipacidae and so I opted for a circuit from Bob's Bridge, via Shipton's Scrub through Daisy, Balloon Hut and Tree Sparrow Field and back through WH Path Field. The thinking was, owls, in the first instance, and anything else that was up and about in the second.

It wasn't long after I set off though that I began to get the feeling my plan might have to change. There'd clearly been a bit of a frost over night and things were, well, rather crunchy underfoot. This did not bode at all well for finding snipe as patch snipe really do not seem to like the icy conditions. Coupled with that, there was a bit of a low-lying mist, which whilst rather nice to look at, was not so nice to look through. Ah well, ears it is then: Dog... (it/they always start up when I get out of the car at Bob's Bridge)... Jackdaw, Robin, Blackbird, Song Thrush, Mistle Thrush, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Wren, Dunnock, Wood Pigeon, Rook, Pheasant, Carrion Crow, Jay. This is just what I needed - cobweb clearance to start the day. Lovely stuff... but not a sniff of an owl. I scan the little redbrick building and owl box in Ballon Hut Field. Nothing. The big redbrick barn behind me too. Nothing. On into Tree Sparrow Field. First Brown Hare of the year lopes off down the path towards Norton Marsh hide and now there's a Kestrel hovering overhead and Yellowhammers 'chitting'. House Sparrow. Chaffinch. Goldfinch and I'm in WH Path Field...

... more Yellowhammer. Reed Bunting. 'Cheerp'... Tree Sparrow (new for the year). I had been wondering when they'd put in an appearance. Time to check WH Big Field. I spot a gap in the hedge and scan the expansive tillage...

...a pair of Buzzards. That's the lot. No Grey Partridge today. Sun's coming up nicely now so I head back to the car. It's light enough to go LOOK for things.

I've decided to forgo my snipe hunt and try the east end of the reserve for Woodcock and Goosander. Not really sure why, given that neither have been seen at the east end for a while, but hey, ever the optimist me.
I'm driving along the track past Pumphouse Pool when I remember something... Somebody had posted up that they'd seen the male Lesser Spotted Woodpecker in the trees along the embankment a few days ago. Deffo worth a look!

SO, windows down and I'm crawling along in the little Skoda on choke only, barely making a sound. It's almost like I'm driving an electric car. I scan every silver birch. No sign (or sound). There are Bullfinches though... a little chain of 'tu's flitting acros the road. I reach the Eastern Reedbed and park up. I'm sure there'll be Woodcock again today... Hmmm. Damn their cryptic hides. Seven of them and not a single one in view. Or maybe it's three. You see the thing is, I KNOW they're out there, but I'm buggered if I can see a single one of them! Ah well, nothing to be done but count the wildfowl on Millbrook Pool; 8 Shoveler, 55 Teal, 11 Mallard, 18 Gadwall, 2 Tufted Duck,15 Canada Goose, 2 Coot and a little surprise... the Little Grebes are back; a pair! The Eastern Reedbed though has refrozen... and there is no open water... BUT there are Water Rail; 2 calling and the first of the year for me. Good stuff!

Next up it's time to check the east river again for Goosander (just Moorhen and Cormorant again today) and Firecrest Alley for Long-eared Owl. This was a bit of a departure from the usual as they've not been seen roosting down this end of the reserve for yearas but today I juust had a feeling. Must have been wind though coz there were certainly now owls hidden among the willows today. That just left Pumphouse Pool. A few changes since my last visit; 7 Wigeon, 52 Teal, 15 Mallard, 14 Gadwall, 10 Tufted Duck, 2 Moorhen, 2 Coot, 1 Grey Heron. Checked the inlet and shoreline for Snipe. Still none. SO, time to go... almost :) Need to check those trees along the railway line for that Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. Well, I'll be honest. I didn't really hold up much hope. Not because I doubted its presence (they seem to like the track between the warehouses and the viaduct early in the year, before moving to Lapwing Lane for 'the drumming'), but because I tend not to get Lesser Pecks when I go hunting for them. They're usually a chance bird for me. One that turns up when I don't really expect it. What a shocker then when I get one calling at the top of one of the birches along the track back to the car by the Eastern Reedbed. Excellent as I've not done very well, so far, picking up those winter beauties that you really need to nab if you want a decent year list (LSW, Brambling, Goosander, Goldeneye, Iceland, Glaucous & Med. Gull, Jack Snipe, Woodcock, Bittern)

And that, as they say, was pretty much that. Jackdaws amid the ivy by the little wooden bridge immediately signalled lack of Tawny Owl; a crispy march through 'the garden' yielded no Woodcock for the umpteenth time today and my gut feeling that "If the Little Grebes were back then there ought to be a Great Crested Grebe somewhere" was rewarded when one popped up on the Angler's Pool among a year high count of eight Coots. Patch Year Tally 74.

WARBLERS at Moore NR: what, when and where...

2011-01-16T15:31:00.006Z

During the spring at Moore NR it’s quite possible to get NINE species of warblers in a day and you’d be unlucky NOT to get SEVEN! Of these species, SIX appear annually in double figures (20-30+ pairs) and are spread across the reserve (Blackcap, Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler, Whitethroat, Sedge Warbler and Reed Warbler); ONE occurs annually in low numbers along the northern edge of the reserve (Grasshopper Warbler); TWO occur almost annually as single birds/pairs but tend to be very localised, most often west of Lapwing Lane (Garden Warbler, Lesser Whitethroat) and the one to watch out for of late is Cetti’s Warber as it seems to be turning up somewhere on or near the patch at some point during the past 3 years and has bred recently at the nearby Oxmoor LNR.

SO, here we go... dates above photos are the Cheshire 10 year averages for first arrival and last departure dates for our summer visitors from the 2009 Cheshire Bird Report (link HERE). So keep your eyes and ears peeled and let me know when things arrive!!!

Chiffchaff Phylloscpus collybita

County Status: Common summer visitor, widely distributed. Very scarce winter visitor. All non-collybita races (e.g. ‘Scandinavian’ abietinus, ‘ Siberian’ trisitis) are County Rarities.

Overwintering Chiffchaffs are occasionally seen in Jan and Feb on the reserve but the most I’ve had in a single year has been two and I’m not convinced they’re annual. Of course, they can be a bit on the quiet side outside of the breeding season, so you never know and it’s always worth checking everything flitting about during the winter months. Migrants arrive mid-March and start setting up territories across the reserve. These are the first warblers to arrive and once they’re here, you can hear them singing pretty much anywhere, but they’re especially easy to get along the paths that run along the south bit of Lapwing Lake towards Hillcrest Quarry and Bob’s Bridge. They like the tall trees along the paths for singing and areas of rank vegetation (grasses and bramble bushes) for nesting.

Blackcap Sylvia atricapilla

County Status: Common summer visitor, widely distributed. Scarce winter visitor.

Funny that, from a patch perspective they’re much scarcer than Chiffchaff during the winter and are certainly not annual. I guess their somewhat better county status at this time of year is the result of their penchant for gardens... don’t get many Chiffchaff on the old nut bags! My hunch would be that if they’re about, they’ll be hanging around near the Feeding Station. Migrants start to arrive about the end of March but aren’t really in full numbers until April. Sit in any hide or walk any path at this time of year where there’s a well developed understorey (they like thick bushes and brambles for nesting) and you’ll get Blackcap singing from the treetops.

Willow Warbler Phylloscopus trochilus
Mar 25th - October 5th

County Status: Very common summer visitor, widely distributed. BoCC Amber-listed species.

These certainly don’t overwinter and are the first of our proper Trans-Saharan migrants to arrive as far as warblers are concerned (Blackcaps and Chiffchaff tend to winter in Europe). They hit Cheshire usually in the last week of March but seem to me to generally take longer to get to Moore. I’ve not really tested the idea rigorously, but my gut feeling is that this holds true for most of our summer migrants – first dates are 1-2 weeks later than say, on the Wirral. I usually pick up my first birds in the first week of April at Moore NR and they quickly spread out and can be heard everywhere, particularly along paths that coincide with woodland edge. They tend to go quiet in June and have started on their return trip to Africa by the end of September.

Grasshopper Warbler Locustella naevia
April 9th - September 3rd

County Status: Scarce summer visitor, thinly distributed. BoCC Red-listed species.

These arrive about the 2nd week of April and are instantly recognisable from their reeling song. Scarce, from a county perspective, means between 11-100 pairs annually, so we’re quite lucky because we typically have between 7-11 reeling males on site during their peak. Their distribution though is rather skewed towards the scrubby areas of Upper Moss Side and the Capped Tip (see also Whitethroat) and so it is along the tracks that run close to these areas that you stand the best chance to hear one or two reeling. The best spot on the Moore NR reserve itself is probably along the short grassy path behind the Feeding Station that runs from Tinker’s Bridge (by the two metal gates along the south edge of the Capped Tip to the little wooden bridge that joins Lapwing Lane again near where the road heads out on to Upper Moss Side. Up to 5 males have been reeling from the Capped Tip in past years, so there’s a pretty good chance of hearing one on warm still days from tis path, especially the west end. If you have no luck there, walk along the track onto Upper Moss Side (click HERE for photo guide). Stop at the picnic tables, face the Snipe Fields and listen. If you’ve still not had any luck, keep walking past the White House and stop opposite the little wooden bridge that takes you to Norton Marsh and look out over the Phrag Field. They like that area too and it’s often the first place they turn up. Failing that, you need to follow the paths out towards the Tree Sparrow Field, enter the Balloon Hut Field (there’s often one reeling from the back of the field in there) or Daisy Field (there’s usually one in there too). I’d be amazed if you don’t get Gropper on the patch in April! Tip: go early in the season if possible as they don’t seem to sing for that long and avoid windy days – they don’t seem to like them one bit!

Whitethroat Sylvia communis
April 10th - September 30th

County Status: Common summer visitor, widely distributed. BoCC Amber-listed species.

Whitethroat (along with the other species listed below) start to arrive in mid-April and sing into July. They prefer the scrubbier parts of the reserve and although they’re very widespread are most easily heard along the northern paths bordering the Capped Tip and Upper Moss Side (where numbers are particularly high) as well as the areas around Hillcrest Quarry and between there and the Manchester Ship Canal. They too leave by the end of September and you can often track them heading west (presumably to then follow the coast south) along the scrubby tracks to Halfway House from their churring alarm calls.

Reed Warbler Acrocephalus scirpaceus
April 13th - October 11th

County Status: Uncommon summer visitor, thinly distributed.

Always feels to me like spring has really sprung once the Reed Warblers start up. They arrive from mid-April and tend to be centred on the reedy margins of Lapwing Lake and at the Eastern Reedbed where I’ve had up to 7 chunnering away deep within the reeds. They also seem quite happy though with any smallish stands of reeds along drainage ditches or fringing some of the smaller ponds, so keep your ears peeled for their slow, rhythmic, crunching song. They are a guaranteed bird at Moore during the spring.

Sedge Warbler Acrocephalus schoenobaenus
April 10th - September 30th

County Status: Fairly common summer visitor, thinly distributed.

As a rule we get more Reed Warblers at Moore than Sedge Warblers. That’s not to say that Sedgies are uncommon, but I always find them marginally ‘harder’ work than Reed. They arrive about the same time as the Reedies, but favour the scrubby areas away from the reed beds and tend to be commonest in the damper areas of the habitat used by Whitethroat (see that species) i.e. paths that traverse the, northern and southern rims, of the reserve. If you walk the entire loop of Lapwing Lane from the Car Park, north, then out onto Upper Moss Side to Bob’s Bridge and back down to the Car Park past Hillcrest Quarry , you should get Sedge Warbler. If that fails, there’s always the ship canal path to Halfway House from the black and yellow metal gate at the west end of the reserve, or the path along the south side of Shipton’s Meadow. Satisfaction guaranteed.

Lesser Whitethroat Sylvia curruca
April 15th - September 30th

County Status: Uncommon summer visitor, thinly distributed

One of two species at Moore (the other being Garden Warbler – see below) that require luck and/or effort and/or striking whilst the iron is hot if one is posted on the Moore sightings page, their Facebook page or this blog. Just 1-2 records annually is typical and it’s quite common for birds not to settle. Last year we were treated to a ‘stayer’. One set up shop in the gorse near the Raptor Viewpoint and could be heard singing into June from the bench overlooking the west end of Lapwing Lake. Usually though they seem to pass through mid-April (often appearing first on Upper Moss Side) and are ‘around’ for 2-3 days before moving on. Either way, you have to know the song as you always hear them long before you can track them down as they flit along the hedgerows.

Garden Warbler Sylvia borin
April 17th - September 24th

County Status: Fairly common summer visitor, thinly distributed.

This is typically the last of our warblers to arrive (late Apri) and is another that needs to be nabbed as quicky as possible as it is certainly not a common summer visitor on the patch. We get 1 or 2 records a year at Moore, but at least these seem to stay more often than the previous species. Of late, they’ve been annual west of Lapwing Lake and a good starting point to have a listen is probably by the south hide there and then walk the high path along the northern edge of Hillcrest Quarry to Bob’s Bridge and then back along the track to the Car Park. If you have no luck, then you’re on your own... but beware Blackcap!

Cetti’s Warbler Cettia cetti

County Status. Vagrant. County Rarity.

Now this could change. Looks like these little beauties are gaining a toe-hold in the north-west. This year one was singing near Halfway House in October. Last year one was heard from the same spot singing on the other side of the Manchester Ship Canal in mid-March and later that year they bred at Oxmoor LNR and raised three young. This was the first record of breeding for Cheshire & Wirral. The year before that (2008) we had a male singing at the Eastern Reedbed from 21st April – 12th May, so they’re definitely spreading out. Only a question of time I think before we can add them to our own breeding warbler list. Fingers crossed and watch this space!!!

PS I haven't had time to go through old Cheshire Bird Reports for definitive sightngs of rare warblers on the patch so if anybody knows of any off hand, please let me know!

MAPS - Part 1: introduction to the pools

2011-01-16T10:36:00.009Z

I have had a plan for a while to do a photo guide to the Moore NR part of the patch and sat down again recently to have another crack at. The Car Park seemed the obvious place to start and so I began to write.

Entrance to the reserve

(Car Park is behind fence on the right)

Trouble was it became quickly apparent that there are SO many paths and pools and woods and hides at Moore that the whole thing would be come a tangle and so I had to go back to the drawing board. Chunks. What's needed I decided are chunks. An overview of where the main bits of the reserve are first, so that people new to the site can find them, followed by individual photoguides complete with what birds are about when. SO, here then is the first bit (overview of the pools) and it seemed to me MAPS were the way to go.

The Main Layout of the Reserve

OK. The above is a good place to start and you can pick one of these up from the little box by the Moore NR sign as you enter the reserve. As you will see from the leaflet, the reserve basically runs east to west and has 5 main pools;

a) Lapwing Lake (to the west of Lapwing Lane) which has 3 hides (Lapwing Lane Hide, Sedge Hide and Canal Bed Hide, which is just a screen) or as I prefer to call them (east, south and north hides)

Lapwing Lane Hide (aka east hide)

(nicked from Tony Carroll)

Sedge Hide (aka south hide)

Canal Bed Hide (aka north hide)

The remaing 4 pools are all to the east of Lapwing Lane and could be called collectively 'the eastern pools'. They are, in order from the Car Park, as follows;

b) Birchwood Pool (through the Dog Field) which has 3 hides (I tend to call the middle one the south hide).

Birchwood Pool West Hide

Birch Strip Hide (aka south hide)

Birchwood Pool East Hide

c) Pumphouse Pool (through Birch Wood) which has 2 hides (Pumphouse Hide on the western shore and Colin's Hide on the eastern shore) or as I call them west hide and east hide.

Pumphouse Hide (aka Pumphouse west hide)

Colin's Hide (aka Pumphouse east hide)

d) Millbrook Pool (further down the main track) has a single hide (Phoenix Hide, so called as it emerged from the ashes of the old roofed one that local yobs burned down) which it shares with...

Phoenix Hide (entrance)

e) Eastern Reedbed (famous in recent years for its overwintering Bittern(s).

Right, that together with the leaflet map should give you a rough indication of where things are. here are a few aerial shots with some of the paths to the various hides superimposed for further information...

MAP 1

This shows the whole patch except for the Eastern Reedbed and east river which are tucked away in the bottom right hand corner, just off thr map. It also shows the other parts of the patch (black labels) for orientation purposes.

MAP 2

CP = Car Park Yellow Hides are additional ones, not associated with the pools. The two top ones overlook Norton Marsh (see Upper Moss Side photo guide), the middle one (a screen) is along the path from Lapwing Lane to Bob's Bridge and overlooks the Snipe Fields on Upper Moss Side and the last is the little screen hide at the Feeding Station which is through the metal gate at the far end of Lapwing Lane and past the small murky pond on your left.

NOTE too the Angler's Pool before the swing bridge. There are no hides here and it's really just for fishermen, but you can get a good view of the water by parking on the gravely bit opposite the horse paddocks of Big Hand Ranch and nipping through the gap by the Warrington Angler's sign

MAP 3

Yellow screen = Feeding Station

MAP 4

Aerial view of the whole patch showing where Moore NR lies in relation to the whole...

MAPS - Part 2: introduction to the woods to follow soon...

Flotsam & Jetsam..

2011-01-15T09:35:00.003Z

"I've got some flotsam."

"That's no good! Get some Jetsam! get my drift...wood?"

So sayeth the sage... and as if by magic, the patch today delivered...

Why is it that time is always so short? Today I had 90 minutes. That was it. A day of stuff, preceded by a typical lack of sleep and necessary early start to cram in the day. No problemo :) We're talking the patch here after all! Besides, the cats woke me early. Wilson decided to have a bit of a purr in my face at about 4am (bless him) and Rosie followed up with a quick pounce on my toes when I failed to drag myself out of bed and feed them both. Delightful creatures. No seriously... they truly are... but I cudda done with a few more zeez pre-river jaunt! Ho hum...

SO, 07:15am... dark... and I'm off to the river. Figure I can get there for first light and take advantage of the fact that high tide was just an hour or two ago and so (a) it would now be receding and (b) things would have been pushed off in the dark and hence eager to feed come daybreak. Happy days. PLUS, there was always the chance of an early morning owl... never a bad thing :) Only today, there were no owls. In fact, as I parked and togged up by the usual black and yellow metal gate, there was only Robin, Blackbird and Carrion Crow. And that's pretty much how it stayed (apart from the ocassional laughing Mallard) until I reached Halfway House about half an hour later.

It was still dark as I set up my replacement fezzie chair on the bank by the river, but at least there was stuff out there - I could hear it. Wigeon mostly, but the ocassional bleat of Teal and 'curlwee' of Curlew too. Yep, things were out and about! Didn't take long for enough light to creep in for me to attempt the first count of the day - 89 Wigeon and 12 Mallard. Smaller stuff out there too... it's the Teal I heard on arrival, just 4 of them though. Further down river 4 Grey Herons are stood on the mud. No gulls anywhere. Odd. On the mud to my right I can now see that there are 135 Curlew hunched in a loose flock. Apart from the continued whistles of the Wigeon, all is quiet. A little sleepy still perhaps.

10 minutes later and there's a little flurry of activity 6 Cormorants fly over from the direction of the Fiddler's Ferry lagoons and 170 Lapwing drift in from upstream and settle by the Wigeon along the far bank. Sharp 'krreeee' to my left as a solitary Dunlin decideds it's time to leave the muddy margin behind the reeds and head off back towards the estuary. Moments later, the first of the morning's gulls arrive low over the water, as they usually seem to do and settle among the Curlew; 7 Black-headed Gull, 2 Common Gull. Other things are stirring too... Great Tit, Dunnock, Pheasant, Chaffinch, Wren, Song Thrush, Common Buzzard.

I do another count. Things are always in flux here and numbers change, but I can see that more Wigeon have emerged and that the Lapwing numbers have swelled. There's also a big flock of Carrion Crows on the mud too, and more gulls. Full tally; 161 Wigeon, 21 Mallard, 4 teal, 1 Gadwall, 34 Shelduck, 10 Grey Heron, 27 BH Gull, 1 Common Gull, 2 Herring Gull, 6 LBB Gull, 250 Lapwing, 129 Curlew, 62 Carrion Crow. Gulls are up! Lapwing and Curlew are off!! Something's spooked them. Quick scan of the skys reveals a Peregrine, powering its way over the river towards its favourite perch atop the pylon to my left. Well, that'll be it for a bit until things settle again. Time to go I think. WTF? What IS that on the waters edge? Biggest bunch of Jetsam I've ever seen on the river... in the form of, yes, a sofa!!!

I've seen some odd stuff washed up on the patch, but that wins the prize for the oddest. Little Grebe on the ship canal by Randal's Sluice (Goldeneye still there too) is another of the day's new additions to the year tally (along with Shelduck, Curlew and Dunlin) as I head back for a quick shuftie of the east end. Funny what you miss in the dark. I must have walked right past these on the way down but only spotted them now. A pair of swan wings.

Juvenile Mute Swan

At this point Farley decides to put in an appearance (cue smell of rusk) and sends me off through Top Scrub and the wet Juncus patches between Shipton's Meadow and the ship canal. I really must sort the little imp out! Seems like he only needs to whisper the word Snipe in my shell like at the moment and he's got me. Well, there were NO Snipe, much to his delight (if the devlish cackles were anything to go by) but I did get a Collared Dove singing by the redbrick houses - another addition to the patch year list.

Arrive back at the car to find I've left the window wide open! Idiot!! Thank god I'd left the river a little earlier than I'd planned. Thank god for that Peregrine! Plan now was to check for thaw on the ponds. Surely by now... Answer? Yes. Lapwing Lake actually has birds on it for the first time in about a month! Not much mind you as there's still a little ice but birds nonetheless in the form of; 6 Mallard, 10 Teal and 3 Tufted Duck in the east corner and 2 Grey Heron perched in the dead tree. Looked like the thaw was taking hold of Birchwood and Pumphouse Pools too (gull city, but no time to sift...) and it had certainly worked a little magic at Millbrook Pool.

Arrived to find bikes. That meant Roy and Harry had got there early and were enjoying the flush of wildfowl that the milder conditions had brought in; 39 Canada Geese, 27 Gadwall, 62 Teal (some in display), 3 Mallard, 6 Shoveler, 5 Wigeon, 14 Tufted Duck, a pair of Pochard and a Coot! Considering there'd been mostly Teal and Shoveler on previous visits, this was somewhat of an upturn in duckage - excellent! Even the Eastern Reedbed had a few birds back; 2 Mallard and a Teal. Happy Days. Well, that was me done. Added Starling and Mute Swan to the year list as I left and checked the barns on the Big Hand Ranch as I drove by. Looks like the Kestrels have set up shop again in the barn owl box - pair sitting on top of it. Would have preferred Barn Owl to be honest, but ho hum. Patch Year Tally 70 species.

Ctrl H...

2011-01-12T15:41:00.000Z

Ctrl H. That, as many of you will know, is the shortcut key for Replace in Word and Excel that allows you to replace one string of text or set of numerical values with another, lots of times, in one fell swoop. You've probably used it and very useful it is too... especially when renaming or recoding bird records. Why am I telling you all this? Because it was a bit of a Ctrl H type session on the patch today. Take for example the Angler's Pool... my first brief stop off point this morning. Now I know we've had the odd chilly day of late but you'd have thought that on the whole, overall, taking all things into consideration that it had perhaps been mild enough to return the patch pools to water wouldn't you. Not quite... and there was a twist to boot, hence the moniker of today's post. Where once there was ice [Ctrl H and in the Find what: box insert the word 'ice'] there was now thinner ice (and less of it) shrouded by a low-hanging mist and an ocassional sprinkling of drizzle [in the Replace with: box insert the word 'mizzle']. Oh the irony. We have, at last, a partial thaw with which to draw birds back (if I may go all Hot Fuzz for a moment - YARP!) but limited opportunities to spot them on account of the crap visibility (NARP!!). Such was today's theme. SO, condiments at the ready dear reader... todays counts may be a little 'off', but I've done my best.

The Anglers Pool earlier

Angler's Pool - nothing. And I'm pretty sure there really was nothing lurking in the mist (see pic above) but at least it was a little more 'chirpy' there today... mostly Great Tit sure, but one was actually singing as if t'was a spring morning, bless his scaly little socks.

Big Hand Ranch - nothing. No mist here (just seemed to be over any open water / ice today) and so I'm sure of it. Not even the resident Kestrel. Not even sure I remember any of the resident horses being there today either come to think of it. Hmmmm.

Pumphouse Pool - Loadsa stuff! Ooo. Well waddayano! Slid the car through the mud to the east hide and got my trusty black notebook out. There was mist here too (I couldn't see the west hide), but at least I could see 2/3rds of the pool and there were birds on it; 14 Mallard, 12 teal, 4 Shoveler, 1 Moorhen and 2 Canada Geese.

Pumphouse Pool today

Then there were the gulls. Hundreds of them. Actually, maybe even a couple of thousand. It was like Birchwood Pool had come to Pumphouse! The vast majority (~90%) were Black-headed Gulls, but there were Great Black-backed, Lesser Black-backed, Herring and Common among them too. Shame, but I didn't have time to go though them all for the likely Med Gull hiding in their midst. Had a brief chat with another birder, Ian, who'd come in from the east end via the river (no Goosander seen) and who was on the patch for the day, clocked a couple of Bullfinch in front of the hide, and headed off to...

... Millbrook Pool - more stuff here today; 11 Mallard, 73 Teal, 14 Canada Geese (first back since freeze), Coot (likewise, and the only one I saw on the pools today - they still haven't returned from wherever it is that they went when the cold snap hit last year and I'm now getting a little worried about them), 13 Shoveler, 20 Gadwall, 1 Grey Heron. No Snipe though... which was a little surprising. the wet flush looks ideal for them at the moment.

Eastern Reedbed - still frozen, though looks about ready to break. Birdwise...Nada... I lie... 1 Carrion Crow... on the ice.

East River - for Goosander. Yes I know it's already been checked today BUT... just in case. Well, they do come and go a bit to be honest, so why not? PLUS it gave me a chance to take a couple of phone snaps of the south and north ends of the river there that together dlimit the eastern boundary proper, of the patch. SO, here they are...

The east river looking south

The east river looking north

...oh and another, which I thought was quite funky... Giant Hogweed on the river bank...

and one that really annoyed me... why do people just dump crap???

Birds. Well, there's a flock of 25+ Goldfinch twittering away, a male Pheasant coughing in one of the fields, a Song Thrush 'tsip-ing' somewhere, Wren churring and...oh... ripples near the far bank. Fish up or bird down? Bird down it turned out as it's just bobbed up again. Cormorant. Had me going for a moment. Further down there's another and beneath the trees on the near bank by me, a pair of Mallard roosting... and that's it. No Goosander, just as Ian had said.

At this point, suffering as I was from intermittent stomach cramps (the result I'm sure of last nights' encounter with a somewhat disagreeable sausage), I was set to leave when the familiar imagined smell of rusk heralded the arrival of my imp, Farley, who proceeded, as he usually does, to bend my ear about leaving the patch prematurely. Today the little devil perched on my shoulder wanted me to check out the Black Fields.

"No Farley! I have gut rot and need to get back!"

"But Master might find a Green Sandpiper there or one of his Snipes"

Oh brilliant! The little bastard had me and before I knew it I was off down Firecrest Alley to view the Black Fields from the bank. Well, there was sod all on there (much to Farley's obvious amusement), BUT there was a flock, yes flock (!) of 5 Goldcrest working west along the hawthorns. They all looked really well fed and healthy too - smashing. And that was pretty much me done... except for a quick check of Birchwood Pool from the road (frozen - no birds), Lapwing Lake from the east hide (frozen - no birds) and the loop through Upper Moss Side in the hope of anything new for the year (I'd drawn a blank so far). Now there's a small stand of newishly planted trees just before the White House with all the building works going on and it has been good for winter Woodcock the past couple of years. Thought it was worth a go. Alas, no joy and I wasted 10 minutes... and now there was this big fuck off truck trundling my way and blocking the road so I'd have to wait another 10 minutes for it to pass. Meh. May just as well check the little field to my right then! First birds I see (and, it turned out, the only ones in the field) are 4 Grey Partridge! Happy Days - an addition to the year list after all. Year Tally 62 species.

A Nippy Ninth...

2011-01-09T16:36:00.000Z

Big Hand Ranch

There was a cold wind a’blowin on the patch today and that together with the odd clear night of late meant that the long hoped for thaw still hadn’t happened. I usually gauge the state of play en route to the patch from a little pond I pass on Pitt's Heath Lane by Sandymoor (my route in). Today, as it has been for about a month, it was still iced, but at least it had a few wildfowl, including a pair of Mute Swans, which is something the patch hasn’t thrown up yet this year! The likely lack of thaw on the patch itself was soon confirmed at the Angler’s Pool which today was devoid not only of both anglers and pool... but birds yet again. I had fleeting hopes of something avian in the distance, but quickly discovered that the white blobs on the ice at the far end were not gulls or wildfowl but broken pieces of ice that somebody had lobbed from the bank. The Big Hand Ranch (opposite the pool), was also quiet. Nothing on the horse paddocks or pill boxes and no sign of the Little Owl in the gap on the roof (although I was to learn later that it had been seen earlier in the morning). Instead there was a solitary male Kestrel there, puffed up against the stiff breeze, staring at the ground.

There were at least a few birds on the ship canal by the Swing Bridge though; 14 Mallard, 14 Coot, 2 Tufted Duck and 2 Gadwall upstream and 6 more Coot downstream. Over the bridge and... it was going to be hooching today (one of the reasons I tend not to stay long at weekends), as the car park was almost full and there were already people walking down Lapwing Lane with scopes and bins. What an optimistic bunch. Bypassed the car park (as usual) and headed up past the lorry bit and warehouses where I got my first new bird (and surprise) of the day in the shape of a male Blackcap that flew across the track into the small strip of woodland (Birch Strip) along the south side of Birchwood Pool. Nothing on the viaducts or Pumphouse Pool as I drove by although the latter was now about 1/3rd thawed and actually had open water at the east end for the first time in yonks. Thought I’d check it from the east hide (just in case) and bumped into 3 birders plodding along the thickly muddy track (Harry and his 2 mates I think). Shot past them in my old Volvo, parked up outside the east hide, quickly confirmed absence of birdage from inside the east hide, did a reversed 3-point turn at the bottom of the dip and trundled past the 3 birders again. This time in the opposite direction.

It seemed like everybody was out an about today! Bumped in to Tony P on my way to the Eastern Reedbed (he’d just had male Peregrine) and Roy (+ bike) feeding the Robin at the hide there. Roy hadn't seen much so far but at least the wildfowl numbers were up in the NE corner of Millbrook Pool (still the only pond with any ducks on!); 60 Teal, 3 Mallard, 7 Gadwall and 18 Shoveler (these were new arrivals since my last visit and my first for 2011). Was briefly enjoying a rather big looking Common Buzzard perched at the back of the pool when what should appear low over from the south but a honking great Peregrine followed by a somewhat slimmer version... a female and a male. Very nice and the third of six new birds for the year I’d get today. Mike M had text me to say these lil beauties were knocking about a few days ago, so it was gratifying to pick them up. Maybe this year they’ll hang around long enough to breed. Fingers crossed. Quickly scoped the near shore of the big island on Millbrook Pool for Woodcock (one was there at year end) but nothing there today. Decided as everywhere was still frozen to head east where I found John P parked up by the substation, togging up ready to hit the east river for Goosander. Great minds. Not much about though by the viaducts (which didn’t bode well)... a Moorhen on the bank and a Cormorant in the water. Always worth a look up the other end by the factories though at this time of year coz there’s a bit of bend in the river there and you never know what’s going to be tucked in on the bank. Today though there was just a couple of Magpie hopping about in one of the willows overhanging the river and 11 Mallard.

We were just about to head back when what should drift in and and alight on one of the old gantry cranes over the river but a new year Raven. We watched it for a while as it worked it’s way along the metal framework. Next up was a Common Buzzard over the river closer to us. The Raven was on it in a flash and quickly saw it off, pronking once as it casually returned to its perch overlooking the river. I saw them mobbing buzzards down this end of the patch on several ocassions last year AND had a family party over the reserve during the summer, so they breed nearby I’m sure. I’d always rather assumed though that it must be at Fiddler’s Ferry, but maybe it’s around here? Watch this space. More stuff over as we walked back to the cars... 14 Redwing, 10 Goldfinch and a solitary Skylark. Reed Bunting, Siskin (new for the year), Great Tit, Blue Tit, Long-tailed Tit and Goldcrest (presumably the same one that had been in the nearby brambles on my last visit).

OK. Time now short, so it was off to check on the Tawny Owl. John had heard tale of its return, but it was sitting higher up in its tree. Decided in the car on the way, to check the Feeding Station for Brambling, but as I parked up four more peeps on the hunt for birds appeared and it was clear that there was nothing about. Unfortunately that applied to Tawny Owl as well, as despite our collective 10 eyes, we couldn't find it, although another Raven did fly by... which was nice. Cold now so headed back to the car (brief chat with another 2 birders... I have never seen it so busy!) and did a slow drive around the Upper Moss Side loop picking up a few Yellowhammer and a couple of House Sparrows (final new year birds) on the way, before catching up with one of my old project students with another bloke on the track past Hillcrest Quarry. You know something... I wouldn’t be surprised if today there were more people on the patch than birds :) Year tally 61 species... Bring on the thaw!!!

2010 - a birding year at Moore: Part 2...

2011-01-08T14:08:00.000Z

SO, this follows on, inevitably, .from Part 1... and is a summary of the birding seasons on the patch last year. This year I have decided to try to link posts a bit (either names of sites to maps and further info. or dates to the original post) using large pink hyperlinks, (and/or simply larger text, as I have discovered that the colours aree sometimes reset!) so you should hopefully find one or two below that'll take you the events alluded to, if you fancy a read, which I hope you do! Just hit the BACK button when you've done to return you to the original post. Let me know how you get on...

July – More fledged broods appeared this month; Blue Tit, Great Tit, Long-tailed Tit, Bullfinch, Reed Bunting, Pied Wagtail, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Little Owl, Raven (2ads+3juvs together over Birchwood Pool), Gadwall (5 broods comprising 44 young seen - fewer broods, but larger this year - 7 broods, 36 young in 2009), Tufted Duck (first broods appeared and peaked at 6 broods comprising 22 young seen - upon last year - 4 broods, 17 young in 2009), Little Grebe (5 broods comprising 16 young seen - fewer broods but similar numbers of young produced compare to last year - 9 broods, 15 young in 2009). Autumn passage began on the 13th with the arrival of the first Green and Common Sandpipers, the latter peaking at 5 birds on the 19th before fizzling out on the 22nd when a juvenile Marsh Harrier was also seen. During the same period alpina Dunlin started moving through at Halfway House and reached their maximum of 29 birds on the 16th when a gorgeous clean juvenile Redshank stayed for a day. Post-breeding flocks also started to build up there with 119 Curlew (22nd), 965 Lapwing (23rd) and 19 Mute Swan were on the short stretch of the Manchester Ship Canal west of Bob’s Bridge and 13 Mistle Thrushes were all sat in one tree for a while at Moss Side Farm.

August – More autumn wader passage this month in the form of the following cumulative counts ; 7 Black-tailed Godwits, 5 Common Sandpiper, 14 Dunlin, 16 Green Sandpiper, 1 Greenshank, 12 Ringed Plover, 3 Redshank and a Turnstone! In addition to the waders, an unexpected passage bird put in a 12 day stint (no, it’s not a pun!) at Pumphouse Pool – a cracking little female Garganey and the first autumn one I’ve had on the patch. More breeding evidence surfaced this month too in the form of fresh juveniles; Grey Wagtail, Sparrowhawk, Common Buzzard, Pheasant. Post-breeding assemblages too continued to be the order of the month at Halfway House with year maxima for Lapwing (2485) and Canada Goose (430) and high counts of Shelduck (26), Curlew (109) and Carrion Crow (61). The biggest gatherings of Goldfinch (flock of 40 on Upper Moss Side with many juvs), Swallows (120 at Halfway House), Grey Heron (14 on Birchwood Pool), Magpie (flock of 14 in one tree on Upper Moss Side) and roosting Little Egret (5 with the Cormorants in trees on Lapwing Lake) also occured in August. It was also a month of more comings... (first Common Snipe 7th , Shoveler 19th and Yellow-legged Gull 26th back as well as the arrival of a juvenile Green Woodpecker at Pumphouse – a good sign as these have in recent years been absent from the patch!)... and goings (last Grasshopper Warbler 21st and Swift 22nd).

September – was a quiet month, noteable mostly for the small stuff drifting away / moving through in the early part of the month. There was a bit of a fall of woodland stuff and warblers on The Prom at Halfway House on the 3rd; 1 Chiffchaff, 5 Coal Tit, 1 Common Redstart (an excellent patch bird!), 3 Goldcrest, 2 Great Spotted Woodpecker, 2 Treecreeper, 6 Whitethroat and 3 Willow Warbler. At the other end of the patch there was a gathering of Long-tailed Tits (23 on Pumphouse Meadow) and Pied/White Wagtails (14, mostly alba). There were again, noteable flocks of Goldfinch at both ends of the patch too; 60 at Halfway House and 20 by the viaduct pools opposite Pumphouse together with further reports of Green Woodpecker nearby. The following couple of days saw, over the east end of the reserve, a small movement of less common passage birds (3 Tree Pipit and 1 Yellow Wagtail) and a small fall of 15 Goldcrest, 2+ Chiffchaff and 1 Common Whitethroat .

October – saw some VisMig in the early days of the month in the form of Skylarks, Meadow Pipits, Lesser Redpolls and the last of the Swallows whilst at the end of the month the winter thrushes arrived in numbers with double figure flocks of Fieldfare and 100+ flocks of Redwing. At the same time, our resident Blackbird and Song Thrush populations were swelled by what I presume were northern birds shifting south and continental vistors respectively as the numbers shot up when the Fieldfare and Redwing arrived. October also provided some prize patch one-offs for the year in the form of Cetti’s Warbler (8th), Firecrest (28th) and Water Pipit (29th). Quite a month!

November – Brambling arrived (a female at the Feeding Station) and our resident (one of our resident?) male Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers put in a 2nd winter period appearance whilst it’s larger cousin (Green Woodpecker) began to be reported more widely across the reserve and there was talk of adult birds being seen. On the warbler front, there were still ocassional records of Chiffchaff and Blackcap mid-month and it could well be that we get one or more of our resident Chiffchaff overwintering again (winter Blackcaps if they 'stay' are typically continental birds just over for the festivities).

December – was basically a white out. There was heavy snow early in the month and the persistent sub-zero temperatures froze everything solid for the month, pusing all the wildfowl off the pools. The Tawny Owl appeared on her ivy-covered roost for a few days, fluffed up against the cold, but didn’t stay long. Numbers of woodland birds seemed to drop sharply and I'm guessing many headed for local gardens in the hope of food. Over the same period I had a fair bit of stuff drop in to my own garden that i rarely see outside of severe cold snaps (Nuthatch, Great Spotte Woodpecker, Redwing). The patch exception to the general plummeting numbers rule though were Yellowhammers, where a flock of 30-40 built on Upper Moss Side in the Tree Sparrow Field, no doubt as a result of the feeders there. At year end the diving ducks began to appear on the river with records of both Goldeneye and Goosander. Alas though, the Bittern(s) never returned and I ended the year with a blank for this rather special winter visitor that left me one shy of the magical 140 for the year. Ah well, it’s really not all about the numbers anyway and besides, I still had the best year on the patch so far and found some smashin birds. 2011 here we go... Happy Days :)

Oh, and just in case you're wondering how typical a year that was, here's PART 1 and PART 2 for 2009 :)

The Little Things...

2011-01-03T17:32:00.000Z

Two hours? What am I gonna get done in just two hours?! That's how much patch time (including getting there and back) that I had at my disposal amid pre-work chores (I start back tomorrow...) and that's what occupied my mind on the mad drive to Moore at 8:15 this morning. Well I'd have to do the east river as Mikey had texted me that there were a couple of Goldeneye there... but I really needed to get to Halfway House too and they are at opposite ends of the patch. It would be a squeeze. Ah well, wtf - go for it! Floored the old Volvo and headed for the east end barely slowing to check for Peregrine by the viaduct. None there, but did pick up the first new species for the day - Stock Dove - two of them on the railway bridge. Nipped in to the Eastern Reedbed in the hope of nabbing the temporarily resident winter Woodcock, but no joy. What's more, everywhere was still pretty much frozen and so devoid of birds. Teal numbers were down on Millbrook Pool (just 16 today) and there were no Mallard or Gadwall. Odd. The reason though soon became apparent. Even before I'd lifted my bins and turned around I knew that the crisp pattering on the ice to my left was a fox - the mangey looking female I'd seen a couple of weeks back by the look of it. And there was another... edging around the island, also on the ice. Not surprising that most of the the ducks had scarpered! Slim pickings these days. The Teal though were a year tick, and I have a soft spot for the patch foxes anyway so I couldn't really complain.

As nothing else was showing I trotted to the car and parked up at the east end by the substation for a quick check of the east river. This is as good a spot as any for the 'trickier' winter diving ducks on the patch; Goosander, Goldeneye etc. Not today though. Just a solitary Moorhen. Ah well, at least it would give me time for a fair crack at the west end. Bumped into Roy on his bike as I left for Halfway House. He was meeting up with Dave to take a gander at the Yellowhammer flock on Upper Moss Side. Unfortunately, for me, UMS was going to have to wait for another day. I needed to get to the river. Parked up by Bob's Bridge and instantly got a few more new species for the year; 2 Bullfinch over, 4 Fieldfare on top of a large Hawthorn and a Great Spotted Woodpecker calling from the very top of the tallest poplar by the redbrick houses. Seemed like there was more stuff out and about today, despite the chill (sub-zero again according to my car) as Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Great Tit and Goldcrest were all calling nearby. The Goldcrest surprised me a little. I'd had one at the Feeding Station on New Year's Day and it now struck me how pleasantly odd that this was. Goldcrest can be like hen's teeth on the patch and it took me months to find one last year, funnily enough where I was now, Bob's Bridge, and so birds in two different parts of the patch was very good indeed, especially as I'd figured these little things would have been hammered hardest by the cold snap on account of their small size and insectivorous habits. Apparently not!

Decided I'd be better taking the path along Shipton's Meadow to the ship canal today as (i) the canal was weirdly frozen from the swing bridge to about as far as the black and yellow gate and (ii) there was a good chance of some farmland stuff along the way. Added Greenfinch, Pheasant (a male being pursued by 4 females), Dunnock, Song Thrush, Rook (10+ with a load of Jackdaws in one of the fields), 2 Skylark and a male Yellowhammer over - so not too shabby a detour at all. The ship canal by the warehouses was free of ice but there was nothing on it at all, just a solitary Redshank on one of the little muddy embankments. I'd have probaby missed it if it hadn't wing-stretched. Not to worry. There was bound to be something further down. And so it was. A group of Tufted Duck (3m,8f) and something else with them... scope up and... 2 female Goldeneye. Could be the east river birds I guess. Nice. And that brought me to...

... the bend in the river - Halfway House. Well, there was stuff about sure enough. Nothing spectacular mind you, just patch basics, but it all added to the feel that things were ticking along nicely. So here's the first of the year's HWH counts; 260 Black-headed Gull, 26 Herring Gull, 38 Great Black-backed Gull (a good count that!), 2 Common Gull, 0 Lesser Black-backed Gull, 3 Grey Heron, 41 Mallard, 3 Gadwall, 21 Wigeon, 4 Teal, 21 Canada geese, 1 Cormorant, 39 Lapwing. No Shelduck, Curlew, Little Egret or Golden Plover though - shame. Time was pressing so I had to dash, but not before I found yet another Goldcrest. This time in the brambles opposite 'The Prom' and there may well have been a second bird. Made me smile that... ah the little things eh ;) SO, headed off happy as the proverbial sand laddy with a few more species under my unfortunately expansive post-Chrimbo belt. Had a quick look for Collared Dove by the houses and Moss Side Farm on the way back - no luck. No Stonechat in the Phrag Field either, nor Grey Partridge on any of the field margins. Did get Mistle Thrush and Kestrel by the swing bridge though as I headed home. I make that another 23 species which puts me on 55 for the year. Not too bad really given that we are only on Day 3 :)

PS It's now 16:08 and I've just got text from Mike 'Pair of Goosander on the east river' - doh!

2010 - a birding year at Moore: Part 1...

2011-01-02T15:58:00.000Z

Thought it might be nice to summarise the seasons on the patch with a bit of a retrospective on last year’s birds. Now you have to bear in mind that this is just one bloke’s patch perspective. I’m not claiming my first and last dates are THE first and last dates various migrants arrived and departed nor am I claiming definitive breeding records or counts for the entire site. The summary below is just a record of what I came across when I was out and about and there could well have been greater numbers of any of these species at various times. But these are my tallies across the patch and I reckon they’re not far off. SO, with that in mind, here's the first installment of two...

January – Yule birds on the patch included an overwintering Green Sandpiper and a male Lesser Spotted Woodpecker and the Bittern (I say ‘the’ Bittern... maybe there was more than one) showed on and off until the end of the month on the Eastern Reedbed. There was a Barn Owl on Upper Moss Side, but it kept itself to itself and wasn’t seen by many. The cold weather played a role in keeping some birds away. No Kingfisher and no Canada Geese, Great Crested Grebes or Tufted Duck were seen. Other wildfowl were present across the site in variable numbers though. Max counts; 180 Coot, 47 Gadwall, 43 Mallard, 37 Shoveler, 17 Teal, 13 Little Grebe, 10 Moorhen, 5 Wigeon and 3 Pochard.

February – Another Green Sandpiper seemed to be overwintering... this one was on Norton Marsh. Of course, it’s not inconceivable that this was the same bird that last month was at the east end of the reserve... but you never know. The Bittern and Lesser Spotted Woodpecker were still around, but alas, there appeared to be no sign of the female LSW. Now, I’m SURE I heard that she’d been seen in Birch Wood very early in the year and thereafter she vanished. Males and females set up separate winter territories and my feeling is that she was predated early in 2010, leaving the male all alone. Slight snag is that i can find no independent record of said ‘female sighting’ to back this up... anybody??? Anyway, the male didn’t seem to get what was going on and was busy drumming on 20th Feb and Nuthatch, Stock Dove and Treecreeper were all in song and Willow Tit were starting to pair up. There were I reckon at least 6 pairs of Grey Partridge knocking about on Upper Moss Side too. On a more wintery note, there was a small flock (10+) of Siskin around the Feeding Station for most of the month and a female Brambling put in the occasional appearance there. A female Goosander turned up on Birchwood Pool and an adult Mediterranean Gull was a nice addition to the regular Black-headed Gulls on Pumphouse Pool. Still no Great Crested Grebe or Kingfisher about athough and the Little Grebes vanished, but Teal numbers were up to 121. The oddest February record was of a Ring-necked Parakeet! Alas, I missed it... I did get the only patch Merlin record for the year though... cracking female on Norton Marsh. Happy Days!

March – There were several good records of Woodcock on the snipe fields of Upper Moss Side at the start of the month and up to 3 Jack Snipe were around in the little ‘off piste’ damp spot that they regularly frequent during the winter months. Other winter birds included a juvenile Glaucous Gull, a 2y Yellow-legged Gull and another (the same?) female Brambling. Other winter visitors were heading off; my last date for Fieldfare, Redwing and Wigeon was the 18th. This month also saw the return of some of the species pushed off by the cold snap and the pairing off of some of the more hardy residents. The first Little Grebes and Kingfishers came back, the first Great Crested Grebes started braying, 2 pairs of Shelduck turned up (they always look interested but never seem to breed), the first Yellowhammers were singing, a few pairs of Willow Tits were noted scattered about and a pair of Peregrines took up temporary residence only to move on shortly after. By the middle of the month migrants began to arrive too; Chiffchaff (I don’t think any overwintered this year) and Sand Martin (18th), Northern Wheatear (22nd), Willow Warbler (27th) and Swallow (29th). Goodies included a reported Lapland Bunting from the tower hide on Upper Moss Side on the 25th (that I missed...) and a gorgeous Red Kite over the Feeding Station in the sunshine on the 12th (that I got!). Year tally during the first quarter, 99 species - way off my usual aimed for ton before the first migrant.

April – This month saw the arrival of the main wave of migrants and the start of spring passage. Reed Warbler (9th), Common Whitethroat, Grasshopper Warbler, Little Ringed Plover (10th), House Martin (12th), Sedge Warbler (13th), Green Sandpiper (15th), more Northern Wheater (19th),Tree Pipit and Yellow Wagtail (24th), Cuckoo and Whinchat (26th). This was followed to month’s end by a flurry of wader passage at Halfway House that included; 2 Avocet, 11 Black-tailed Godwits, 9 Common Sandpiper, 1 Green Sandpiper, 5 Greenshank, 5 Ringed Plover and 3 Whimbrel. During the same period a Marsh Harrier (cream crown) was seen on three dates and the last Teal and Common Snipe left for their breeding grounds elsewhere. April was also the month I have as the first date back of our Linnets... (they seem often to go AWOL during the winter) and one of two Ruddy Duck records for the patch – a male on the 26th (these are tricky birds to get at Moore these days). Year tally 116 species

May – The last of the migrants arrived and broods began to appear. I had a Hobby by Fiddler’s Ferry on the 1st, but alas I was driving to Warrington at the time and so was the wrong side of the power station when I got it. Frustrating, as I have yet to nail a patch Hobby and a fellow patcher had one over the patch around the same time. The first Garden Warbler appeared on the 3rd, followed by the first Lesser Whitethroat and Black-necked Grebe on the 7th, the same date I clocked my first Moorhen brood on the patch in a ditch bordering Upper Moss Side. Later broods included 1 Shelduck brood (5 young), 1 Greylag Goose brood (5 young), 4 Canada Goose broods (totalling 15 young – down on 2009; 6 broods, 28 young) and 6 Mallard broods comprising 32 young (<50% of the 2009 output; 14 broods, 71 young). Spring passage continued with another Marsh Harrier (juvenile) and Whinchat early in the month, a Greenland Wheatear, Common Tern and Ringed Plover on the 13th, a single Knot on the 20th with a single Sanderling and 2 Dunlin the following day. Great Crested Grebe numbers peaked at 7 and were split 2+2+1+1+1 on separate ponds suggesting 5 pairs; Tufted Duck numbers were still high at 57 (so probably not incubating yet?) and there were still 3 Pochard knocking about. 123 species.

June – A funny month... or rather a bit of a ‘cross-over’ month. On the one hand, migrants were still arriving. There were further records of Cuckoo early in the month and a Spotted Flycatcher moved through on the 2nd when an arctica Dunlin also dropped in on it’s way north. On the other hand, things were returning from early or failed breeding attempts elsewhere. 2 Common Sandpipers turned up on Pumphouse Pool mid-month, the first Wigeon returned and the post-breeding Lapwing flock (80 birds) set up shop at Halfway House. There was also a rather neat summer adult Redshank knocking about on the 18th and I still can’t decide if he was on his way north to breed late, on his way back having failed already or was a local breeder on walkabout. As far as I know Redshank don’t breed on the patch although I’ve had them singing in suitable habitat the past couple of years in early spring. Perhaps they still breed on the other side of the river at Fiddler’s Ferry... Anyway, birds that did breed on site and who showed their respective fledgling hands this month were; Great Spotted Woodpecker, Nuthatch, Great Crested Grebe, Little Grebe, Pheasant and Tufted Duck. 124 species.

PART 2 can be found HERE...

A New Year...

2011-01-01T19:54:00.000Z

New Year’s Day 2011... that's two thousand and eleven peeps, I refuse to call it 'Twenty Eleven'. SO, it’s been 7 months since I started this blog and here I am, 81 posts later, about to usher in another birding year on the patch. The slate is wiped cleaned, the year list reset to zero and the excitement of what the year will bring building nicely. Smashing stuff! It kinda feels like I should start the new patch year with a retrospective... the best bits of 2010... but that’s just gonna have to wait I'm afraid. It’s New Year’s Day and I feel a yule log brewing. Now before those smutty types among you chip in with jokes about too much turkey and its effects on the old digestive system, I mean of course the traditional New Year’s Day birding log of species seen. I don’t normally do this. Well, I sometimes do, but it’s not one of my personal traditions. I used to go Martin Mere on NYD regular as clockwork when I kept a year list and twitched a bit, primarily to get the wildfowl off to a good start, but as regular readers will know, I stopped that long ago. I now contentedly (is that a word?) confine my birding entirely to my patch, the occasional Welsh jaunt avec soup with my birding chum Matt (http://deebirder.blogspot.com/) notwithstanding.

Happily today, with the inlaws and outlaws back at their respective haunts post Chrimbo, I had a few hours to ‘spare’ and the natural thing to do was, of course, to go Moore. Truth be told it wasn’t that I wanted to rack up a massive list on Day 1, not at all. Actually I was much more curious about how I’d handle the inevitable birding irony of seeing what would have been my 140th species a day too late to be added to the 2010 tally! That and the state of the ice. I'd not really thought what the first species of the year would be on the patch, which is odd really, coz I usually do stuff like that... but I wasn’t at all surprised to find Black-headed Gull at No.1, quickly followed by Carrion Crow and Magpie on the horse paddocks. A quick scan didn’t throw up the half-expected winter thrushage – so no Redwing, Mistle Thrush or Fieldfare to add to the tally just yet. The ice issue (had it thawed or not?) was answered pretty much as soon as I pulled up alongside the Angler’s Pool . No. It hadn’t. And, there were no birds either. In fact not only was nothing visible, but nothing much was audible either apart from another crow and the distant alarm call of a Blackbird... VERY quiet indeed. Hmmmmm. This was unanticipated. Change of plan required. I had assumed the pools would be free of ice and stuff would be out and about, despite the damp and murky start to the year. Not so. Yomp for an early Goosander and a comprehensive working of the ponds seemed therefore a bit of a waste of time. No. My best shot at finding anything today was probably the Feeding Station...

Wind the windows down on the car and set of over the swing bridge (NTS: canal thawed) adding Mallard, Coot, Moorhen, Tufty, Cormorant and Feral Pigeon as I slowly trundled along... past the car park (NTS: lots of cars and hence people about = disturbance. DOH!)... on to Lapwing Lane - first stop the hide overlooking Lapwing Lake. Still quiet as the grave. Single Herring Gull sitting out on the ice and a Jackdaw over calling... I make that just a dozen species so far. Feeding Station next then... Better here; Great Tit, Blue Tit, Song Thrush, Robin, Chaffinch, Jay... Lesser Black-backed Gull and Wood Pigeon over... Goldfinch calling, Treecreeper too. Tapping overhead... Nuthatch. Coal Tit on one of the feeders Iwonder if it misses the other one – see White Out (http://moorepatcher.blogspot.com/2010/12/white-out.html)... and... yep... that high pitched 'seessing' is indeed a tasty Goldcrest. No Great Spotted Woodpecker though... or Long-tailed Tit. Interesting.

OK... reckon I stick to woodland for the rest of the sesh (hence this post's pix). Tawny path next. Would be nice if she was back in the ivy-covered tree again having vacated it the other week. Common Buzzard calling, couple of Lesser Redpoll over chi-chi-chiiiing... Redwing... but no Tawny Owl again today. Small flock of Long-tailed Tits in the woods between the little wooden bridge and Birchwood Pool west hide. Nothing here though save evidence of the harshness of December’s cold snap – a Grey Heron stretched out dead on the ice. Damn. Decide to take the little path along the south side of the Capped Tip back to the Feeding Station. Might be the chance of something different here; lots of wet wooded ditches that look ideal for Woodcock... not today though. No Common Snipe either (they like the wet margings along the north side of the Cow Field). Nothing along the Boardwalk to the north path along Lapwing Lake (a pattern is emerging...) and from the hide... a single Herring Gull on the ice. Oh shit... it hasn't moved. It's the same one I saw from the hide on Lapwing Lane earlier. It's bloody feathers are stuck to the ice I just know it. OMG... it's gonna slowly starve to death stuck out on the ice and end up like that heron on Birchwood Pool and there's sod all I can do about it - fuck it :( Well THAT has cheered me up no end!

Just down from the north hide I get a Willow Tit. Wonder if Hillcrest Quarry will throw anything up... maybe Greenfinch or Bullfinch? Not had either yet. Come to think of it, I've not even had Dunnock. Or maybe that Green Woodpecker is still knocking about? Now that would be nice! Unfortunately, I add nothing new except a Wren to the New Year's tally and settle for the day on THIRTY TWO... a somewhat modest total... but it was good to be back on the patch with a whole year to look forward to again. Happy Days! Especially as the Herring Gull was standing up and looking about when I hit the Lapwing Lake south hide :)

Can't wait to hit the river. Finger's crossed - hopefully tomorrow!

Mist...

2010-12-30T12:34:00.000Z

The Angler's Pool

And STILL the thaw is incomplete. And still there are no wildfowl anywhere except Millbrook Pool where today were; 50 Teal, 8 Gadwall and 8 Mallard. No sign of yesterday's Woodcock, but a Great Spotted Woodpecker bounded over calling. And that, was pretty much it for the pools... all iced over and hung with fog or maybe mist. I'm never too sure of the difference. Fog sounds like a grubby dirty thick nasty grey murky thing whereas mist sounds a little more atmospheric. SO, I'm going for mist coz it was all very atmospheric...

Eastern Reedbed

Millbrook Pool

Pumphouse Pool

The only other place with birds today was the Feeding Station. Hooching so it was with dozens of Blue Tits, Great Tits, Chaffinches and Reed Buntings hungry for the scraps on offer.

No Nuthatch or woodpeckers again though. Never saw a single Robin, Blackbird or Wren either. No Moorhen. No Long-tailed Tits. 4 Grey Squirrels. 1 Willow Tit. I have an inkling this cold snap has hit the Moore residents pretty hard. I guess time will tell...

The answer ISN'T seven...

2010-12-29T17:06:00.000Z

Lapwing Lake this afternoon

Funny old thing patching. Take the past few months for example. Much of my time has been spent at the far ends of the patch looking for those illusive winter ticks that have been keeping me from a record breaking 140 for the year. I guess that's the nature of things as new species become harder and harder to find as the year progresses... which in a weird way... makes visiting the patch more and more fun (I use the word 'fun' here as a euphemism for 'challenging'). It can certainly make you work harder and explore new places, or in my case, test the ole tenacity to the full. I mean how many times CAN you visit the same bit of river, looking for the same bird, with the same result - ne pas de sausage - before you crack up? Well, I can tell you that the answer ISN'T seven. Coz that's how many times I've yomped to the east river looking for Goosander during the past few months without any luck... until today! The gorgeous redhead by the viaduct had me whooping and kicking my heels with joy (don't even go there!). Funny. I'd always assumed that when I found a Goosander here (and I always believed I would) it would be a male... and here she was, swimming upstream along the far bank a cute little female and species number 138 for the year. And what's more, my gut showed absolutely no inclination towards today being THE day that I'd find one... go figure.

We'd arrived (I had 'olds' with me) at the Angler's Pool an hour earlier to see how the thaw was progressing. Not bad as it turned out but still nowhere near enough meltage as yet. There was now about 20% open water but the pool still only had gulls; 102 Black-headed Gulls and 8 Common Gulls to be exact. Still, at least it suggested it was worth checking the rest of the pools for birds. WE were clearly not the only ones with that particular idea today. The car park was full as we drove past (meh!) and I could see two silhouttes already in the hide as we approached the reedbed. Ah well. Turned out to be a couple of the local lads I'd not seen for a while and they were already scoped on the Woodcock. Today it was on the big island of Millbrook Pool, seemingly asleep. The thaw here had progressed too and the Teal numbers had swelled from yesterdays' half a dozen to 63 today. There had been a few Gadwall on the wetter flush in the north east corner earlier too, according to our birding compadres, but these had now gone. The Eastern Reedbed was less productive - still iced over and devoid of birds. It was at this point we went and bagged us the Goosander :) Happy days...

Next up was a quick trip to Pumphouse Pool. We'd noticed a shed load of gulls on the ice there as we'd driven past earlier and with my dander now semi-erect from my recent Goosander thrill I figured the gulls were worth a trawl - target: the juvenile Iceland Gull that Mikey had had in the not too distant past. Long story short; c650 Black-headed Gull, 38 Herring Gull, 15 Common Gull, 7 Lesser Black-backed Gull, ZERO Iceland Gull. Birchwood Pool was today birdless - I mean COMPLETELY birdless! Not even a Crow. If I wanted to get even closer to the magical 140 I'd need to scour the treetops for small stuff. There'd been a flock of about 45 Lesser Redpoll at the Eastern Reedbed, but the light was rubbish and it would have been pointless to grill them all for a Mealy... but the light seemed a little better in Birch Wood as we trogged back through the mud to the car. Bins up and... Chaffinch... Chaffinch... Chaffinch... Iceland Gull. ICELAND GULL! Fuck me! I had NOT expected that. An adult Iceland Gull was cruising low over Birch Wood heading towards Arpley Tip... clear as day... not a speck of black on those pearly wing-tips. T'was like a ghost of gull, Sire. The olds thought I was completely mad as I hopped and skipped about cackling, "Iceland Gull, fucking adult iceland Gull - 'scuse my French..." and so on and so forth. So icy puts me on 139, and that I'm sure is where I'll stay - 1 short of the magical 140. I can't honestly see catching up with any patch Waxwing, overflying Whoopers or roosting Long-eared Owls over the next couple of days, especially with visitors up... but hey, patching teaches you contentment. And I am, at this moment, a most content patcher :)

PS: Mind you with 45 Lesser Redpolls at the reedbed and two talismanic old people staying I'd be mad not to bundle them into the car again tomorrow and go Mealy huntin... watcha reckon? ;)

Spooky Translucence and the Superficial Thaw...

2010-12-28T11:56:00.000Z

I've pretty much given up adding any further goodies to the year list tbh but the inevitable pull of the patch struck again this morning and with everyone away in Chester shopping (wtf!) I figured why not head out and a spend a couple hours 'in the nature'. Things have been so iced up and bird-bare of late that I was curious to see what was back, now that the thaw had seemingly set in. SO, I skipped brekky and still uber-fueled by the turkey 'n' trimmings of last weekend, wiped down the windows on the wee silver midget (the jets are still frozen) and scootled off to the patch.

The first 'surprise' of the morning was the amount of ice still about on the road to the swing bridge. I actually skidded to a stop by the Angler's Pool. No Little Owl today on the barn, just a fluffed up Kestrel on the old barn owl box and one or two Redwing in the horse paddocks. The Angler's Pool itself was devoid of birds. The thaw had melted the snow but not the underlying ice and so the melt water just lay there on the surface in shallow blue-grey puddles.

This bode less well than I'd hoped. Chances were if this pool was still iced the others would be too. I flicked the car back on to the road, hit a right by the empty car park and headed for the east end of the reserve. The slippiness of the track past the warehouses and the polished grey of Birchwood Pool as I drove past confirmed the shallowness of the thaw. But there were birds. A small group of gulls on the ice by the small island. Something to check out later - just in case there's an Iceland Gull among them. Predictably the first birds that swooped across the track en route to the reedbed were Jays. They looked drabber today without the snowy backdrop. Between Millbrook Pool and the Eastern Reedbed there was still loose snow on the track which made the driving easier. Parked up, and after about 10 seconds of comedy legs as I got out of the car slipped immediately, grabbed the roof and flailed like mad to get upright again, I was off to the reedbed.

No birds. Same as the other ponds - only partly thawed. The surface was an eerie translucent grey.I almost expected to suddenly see a face pressed up against it - trapped beneath the ice. Spooky... but oddly beuatiful in its own frosty kinda way. Anyway, birds... as I said. None on the pool, BUT did get a couple of Skylark over calling. This was actually to become a bit of a theme-let of the morning's sesh... every so often a Skylark would go over - calling. They all seemed to be heading ENE ish. Must have noted 8 or 9 whilst I was out and about.

Millbrook Pool had 3 Teal, 1 Common Buzzard, 1 Magpie and 1 Carrion Crow. Time to move west. Flushed a Woodcock again on the way back to the car. This time it was feeding on the Millbrook Pool side of the track. Last time I'd flushed it from the reedbed side opposite. Cracking bird.

Pumphouse Pool - 1 Grey Heron. That was it. Clearly the pools were going to be a dead loss today. They need a few more days of mild weather. Maybe I'll get a chance to hit them again Friday to cap the year. Fingers crossed. Had difficulty pulling away outside the east hide.. the ice was thick there. Finally managed it AND a three point turn, which was a miracle. It was like driving a Zamboni! Decided to hit Birchwood Pool from the west, rather than through Birch Wood itself. That way there'd be less chance of getting stuck and I'd get to check Lapwing Lake and the Tawny roost on my way. Actually parked in the car park today (which I very rarely do) and was pleased to get a sprinlikng of small stuff as I togged up with another couple of layers; a couple of Nuthatch, small flock of Goldfinch, Blue Tits, Song Thrush, Great Spotted Woodpecker - not GREATER spotted woodpecker as they keep saying on the telly... "I had a Greater Spotted Woodpecker in garden the other day". Fuck off! It's Great Spotted!! Aaarrg!!! Bah Humbug... Calm... Calm... Rant over. OR... we could digress to shopping queues? No! Focus! This is a BIRD blog!

SO, off I set on foot along Lapwing Lane. The going on was VERY slow. The only was to get from one end to the other was along the leafy margins. The road itself was waaaay too glassy for any kind of traction even with my clompy black Berghaus boots, so instead I shuffled along the verge to the hide overlooking Lapwing Lake. No birds there either, just another expanse of misty grey ice.

The section of Lapwing Lane between the hide and the path to the Tawny roost yielded nothing new except a few Siskin and the incessant cackles of Jackdaws - the most abundant bird on the patch today. A few Great Tits were piping up along the track to the small bridge with the ivy-covered tree, but alas, no Tawny Owl there today... just 13 Jackdaws. Actually, they were a bit on the sinister side this lot... all hunchy backed and staring. Looked ready to swoop down and have my eyes out if I'd given 'em half a chance - spooky!

Well, the Birchwood Pool gull flock did NOT contain the hoped for one hundred and thirty eighth species for the year; just 11 Black-headed Gulls, 3 Common Gulls and 1 Herring Gull. No wildfowl whatsoever there either. Only other birds were 3 Carrion Crows, 1 Grey Heron, 1 Pied Wagtail and the last of the morning's Skylark over. Wonder where everything has gone??? Ah well, the Woodcock was nice and the small movement of Skylark interesting. Otherwise, let's see what the real thaw brings...

A Patch Of Snow...

2010-12-23T18:11:00.000Z

Finally got to the river today amid the snow. Hardly saw a thing but it was SO beautiful out. Not much to say really other than the light was just something else. The snow made the backdrop to everything a weird blue-tinged monotone - like everything was shot in black and white but through a cold blue or UV filter or something. Really enhanced the colours of the few birds and animals that were out and about. The gulls and squirrels looked smokey blue grey today; the Bullfinches and Jays en route to the river blushed shades of pink; the solitary Woodcock and Snipe at the east end of the reseve looked like they'd been inlaid with gold and ebony and the small flocks of Redwings that were skitting between berry bushes were undescribabley gorgeous and just made me feel...well, christmasy to be honest! Even the two Buzzards I came across (one drinking from a stream, the other labouring under a full crop by the ship canal) seemed to have every rich shade of warm fire-side brown you can imagine. Bloody marvellous I tell thee... and to cap it all, I had the world to myself. Happy days :)

Parked up here and set off... getting male Green Woodpecker on the way to...

... the path along the Manchester Ship Canal...

...where I came across my first tracks - Pheasant...

...Rabbit...

... Wood Mouse? ...

... Fox ...

... stopped to check a crest ... couldn't relocate it...

... quickly rushed past the crack in the Universe...

... and was soon at Halfway House...

Had hoped to catch the rising tide but it was clear that it had already rizz and a highish one too. Only birds left were about 200 Lapwing, 50 Canada Geese and a handful of Wigeon tucked up on the bank.

... headed back to Shipton's via the big oak...

... to take the obligatory snow silhouette shot...

... before heading back to the car and hitting the east side...

Track to the Eastern Reedbed

The Eastern Reedbed

Millbrook Pool (aka The Lagoon)

4 Lapwing, 1 Common Snipe and 1 Buzzard shared this little trickle of running water

En Route to the east River

Nothing about though...

By the Angler's Pool

The Angler's Pool

SO... nothing much to say... for a change. It was one of those 'experiential' sessions today - guess you just had to be there... BUT... and don't take this the wrong way dear reader... I'm kinda glad that you weren't ;)

Me 37 - 70 Not Me...

2010-12-12T15:45:00.000Z

Some patch days are quiet. Today was VERY quiet. So much so in fact that I had a real feeling that it could well be THE quietest day I’ve had on the patch - ever. Now I tend to keep records of just about everything I can, bird-wise, on the patch and so it didn’t take long to find a spreadsheet with previous December records in. Traditionally I tend to think of Decemeber as a quiet month anyway, but 107 species have turned up in the past at this time of year (see below) and I’ve had all but a handful of these. Today though I got just 37

Barnacle Goose, Bewick’s Swan, Bittern, Blackbird, Black-headed Gull, Blue Tit, Brambling, Bullfinch, Canada Goose, Carrion Crow, Caspian Gull, Chaffinch, Chiffchaff, Coal Tit, Collared Dove, Common Buzzard, Common Gull, Common Sandpiper, Common Snipe, Coot, Cormorant, Curlew, Dunlin, Dunnock, Feral Pigeon, Fieldfare, Gadwall, Glaucous Gull, Goldcrest, Golden Plover, Goldeneye, Goldfinch, Goosander, Great Black-backed Gull, Great Crested Grebe, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Great Tit, Green Sandpiper, Green Woodpecker, Greenfinch, Grey Heron, Grey Partridge, Grey Wagtail, Greylag Goose, Herring Gull, House Sparrow, Iceland Gull, Jack Snipe, Jackdaw, Jay, Kestrel, Kingfisher, Lapwing, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Lesser Redpoll, Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, Little Egret, Little Grebe, Little Owl, Long-tailed Tit, Long-eared Owl, Magpie, Mallard, Meadow Pipit, Mediterranean Gull, Merlin, Mistle Thrush, Moorhen, Mute Swan, Nuthatch, Peregrine, Pheasant, Pied Wagtail, Pink-footed Goose, Pintail, Pochard, Raven, Redshank, Redwing, Reed Bunting, Richard’s Pipit, Robin, Rook, Ruddy Duck, Shelduck, Short-eared owl, Shoveler, Siskin, Skylark, Song Thrush, Sparrowhawk, Starling, Stock Dove, Stonechat, Tawny Owl, Teal, Tree Sparrow, Treecreeper, Tufted Duck, Twite, Water Rail, Willow Tit, Whooper Swan, Wood Pigeon, Wren, Yellowhammer, Yellow-legged Gull.

I make that 35% of the potential tally. Of course some of the above have occurred only once or twice on the patch during December (e.g. Twite, Richard’s Pipit, Bewick’s Swan) or are not exactly what you’d call predictably ‘getable’ at this time of year (e.g. Goosander, Long-eared Owl, Common Sandpiper etc), but even so...

In fairness the recent freeze still has a grip on the patch, although the tracks at the eastern end of the reserve are beginning to show hints of future mud to come (it's going to be horrendous methinks) and I only did east of Lapwing Lane. The only pond with any open water today was again Birchwood Pool, but even this was too little support many wildfowl (just 2 Shoveler, 1 Teal, 31 Coots and 8 Moorhens). No gulls today on the pools (bar a couple of displaced Herring Gulls) and the rest I saw were either overflying or on the field between the big road bridge over the river by the dump and the eastern river by the Transpennine Way. The Tawny Owl (lovely greyish bird) was showing well in it's tree by the little bridge and was by far and away the best bird of the day. Small stuff was all found initially on call today, which is pretty weird given that stuff ought to have been easy enough to pick up visually now that the leaves have gone. Ah well...

Yes... it WAS indeed a VERY quiet day... but ya know what, still worth the hours and the trudged miles. What can I say... it's my patch :)

The Cold and The Grey...

2010-12-10T14:11:00.000Z

Managed to snatch a couple of early patch breaths this morning in the hope of getting to the river before work. The previous xmas card covering of snow that had dusted the patch just days ago had now thawed leaving everywhere looking gloomy and damp. Worse still the thaw had not been deep enough to rid the ponds and tracks of ice so there were few birds about and the driving was even more hazardous than previously. Couple that with a stiff northerly edged breeze and conditions were nicely challenging. I would have to work hard for my birds today. And so it was...

First stop, the Angler's Pool. Today I had brought my tripod - I needed a count. Specifically I needed to know how just many Coots were there AND reassure myself that none were American. Now I know this is daft but I somehow got it into my head yesterday that I really should check. It's that bloody Irish bird that did it I'm sure. Have you ever trawled through 153 Coots with a wobbly scope (the head on my Manfrotto has, it seems, lost a screw)? It's a marvellous activity. Gorgeous bird, the Coot *coughs*.

Moving on. Moorhen numbers were down, I could find only two. There was a single male Gadwall, 13 Tufties, a juvenile Mute Swan and 53 Mallards. So much for my gut... which driving through Moore village had told me to expect 'something good', a current euphemism for male Goosander. Nada! Gull wise there were about 700 Black-headed, 6 Herring and no Common today. One cool thing (no pum intended) was the noise the ice made every so often - it was just like a Spotted Crake call! Crake Ice - very funky.

Next up, Pumphouse Pool. Successfully negotiated the long polished ice rink that was now the track along the south side, hand-braked the 90 degree left turn (for a bit of fun) and decided as time was short to risk driving right up to the hide. No problem. Some open water here today...not much, but enough to have pulled in a lone Redshank. The only other birds were on the ice; 2 Carrion Crows, 5 Common Gulls, 2 Herring Gulls and 10 Black-headed Gulls. All very quiet. Not a passerine to be heard.

Millbrook Pool and the Eastern Reedbed were even quieter. Arrived to find Roy stocking up the local Robin's larder (see previous post); biscuits, mealworms, raisins (?), but didn't see the bird. The reedbed looked dishevelled and fed up. At least the other day with all the snow it looked practically festive... and of course there was the fox. Today though just soggyness. The wet flush in the NE corner of Millbrook Pool had thawed a little and 6 Teal were pottering about. Gave it a quick scan with the bins for Snipe, but there was nothing doing. A couple of Gadwall dropped in as I left for the railway bridge over the eastern river for another stab at Goosander. None. But there was a Kingfisher... which was both unexpected and nice.

It was getting colder. Decisions, decisions. Where next? Had to be Halfway House. The Manchester Ship Canal is always worth a look when the ponds are under ice as it's pretty deep and the boat traffic tends to keep it clear. If I was to find anything today, that seemed like my best shot. The track to the black & yellow gate was thankfully ice free and so it wasn't long before I was heading west along the canal path. Good numbers of thrushes about; 35 Redwing, 5+ Song Thrush, 15+ Blackbirds and a solitary Fieldfare. Very short on the small stuff though; just 1 Bullfinch, 1 Chaffinch, 1 Wren, 1 Robin and 2 Dunnock between Bob's Bridge and the river. The ship canal wasn't exactly hooching with stuff either 8 Tufty, 5 Teal, 1 Mallard, juvenile Mute Swan and 2 Gadwall... oh, and the best bird if the day - male Goldeneye.

Halfway House was dead except for gulls (hundreds), 10 canada Geese, 9 Lapwing, 8 Wigeon and 20+ Mallards. There was no shelter from the wind and some miserable low-life had nicked my fezzie chair, so nowhere to sit either. Thanks for that - moron!!! Decided instead to head back via Upper Moss Side. Again quiet, but flocks of 25 Fieldfare and 30-40 Yellowhammers made the detour worth while. So, all in all, a predictably grey sesh, but hey, you gotta take days like this from time to time, they're what make the purple patches an especially bright and vibrant purple :)

White out...

2010-12-08T16:49:00.000Z

Well, newly togged in my cold weather gear...

... I FINALLY managed to get to the patch for a couple of hours. Hadn't realised just how long it had been - almost a month! Not much to see bird wise at it turned out as everywhere was pretty much frozen solid. At the Eastern Reedbed nothing stirred except for the resident tame Robin that I snapped on my mobile phone(above) and a rather mangey looking female fox that briefly edged along the snow-covered ice of the pool before vanishing back into the reeds.

The Eastern Reedbed

Millbrook Pool was similarly frozen solid and there were tracks at least of where a fox had been there too. Nothing else stirred. No sound. A quick jaunt to the river by the railway bridge east of ERB didn't throw up the hoped for Goosander (still!), but did provide another nice winter patch snap... oh and 3 Cormorants and 3 Moorhens.

The eastern River

Nearly pranged the car doing the 90 degrees turn up the track to Pumphouse Pool...

Track to Pumphouse

... and so decided to play safe, park up and walk to the eastern hide. No sign of the recently reported Jack Snipe, Common Snipe or Redshank on the little inlet today, just a trickle of water, more ice and snow and 8 Common Gulls... which is actually not a bad count for here.

Quick visit to Birchwood Pool west hide yielded lots of Black-headed Gulls and a sprinkling of larger Larids. Alas no white-wings, but again, good numbers of Common Gull. Checked them all - no Ring-billed needless to say, but there were a couple of slightly darker streakier headed birds L.c.henei maybe? Dunno, I'm not so hot on gulls. Here though there was a little open water along the north shore into which some of the gulls were packed, washing and among which were a handful of Moorhen and about 30 Coots... and that was it. Decided to walk back via the feeding station and up Lapwing Lane. Glad I did as the Tawny Owl was back on its usual roost and all fluffed up against the cold. Could just see her head above the ivy. A few tits and finches later and I was at the feeding station. No woodpeckers or Nuthatch, but the most grey squirrels raiding the various feeders that I've seen here - NINE. Otherwise it was the usual birdy suspects... Blue Tits, Great Tits, Coal Tits, Chaffinch and Reed Bunting. Unfortunately for our rather impoverished Coal Tit population though, the numbers went down by another one as a male Sparrowhawk clattered in and grabbed one off the feeders. Doh!

Lapwing Lake was solid white and had no birds at all... beg pardon... had 1 Common Snipe that flew off as I arrived and so it was time to leave. Where has everything gone? Well, not on the ship canal as far as I could tell... except for about another 40 Coots close to the swing bridge and hundreds of gulls on the ice down near the warehouses. Hmmm. Worth checking the Angler's Pool for completeness I reasoned. Aha! Birdage!! There, crammed into a patch of open water on the south shore were lots of wildfowl. I counted 125+ Coots and good numbers of Tufties, Mallard and Moorhen together with the odd Gadwall. Didn't have my scope on a pod else would have done a proper count... but at least it accounted for a few of our AWOL locals. Next visit I must see what's going on on Upper Moss Side and Halfway House. Wonder when I'll manage THAT! Ho hum...

The Bittern Song...

2010-11-16T18:11:00.000Z

TO THE TUNE OF "I'M A LUMBERJACK..."

There ain't no Bitterns at Moore no more,

There ain't no Bitterns at Moore,

No, there ain't no Bitterns at Moore no More,

There ain't no Bitterns at Moore

BUT...

There's Water Rail, and Buzzards,

and Coots and stripey snails,

There's Sprawks cha-sing the Starlings,

and wafts of dumpy smells.

BUT,

There ain't no Bitterns at Moore no more,

There ain't no Bitterns at Moore,

No, there ain't no Bitterns at Moore no More,

There ain't no Bitterns at Moore

There's Moorhens and a Pochard.,
a Teal and Tufted Duck,

Some Mute Swans and Shoveler,

but I don't give a fuck.

COZ...

There ain't no Bitterns at Moore no more,

There ain't no Bitterns at Moore,

No, there ain't no Bitterns at Moore no More,

There ain't no Bitterns at Moore

Ahem! Worm?

2010-10-31T14:36:00.000Z

The early bird catches the worm. We all know this. This morning then, with the clocks going back an hour I should have gathered a bellyful by the Eastern Reedbed at first light and one of them should have had Bittern written on it. Not so. By 9:30 old time (my phone had disappointingly NOT reset its clock) there was no sign. Nice to see the Mute Swan family wake up though. One of the adults was fast asleep in front of the hide when I arrived and all was quiet save a few bleeps from the still monochrome Teal at the edge of the reed shadows, an occasional whistle from one of the Wigeon in the dark of the open water to the SE and one or two squeals from the Water Rails. Now there's some debate about these and whether they're residents or incomers for the winter months. Certainly I have never seen hide nor hair of them during the summer months, although a fellow patcher had a juv one year on Pumphouse Pool, so they have bred here in the past. Don't know. Anyway, they're here now... 2 or 3 I'm guessing from where the calling is coming from.

By 7:45 the swan had woken up. I could see Shoveler now and Gadwall in the NW corner and could make out a dozen or so Coot with a few Mallard and the Wigeon out on the open water. The swan gave a couple of high-pitched snorts and was answered from somewhere behing the main reed stand by a chorus of coarser, almost excited snorts from what I presume were the juveniles. 85 Jackdaw over and a Moorhen 'kurrrucks' as the juvenile Mute Swans, led by the other adult, appear from behind the reeds in a line. They swim behind the flattened bridge of reeds between the main stand and the island and then around the latter to join the other adult in the NW corner. Cue salutes from the youngsters toward their parent; necks stretched and heads flicked skyward. Bit like what *Whooper Swans do but without all the noise and much more sedate. Elegant. Lots of small stuff about today; 3 Pied Wagtail, 2 Grey Wagtail, 15+ Reed Bunting, 5+ Blue Tit using the reed fringes with a few Robins and Wrens. Kingfisher calling. 8 Canada Geese over E.

About an hour later (I'm guessing) I'm joined by fellow patchers Den and Mal. They're out for a morning mooch and have just had Green Woodpecker on Pumphouse Meadow. Green Sandpiper drops in for a bit and we all get a look at it. Lots of Meadow Pipits about today feeding on the grass bank including some very well marked birds. Tricky to count as they keep flitting about but good to see them at this end of the reserve. Later a Sparrowhawk puts them up and I count 10 as they disperse. No sign of the Water Pipit today but it may have been here the same day Mike and I grilled it on the Black Fields. It certainly flew in this direction but I'm in two minds - see photo (below) and comments on Moore facebook page and let me know your thoughts coz I've looked at it that much that I can't even decide how long the tail and bill are anymore.

*45 minutes after I get home, I get a text from Den... "6 Whooper over Birch Wood". Doh! Cudda done with them. Ah well, maybe next month.

A spinoletta...

2010-10-30T10:53:00.000+01:00

Treated myself to a couple of patch hours yesterday with two things in mind. First was to try to relocate the Firecrest from the day before and the second was to troll along the river at the east end to look for Goosander - a patch year tick. As I drove to my usual parking spot near the balck and yellow metal gate it became quickly apparent that the windy conditions were going to create a few problems. Out of the car and... ummmm... correction; a LOT of problems. Branches were in motion (so trying to spot small birds moving among them was pretty hopeless) and the sounds of the leaves rustling drowned out all but the loudest calls, so trying to pick up the 'si-si-si-si' of crests and distinguish the slightly fatter Firecrest call from the thinner Goldies, impossible. Did get on a few Goldcrests and Long-tailed Tits in the relative calm of the dingly dells where people ride their bikes in The Plantation, but no Firecrest. At the actual site of the previous days encounter with my firey little chum there was nothing except an insistent Willow Tit 'durr-durr-durr'-ing in the thick Hawthorn stand opposite the big oak. Ah well, maybe if I hit the north side I'll find shelter...

Answer? Not really. had a quick look at The Garden near the feeding station (usually a good spot for winter crests) but the wind was in there too. So, I bit the bullet and opted for an earlier than planned river yompet for Goosander. Quick detour to Pumphouse Pool en route yielded only a mess of gulls and a quick scope trawl through them threw up nothing much of note except for the half dozen or so Common Gulls among the usual Black-headed and LBBG suspects. SO, parked at the far end by the electricity substation and nipped across the road to the railway bridge from where you can get a view up and down river. A bit slippy today... and dead. Now't to see. Emerged from the bankside vegetation to see Mully unpacking his kit from the boot of his Renault. Well bugger me! Great minds or what. Quick chat and Mike heads for Firecrest Alley for a mooch and I head off along the Trans-Pennine Way to the big road bridge over the river. Nothing from there either. No Goosander today... meh :s

What to do? Well, for some reason I decided to take a shortcut along the east edge of the Black Fields. Thoughts were of Great Grey Shrike. I often picture them here, perched atop one of the scrubby bushes. One day... Plan was to skirt along the north bank of of Firecrest Alley and have a look at the new scraping on Black Fields (the north bank runs along its southerly edge). The scrape is a fairly flat cleared area of mud with small pools formed mostly from the tire tracks of the big trucks that worked the site. There's not much vegetation there at all yet, but there is a greenish sheen in the middle where something is behginning to colonise the bare mud. Pied Wagtail and then something running along the margin of one of the pools out of the corner of my eye. First thought was of small brown wader but bins up and it's a large pipit. Thing that strikes me immediately are the two whitish wing bars and very pronounced whitish supercilium... almost Redwing-ingly striking. Cold mud brown uppers, longish tail, pure white beneath, clear black streaking on breast, dark legs, longish bill with pale base all shout WATER PIPIT. Now if you've read my previous posts you'll be aware that I had one of these turned down the other year as my description didn't rule out littoralis Rock Pipit. No such problem today as its pure white outer tail feathers were clearly visible when it flew and the colour of its back and head and clarity of the underparts left me in no doubt at all. Quick phone call to Mully and 5 minutes (whilst I kept my bins firmly on it) later we were both on it. Little beauty. Flew off towards Millbrook Pool calling and showing us again its white outer tail feathers and double wingbars as it went. Bloody marvellous and year tick 137 for the patch! Happy Days :)

The morning after the night before...

2010-10-28T17:27:00.000+01:00

As luck would have it, I managed to free up some time in between work duties this week to hit opposite ends of the patch in a kind of evening and morning back-to-back sesh. This was, I must confess, an uncharacteristically strategic approach, but necessary I felt, as my time is seriously limited these days. As it turned out, it was the near perfect thing to do...

The night before...

First off the east end for Bittern. An evening stint. When I was here on Monday I had to leave early and so had missed the closing of the day, the draining of colours from the landscape and my traditional time to ‘get’ Bittern. Now I know peeps say that you can get them any time of day at the Eastern Reedbed once they’ve settled in for the winter, but my birds have almost always been at dawn or dusk. In the mornings they seems to emerge from the SW corner and maybe fly across the reeds, or stalk along in front of the hide. Sometimes they even climb the reed stalks or sunbathe on the little island – a rare event and one that tends to be associated with bright sunny days after a hard freeze. Evening sightings are typically less varied, less exciting and more challenging. Birds usually fly in low over the NW flush of Millbrook Pool, over the bund and then swing south, usually just silhouetted over the reeds as my Leicas cling by their finger tips to the very last shreds of light. Last night I arrived with about an hour to go until sunset. I poured a coffee, hunkered down and scoured the two pools. Here's how it panned out...

Eastern Reedbed

24 Coot, 2 Teal, 8 Shoveler (they never seem to ‘spin’ here... guess the water is too shallow so there’s no need), 7 Gadwall (up from Monday), 1 Grey Heron (ad) and 8 Moorhen (max count I’ve had here – they seem to like the ‘new’ muddy margins). The 9 juvenile Mute Swans have been joined again by their parents this evening and the Mallard and Wigeon seem to have relocated to Millbrook Pool. And... we have a Green Sandpiper. It too seems to be enjoying the mud and the shallows. Come to think of it, this could be the first time I’ve had one on the ERB – they usually favour the NW flush on Millbrook Pool during the winter. Not tonight though. Nice.

Millbrook Pool

Numbers of pretty much everything are slightly down on the other night; 4 Coot, 9 Gadwall, 11 Mallard, 2 Tufty and no Moorhen. The ‘ERB’ Wigeon are up though, 7 today, the Kingfisher that was loitering on the tree in the NW corner of the reedbed is calling from somewhere on Millbrook island tonight and the number of Teal have doubled again to 86. 2 Common Snipe are feeding among them.

Well, no Bittern so far... and it’s getting dark enough for a bat to flit over the reedbed. Hmmm... kind of figured they’d be getting ready for hibernation about now. Daubenton’s? Ooo. Fox! Always nice to see one of these out and about. They seem to like this end of the reserve. get them quite often. This one is having a mooch along the shore. Rabbit in front of the hide scarpers... not that the Fox is in the least bit interested tbh, it’s after the ducks. I spend the next few minutes watching it splashing about half-heartedly chasing the Teal in the near dark. It doesn’t seem too bothered about catching one and saunters off across the grass, stopping to scent mark once in the gloom before I lose it among the shadows. SO, that’s it for this evening. No Bitterns again. Ah well, gives me time to drive around the Upper Moss Side loop in the hope of catching an owl in the headlights. I’ve done this SO many times I’ve lost count and have only ever gotten an owl on 3 occasions... mind you, one of those was a Long-eared Owl so it’s always worth a crack in my book. Tonight? Success! Tawny Owl flits across the track by Hillcrest Quarry. Patch year tick 135! Happy Days :)

The morning after...

A couple of hours at Halfway House was the order of the day today. Forgive me father for I have sinned. It has been 3 weeks since my last visit. On the river though, nothing much has changed, apart that is from the influx of 195 Teal. Otherwise it’s business as usual by the cooling towers this morning; 1853 Lapwing, 14 Golden Plover, 1 Redshank, 84 Mallard, 23 Canada Goose, 9 Shelduck, 2 Cormorants, 1 Grey Heron and I Great-crested Grebe. OK, there are shed loads of gulls too, but no way do I have time to sift through them all as I want to spend what little time I have left (work beckons) checking The Prom and bushes along the track back to Bob’s Bridge for small stuff. Today there’s only Coal Tit, Treecreeper, Long-tailed Tit, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Robin and Wren on The Prom and nothing on the ship canal, so I quickly decide to head back along the track. First pleasant surprise of the day is a flock of 25 Fieldfare that flit from a berry-rich Rowan to a nearby, equally rich Hawthorn, chuckling. Gorgeous scoped views in the sunlight.

These are the first of the 2nd winter period for me. There are a good few Redwing about in threes and fours too and a noteable influx of Song Thrush. I count 7+ in the Hawthorns along the track. Continental birds I guess. Just on a bit from the Ethylene Station I put up a flock of about 30 Goldfinch that wheel around and settled in the top of a nearby Alder. 50 more Fieldfare over south now with a sprinkling of Redwing among them and there’s a skein of c100 Pinkfeet higher up heading the same way, pinking. The morning has a real winter feel about it. 100 Redwing over E and more thrushes in the hawthorns to my right. Small stuff too. Bullfinches, Goldfinches, Blue Tits, Long-tailed Tits... Goldcrest. Goldcrest? Flits across the path to another Hawthorn. “Check all crests”, I remind myself. O...M...F...G!!! It’s a FIRECREST! Absolutely, pristine, spanking, gorgeous little thing on the edge of the Hawthorn in full sunlight working along a branch. Pure yellow crown sexes it as a female and I just grin and take in the colours. The head markings are so clean, so bright! Bloody marvellous!! This peeps is the first one I've found on the patch. Actually it's the first one I personally have found anywhere! Best bird of the year for me and even tops the other year's self-found Great Grey Shrike. I just have a real soft spot for Firecrests.

SO, long story short. Text Mully. Lose bird. Mully arrives about an hour later. Still not relocated bird. Both yomp to HWH and work back along track checking bushes. All has gone quiet. Don't find it again. Leave Mully to it. Lack of text since then tells me he's not relocated it. My gut feeling? It's still about. Reckon there's plenty of good habitat for it to get lost in. Deffo worth another mooch soon methinks! If you wanna have a crack at it yourself, directions at the end. In the meantime, that lil gem puts me on 136 for the year. Get in!!! :)

Directions

Park at Bob's Bridge. Head through the yellow and black metal gate to the ship canal path. Follow it along. You'll have the canal jetties on your left and will notice some big white boaty bollard things that they must have tied barges to or something in the past. These run in a line between the canal and the path. Opposite the last one on the other side of the path is a BIG oak, still in leaf on it's own by a short path that runs to Shipton's Meadow. The two Hawthorns to the right of the big oak are where the Firecrest was. I reckon it's worth checking the longer stand of Hawthorns that run along the canal bank opposite too. They're nice and thick and look promising. Let me know if you come across it! Happy Hunting!!!

One For Tea?

2010-10-26T09:58:00.000+01:00

A fair bit has happened since last I was here, not least of which is the fact that the Model Aircarft Club have withdrawn their application to develop the Triangle Field on Upper Moss Side on advice from the Warrington Borough Council’s planning department. Basically, they hadn’t bothered to do any ecological surveys and hence had no defence against the objections raised. Now, with any luck, that’ll be the end of it... BUT, they could, in theory pay for some avian ecologist to do a survey or two and reapply next year. Can’t see it happening tbh, but just in case they STILL haven’t got the message, I’ll be carrying out my own surveys next year so as to be ready to launch a challenge if needs be. Bloody marvellous job done by all and much thanks to all who objected!!!

SO, it’s been nearly THREE WEEKS (!) since I’ve managed to get out to the patch and do a count at the east end. I had planned to hit Halfway House to check for waders and grill The Prom, but my knee started playing up as I set off (did get a Stoat though) so I quickly had to change my plans – today I’d check the eastern pools instead. Glad I did!

Birchwood Pool

For a change, I started here and worked east (I usually start at Pumphouse and work west, before ending with the Eastern Reedbed & Millbrook Pool). Parked my car on Lapwing Lane by the cross-paths and headed along the eastern one to the old Tawny Owl roost. I’ve still not got Tawny Owl this year on the patch so had hoped that she’d be back on her ivy covered tree by the little bridge – no luck. Lots of Long-tailed Tit flocks about today, but nothing much knocking about with them. A few Buzzards over in the clear blue sky all turned out (unsurprisingly) NOT to be Roughed-legged. Ah well, live in hope. At the west hide first look yielded... shed loads of gulls. Half-hearted trawl through them didn’t throw up anything unusual so I set about the wildfowl. Wildfowl... where are they??? NO geese at all today (there had been 286 Canada Geese alone here last time) and precious few ducks it seems. Gadwall numbers are down still more (just 5 today), there are only 2 Mallard (10 last time) and no sign of any Shoveler today. Tufties though are up slightly (19), so too Teal (10) whilst Pochard are about the same (6). The female Ruddy Duck that was here in early October has gone (shot?) BUT she’s been replaced by a couple of beauties – 2 female GOLDENEYE; resplendently spanking in the autumn sunlight and patch year tick number 134! Bloody marvellous :) Coot numbers are double my last visit (46), Moorhen stable at about 5-6, Little Grebe and Grey Heron numbers down (5 & 6, respectively).

Pumphouse Pool

Where HAVE all the wildfowl gone??? Everything is down today with the solitary exception of Shoveler that are stubbornly sticking on 19. Tallies today as follows; Cormorant 4, Grey Heron 1, Moorhen 3, Mallard 2, Teal 6, Tufty 1. No Canada Geese here either. No Gadwall AND (very oddly) NO COOT! Hmmmm...

Eastern Reedbed

Rumour had it that our Dutch (?) Botaurus had recently arrived and so it seemed only fitting that the end of today’s sesh would be at the ERB in case one or two flew in at dusk. Trouble was, I’d rather miscalculated when dusk was and had committed myself to ‘other stuff’ at 6pm. Idiot! Sun hadn’t even gone down by then so I shouldn’t really have been surprised at my lack of Bitterns. Never mind – clocks go back next week so I’ll try again then.

Water levels still low and quite a bit of mud showing so not much about; 27 Coot (down on last time), 2 Gadwall, 1 Grey Heron (ad), 5 Moorhen, the 9 juvenileMute Swans, 3 Mallard, 6 Shoveler nibbling leaves on a small Oak (yes, odd... I know), 8 Teal, 4 Wigeon. Odds n sods over included; 3 Lesser Redpoll, 8 Goldfinch, 2 Jay, 1 Pied Wagtail, 2 Grey Wagtail, 3 Reed Bunting, 2 Song Thrush, 3 Redwing. 1 Common Buzzard in a tree and 1 Kingfisher calling. Latter was interesting... heard it calling from NW corner but couldn’t see it. Reasoned that it must be low down on a branch of the tree there behind the reeds. Saw the branch spring a little and bounce as if something had launched from it. Moments later caught a flash of orange and blue through the Phrag as it alighted back on the branch, out of sight. Couldn’t get on the bill, so no idea if he was a she or if she was a he. My gut says HE... so let’s go with that. Actually, there were probably two calling at one point so may be the pair is back. Which brings us to...

Millbrook Pool

Sun drenched and (disappointingly) Green Sandpiper-less. However, the following WERE present; 9 Coot, 5 Cormorant, 12 Gadwall, 14 Mallard, 2 Moorhen, 3 Tufty - all very similar to my last visit. Only change appears to be an influx of 40 Teal. You know, sooner or later, the patch just HAS to throw up Green-winged amongst our winter Teal...

And finally...

Yes, and finally... a thought. Now, myself and one or two other patchers consider, from time to time, what the maximum year list might be here. A year or so ago, Mully did a quick back-of-fag-packet-calculation and came up with 140, complete with a list of species that would need to be got to make this feasible. At the time I thought ‘No fucking way’. One Forty was damn nigh impossible. Now I’m not quite so sure... Today’s Goldeneye put me on 134, my highest year tally on the patch to date, and it’s got me thinking. Could the One For Tea really be do-able??? I have still to get Bittern, *Tawny Owl and Iceland Gull (all feasible still) which would take me 137. That would only require THREE further species during November and December. Surely there must be a good chance of some wildfowl... Whitefront, Goosander, Scaup, Whooper... or Waxwing... or maybe even Grey Plover or Little Stint on the river? Maybe even a *Firecrest?? I’ll tell you something... if I’m ever gonna do the 140, this year is probably THE year! Watch this space :)

* Well how prophetic did THAT turn out to be!!! See 'The morning after the night before...'

Promontory (noun) prä-mən-ˌtȯr-ē...

2010-10-08T15:20:00.000+01:00

AND it almost sounds the same...

Promontory (noun) prä-mən-ˌtȯr-ē...

DEFINITION
1 a : a high point of land or rock projecting into a body of water b : a prominent mass of land overlooking or projecting into a lowland c: a pointy bit of land that funnels in small stuff.

Well, all things are I guess relative. It's not THAT high, nor THAT prominent, but the little pointy wedge of land sandwiched between Manchester Ship Canal and the River Mersey at Halfway House IS beginning to look a bit special. This 100 yards or so of bank decked with scattered trees and bushes ends by the willow tree alongside which I sit and really does seem to be a bit of a magnet for small stuff. So much so, that I have decided to give it its own name - The Prom. It's the narrowest point on the patch, about a dozen yards, give or take, between river water and canal water and behaves just like a miniature headland, funneling stuff in as it works westward, or sucking stuff towards it as it works eastward. It's where the Cetti's Warbler was found, where last months Common Redstart was found and a host of other flitty bits from Treecreeper to Lesser Whitethroat. From Yellow-browed Warbler to Blackpoll Warbler. No. Hang on. That bit was just a premonition. BUT, stuff loves this bit of the patch and so as of now, I fully intend to grill it whenever I can.

A toast! To THE PROM! God bless her and all who hail in her!!

"A small, rather nondescript bird...(pronounced chetty)..."

2010-10-08T13:00:00.000+01:00

Well, no beating about the bush today (must be a pun in there somewhere...) Halfway House continues to surprise and add, everso slowly, more species to the year list. Mallard numbers have doubled in the space of two days (114), a male Shoveler and a single Redshank have appeared... and just disappeared and there are still dribbles of Skylarks over south with a sprinkling of Pied Wags and Meadow Pipit. Things picked a little later when a skein of about 250 Pinkfeet went over (only had a 'plastic' one in the first winter period) adding one to the year tally (132)... and then it happened. Who should appear but Mully, with news that Den was on the way too. Good stuff, a trebling of eyes and ears imminent. No sooner had we exchanged the customary pleasantries though when 'chit, chit chut, chett...' and silence from the bushes behind. "What was that? Sounded a bit Cetti-ish". Quick tiptoe to the canal path to view the bushes and 'chit, chit chut, chetty, chetty, chetty, chit' Bugger me! It WAS a Cetti's Warbler. Only the third patch record! Well, I hadn't expected that. Den arrived as it piped up again. Excellent. For the next half an hour or so it obligingly sang on and off and gave fleeting views. Song was less explosive than in birds on territory and in quite long, repetetive streams. None of the usual long gaps. I'm thinking young bird maybe. Either way, bloody marvellous and patch year tick 133. Happy Days :)

Pee-Pee-Pee...

2010-10-08T12:16:00.000+01:00

Off the back of yesterday’s session at Halfway House I decided to do an early there again by way of comparison before heading to the main reserve for the first of my October counts. My gut told me that I’d probably caught the tail end of the purple patch on the river as good birds had been dropping in since last Friday and today was Wednesday. I mean, it’s not as if we’re at the height of passage and so the chances of a prolonged bout of patch goodies was beyond slim and closer to anorexic. Ah well, as they say, all good things come to an end. They also say though, he who dares wins and, nothing ventured nothing gained, aha! SO, optimism won the day and I headed straight to the little bend in the river first thing.

More Robins about this morning, or at least more of them making their presence know. Dunnocks too and Wrens. Chaffinch, Greenfinch and Mistle Thrush... but otherwise, quiet. At the river it became quickly apparent that things were indeed PPP (post-purple-patch). Just the usual suspects on the mud today; 1150 Lapwing (a little down on yesterday), 16 Golden Plover (about half yesterday’s tally), a single Curlew, a single Little Egret, 2 Cormorants and some wildfowl. Now these, at least were a little more diverse than yesterday. Mallard numbers were up threefold (66 today), Teal had dropped in overnight (30 tucked in the SE corner) and there was a solitary female Wigeon pulling grass from a tussock on the far shore. 2 Shelduck and 6 Canada Geese completed the picture. Today too there were raptors; Kestrel, Buzzard, Sparrowhawk, but alas, no Peregrine. Normality, as usual, had returned to the river.

Not all bad though, the lack of action on the mudflats did mean that I spent more time with an ear and eye on the sky and picked up a smattering of vis mig in the form of a steady small trickle of Skylark over south in ones and twos. I’d not really noticed either, until now, the way the Black-headed Gulls go bananas as the tide rushes in. Lots of frantic flying about and calling and dipping to the water surface before alighting on the still exposed mud further upriver. Even that though was soon covered and off the gulls went again (noisily), this time to the high mudbank to the east, out of the tides reach. This sudden rush of gulls ashore spooked the Teal. They shot off as one to the relative peace and quiet of the Fiddlers Ferry lagoons, quickly followed by the bigger group of Mallard that were feeding near them. That just left the Lapwing and Golden Plover on the last ‘dry land’ midstream, before they too finally gave up the ghost and drifted away calling, the Golden Plover separating out into their own little flock amid the larger Lapwing flock as they usually do. Ah well, time to hit the ponds.

Eastern Reedbed & Millbrook Pond.

Now it has been about a month since I was last at the Eastern Reedbed and my mind turned to Bitterns True, it was a bit early yet, but the place had that 'winter' feel about it and the ERB can be a very nice place to be when it's wintery. It was with some annoyance therefore that I arrived to find a white van and a BTCV minibus parked in my usual spot. That could mean only one thing – no birds. I could hear voices and and the thrashing of vegetation towards the south side of the reedbed. Work was being done. Meh! Even worse, the water levels are the lowest I have ever seen them. So much so that the reed stands in front of the hide are now joined to the shore by mud and the only open water is in the SE corner. Mind you, looks ideal for Spotted Crake, shame it's a month or two too late! Anyway, birdwise there’s just 47 Coot (not a bad count actually, for here), 1 Little Grebe, 2 Gadwall and 7 Wigeon. Millbrook Pond fared hardly any better; 14 Mallard, 3 Gadwall, 5 Tufty, 12 Coot and 1 Moorhen. There was, however, a cherry on this otherwise unappetising cake – the pair of Mute Swans that had summered here, still had all nine of their brood. Good stuff.

Pumphouse Pool

The story here today was of thunder and Teal. No sooner had I got in the east hide than it chucked it down and the thunder began. Didn’t last long but it was fun while it did and made counting the Teal a little different. Today there were 167 compared to 73 back at the start of September! There were 11 Cormorants on the rocks too, my biggest count here and more Moorhen were out and about compared to my last visit. Trouble is, the 7 that were pottering about today, were probably the same 2 that were pottering about 4 weeks ago, it’s just that then 5 of them were probably tucked away... if you see what I mean. Hard things to get good counts of I find, Moorhen. What else? Well, Shoveler numbers seem to have settled for the winter at 19-20 birds, so too theTufties at 2-3. Gadwall though have plummeted to 4 (there were 10 times that number here in early September). No idea where they have gone... Mallard are up (14) and Coot... Coot? What?? I forgot to count the Coots! Doh. Just a handful or two though I seem to remember. That just leaves the gulls; 234 BHG, 8 LBBG, 4 HG, 1 CG. Done.

Birchwood Pool

Well, if the eastern end of the reserve was sparse, the western end wasn’t. Lots of stuff on BWP today but a couple of surprises. First off, Coot numbers have continued to fall – just 24 birds today, from 83 in early September and 112 in mid August. The post-breeding moulting flock have clearly dispersed elsewhere. *But where? Canada Geese numbers, conversely, have shot up; 46 mid-Aug to 101 early Sep to 286 today (!) with a few Greylags (10) and white ‘domestics’ (2) with them. Grey Herons numbers too were high; 14 on the **big island. Other counts were as follows; 9 Little Grebe, 16 Tufty, 6 Pochard, 2 Shoveler, 6 Teal, 18 Gadwall, 10 Mallard, 6 Moorhen, 2 Mute Swan and a female Ruddy Duck. Tenacious little buggers those... all but vanished from the site and then a male appears at the east end of the reserve in the first winter period and now a female appears in the second. Watch yer back girl ;)

And as I left, there were 2 Little Owls in the gap in the barn roof at Big Hand Ranch, being persistently goaded by 6 Jackdaws. Guess they were just haveing a bit o' fun. They really didn't seem that bothered by the owls and the owls seemed barely to notice the Jackdaws - not even a sneer in their general direction.

* Well, well... 101 Coot now on Lapwing Lake. Could the Birchwood birds have shifted west? Hmmmmmmm.

**turns out, my notebook tells me, there was a high count of 14 Grey Heron on the big island of BWP on Aug 29th too... maybe they’re always there atm...

Ruff Patch Terns Good...

2010-10-05T14:42:00.000+01:00

Early morning and I finally manage to hit the patch and head straight for the river at Halfway House. Why? Because things have been hotting up there of late (see previous entries) and I've missed some very good birds. Somewhat of a rough patch you might say. News that the Great Skua was seen again on wet Sunday meant I was fairly optimistic about today's prospects. Not that I thought for one minute that it would still be around (lull in the weather + a day to reorientate = likely to have headed back to the coast), but it, together with the other recent patch goodies meant things were moving through. Couple that with a rising tide and a bit of a southerly to hold things up maybe and things seemed promising.

First week of October is also traditionally pretty bang on for Yellow-browed Warbler and so my speedy yomp to the river was frequently punctuated by the straining of ears for that tell-tale 'tsweest'. Alas, just the 'tipping' of Robins, the coversational 'sri-sri-sri' of Long-tailed Tits and the soft 'tu' of Bullfinches were the only sounds en route to my throne astride the bank by the willow. Even before I'd unfurled my green fezzie chair it was obvious there'd be no skua action today - too many relaxed gulls and Lapwing out on the mud. No surprise there then.

First job was to set about counting the small groups of things before the rather longer task of totting up the Lapwings and gulls. " Little Egret, 3 Grey Heron, 6 Cormorant, 25 Canada Geese, 21 Mallard, 2 Gadwall and 9 Curlew. Overhead 2 Lesser Redpoll, 1 Meadow Pipit, 2 Greenfinch and 3 Pied Wagtails. SO, to the Lapwing. I keep a tally using my fingers these days since I discovered my 'clicker' was sticking and spooling over to 1000 when I got to 100 - doh! Takes longer, but at least it's pretty accurate. Today on the mud there were 863 Lapwing and with them 2 Golden Plover. Woot! Another year tick (missed them in the first winter period). Next up the gulls on the mudflats. Black-headed Gulls first... 100... 200... 300... Huh? THAT is not a gull. Tern! Fleeting thoughts (hopes?) of Black Tern are quickly put into perspective with a quick twist of the x60 - Common Tern. Excellent. Had my first tern species on the patch from this same spot in the spring and that too had been a Common Tern. Picking up one today though was totally unexpected. Happy days! Continue the BHG count (c1100) as the tern gets up and drifts away towards the Manchester Ship Canal calling.

A couple of quick texts to local patchers and attention turns to the remaining gulls. Hang on, there are more Lapwing... numbers up to 1300 AND there are more Golden Plover among them - 34 in total, one or two still with the last vestiges of black summer bellies. Quick double check of the goldies reassures me that I've not missed a yank tucked away... well, you never know! Back to the gulls. Looks like Herring Gull and Common Gull numbers are up and LBBGs down, but I have no time to count them as my eye is drawn to three birds jinking away from me in front of the Fiddler's Ferry cooling towers. They don't look like gulls either. Flight too bouyant. Turn dammit! Tern dammit!! Three of them. They wheel around obligingly and settle on the mud where the first bird had landed some 15 minutes ago. Scope up and... yip... 3 more Common Terns! OR, could be the first bird I guess, plus two chums... so maybe just 2 'more'... technically. Either way this is splendid patchery and an excellent record.

Hold on, gulls and plovers up. Raptor? Nope. Skua?? Nope!! Tide. I had lost track of time and the tide had swept in suddenly (as it's proned to do) pushing things off. Wader up from the far shore. Redshank? Low over the water. Purposeful flight. No white trailing edge. What is... Can't get scope on it. Closer. Bins. Bugger me - Ruff!!! Now THAT is a great bird.

There was one about the other day that I missed, but I'd assumed it was just moving through. No idea if this is the same one hanging about or if it is another bird. Truth be told, I care not. Ruff. RUFF! Big grins. Patch year list now up to 131. I've said it before... and I'll say it again... I LOVE this little bend in the river :)

Moore dips...

2010-10-03T10:54:00.000+01:00

Well, as if the other day's Bonxie hadn't been enough, I returned from a phoneless, extended shopping spree with the better half to see FOUR missed calls and a text from fellow patcher Mike Mullholland. My heart sank. That kind of persistent ringing could mean only one thing - patch goodies. And so it turned out to be. The Great Skua (I presume, txt just said 'skua HWH') was still about and Mike had gotten on to it. Further enquiries thickened the plot as it turned out another two patch ticks for me and a year tick were part of the same purple patch. So, add to my list of misses... Ruff (I've found more evidence of hen's teeth than these a la patch), drake Pintail (ditto the Ruff) and the Golden Plover are back... and I missed their arrival. Damn. Fuck. Bugger. Bum. Tit. And to top it all, today it's pissing down and I can't get out (again!) anyway... Meh!

Ah well, at least there's Ice Hockey tonight ._/

Very Big Jeff and the Bonxie...

2010-10-01T11:54:00.000+01:00

Funny how things turn out. Well, I say 'funny'...

For a while now I've just not been able to get out to the patch, but I've taken a little comfort from the fact that nothing much has been reported. That was until yesterday. Now, I'd actually managed to free up some time to get out into the field and survey the patch avifauna AND the weather was looking good, so yesterday, was to be filled with much needed patchness. After a restless night of half-sleep, I woke up and it was gone. My mojo, that had for a while threatened to go AWOL, had done the dirty on me. During the dead of night Very Big Jeff had packed his rucky and left for God knows where. Upshot? Inertia set in, and the day was quickly lost. Then at 16:32 my LG buzzed and up popped a text from Duncan "Bonxie on norton mud". Now my mojo, Jeff, would have instantly set about finding a car and shooting down to the river, but mojo-less moi decided instead to err on the side of caution and assume it was one of the rather brown resident juvenile LBBGs. Pity the fool! Text and e-mail this morning confirmed clear views of white wing flashes and reports of a Bonxie down the river at Speke earlier. Doh!

The moral of the tale? Keep your mojo sweet, you never know when you'll need it to snuff out that cynical little imp on your shoulder that's whispering "Go back to bed". Meh! Best patch bird of the year. Worst patch dip of the year. Lesson learned!!!

When and where NOT to fly your planes...

2010-09-18T19:27:00.000+01:00

Hey peeps, in the saga that has of late dominated my blog (apols - but tiz important), came across this interesting little snippet. It's an extract from the 2010 Issue of the *British Model Flying Association's handbook.

It refers to the The Department of the Environment Code of Practice for Minimising Noise from Model Aircraft...

MODEL AIRCRAFT NOISE IN OTHER NOISE SENSITIVE AREAS

Section 8.1

Nature and wildlife reserves, country parks or other countryside areas where people go to relax in quiet and peaceful surroundings, should also be avoided by model flyers.

Section 8.2

Most animals, whether wild or domesticated, are probably not unduly worried by model aircraft noise [no evidence given, btw...]; it can however be distressing to some at sensitive times, for example to mares when in foal, sheep at lambing time or birds in the nesting season. It is recommended that model flying clubs or representatives should discuss with the owners of surrounding land, or local wildlife preservation bodies, any times and places where animals are likely to be unusually sensitive and would benefit from a temporary suspension or reduction of model flying activity.

It appears that our friends from the Warrington branch are ignoring their own code of practice somewhat...

You may wish to mention THAT in your objection too!!!

*full version here http://www.bmfa.org/handbook/index.html

KEEP THOSE OBJECTIONS COMING!

2010-09-17T15:52:00.000+01:00

Hi All, update on the Moore planning application. Have just spoken to Warrington BC and it looks like their planning workload is pretty high. This is good news for us as it means they are very likely to accept objections to the Model Aircraft planning application past the nominal cut-off date of 23rd September - so please continue to spread the word and encourage as many people as possible to object (see previous posts for links).

You may also like to take a quick look at this short piece on the Warrington BC website http://www.warrington.gov.uk/News/2010/September/mersey_forest_survey.aspx and mention it in support of your objection if you've yet to comment online.

AND finally, if you're on Facebook you may wish to go to the Moore NR page for other info... http://www.facebook.com/markymoses666#!/pages/Warrington-United-Kingdom/Moore-Nature-Reserve/325928645357 I see the current estimate of visitors is around 30000. Kinda shows the value of the place relative to the 76 club members seeking to fly their planes there eh? I make that almost 400 visitors per model aircraft club member. You might want to mention THAT in your comments too...

AND on a totally unrelated note...

had a brilliant few hours on Hilbre yesterday... masses of Leaches Petrel close in, Sabine's Gull, Arctic Skua, Manxie, Common, Arctic, Sandwich and Little Terns still, Gannet... all good ;)

PLANNING APPLICATION - Warrington Residents help needed!

2010-09-15T17:11:00.000+01:00

Hi all,

With respect to the planning application posted previously, it has been drawn to my attention that;

1. This matter may be approved by the council unless it goes to committee. The way to ensure it goes to committee is for somebody who lives in the Warrington area to ask their local councillor to get involved. He/she will then raise it to be added at the next development control meeting, which can be attended by the public.

2. It may help if somebody were to recommend to the council that a site visit may be necessary for councillors to appreciate the area which will be disturbed.

3. It may be worth mentioning the traffic impact - currently only residents use Lapwing Lane, whereas the flying club state they have 76 members - quite an increase. This may encourage the traffic / highways people to get involved.

Please help if you can!

Thanks,

Mark

PLANNING APPLICATION - plans and how to object

2010-09-14T14:59:00.000+01:00

Hi all,

If you wish to see the plans for the proposed development of part of the Moore NR / Upper Moss Side site as a model aircraft fly-zone and object to it please read on. DEADLINE for comments is before 23rd September!

The plan is here

http://www.warrington.gov.uk/Environmentandplanning/Planning/Searching_Planning_Applications_On-Line.aspx

Scroll down, tick the copyright box and then click search applications online.
Click search for planning application.
In the planning reference box type 2010/16934 and press enter
Link to documents appears - click and follow to open plans etc.

The objection (aka comment) page is here

http://212.248.237.123/swiftlg/apas/run/wphmakerep.displayURL?ApnID=2010/16934

Please ensure you put your details in, as anonymous comments are not considered by the planning people. Note that you can attach longer comments as a document. You do not have to confine your remarks to the 255 characters allowed in the comment box.

If you have any queries about the process or want to check anything I believe the email you need is devcontrol@warrington.gov.uk and their telephone number is 01925 442819.

Speaking to people, objections centre around disturbance to the peace and quiet of the site AND importantly the bird species that are present on and adjacent to the proposed fly-zone. If you look at the planning application you will notice in Section 14 that they claim NO Priority Species are likely to be disturbed on or near the site. This is untrue. You may wish to comment on the presence of any of the following species that you have seen / heard in the area... all are UK BAP and/or Cheshire BAP and/or BoCC Red List species.

Skylark, Yellowhammer, Tree Sparrow, Reed Bunting, Grey Partridge, Lapwing, Linnet, Barn Owl
Brown Hare

BoCC redlist species such as Willow Tit, Lesser Spotted Woodpecker that use the area by the feeding station, Grasshopper Warbler that uses the fields of Upper Moss Side and the capped tip, even the Bitterns from the eastern reed bed have been known to feed on the river nearby and sometimes use the ditches on Upper Moss Side.

My own view is that it's not just the breeding birds during spring and summer that are at risk of disturbance but also wintering flocks and passage migrants. Whatever your views and own personal experience I hope you will make them know to the planners and help keep the area a quiet, peaceful and a rich wildlife area that we can all enjoy.

Thanks in advance, for your support.

Mark

PLANNING APPLICATION - PLEASE HELP!

2010-09-13T09:54:00.000+01:00

A planning application 2010/16934 has been lodged with warrington borough council to develop part of Upper Moss Side as a Model Aircraft Flying site.

A number of farmland BAP species, barn owl and brown hares use this and adjacent sites for feeding and/or breeding.

Objections need to be received in writing before Sep 23rd.

Details of the application and how to object will be posted here as soon as I can.

Please support local wildlife and object to this application.

Many thanks

Mark

Tick 129...

2010-09-05T17:18:00.000+01:00

"Impromptu hour on the patch yields shortest blog post on Moorepatcher page ever..."

2 Tree Pipit - Black fields

Moore stuff on the move...

2010-09-03T13:53:00.000+01:00

Very quiet on the river first thing, just 20 Lapwing, a few dozen gulls and a solitary Curlew. Hopes of picking up a Curlew Sandpiper passing through were, therefore, quickly dampened. But the short spell by the River Mersey was not, it turned out, an uneventful one - in fact it was a little surprising. Things began gently enough... a slow build up of gulls... 375 Black-headed Gulls, 85 Lesser Black-backeds, 8 Great Black-backeds, 10 Herring, 1 Yellow-legged... Curlew numbers doubled... to two(!) and several hundred Lapwing, strung out in lines began to wind their way downriver towards where I was sitting. Only 170 finally ended up on the mud to my right though - the others just sailed by. Shortly after, the first wildfowl of the morning put in an appearance... 2 Gadwall and 46 Canada Geese followed by a solitary Cormorant. No herons today. Now, none of this is unsual for Halfway House. In fact, quiet days are the norm and so I decided nothing much was going to happen and made a move to go... and then...

Peregrine. Big female lowish left. She landed on the top of one of the pylons and began calling. Kept this up for a good minute then stooped down the middle of the pylon from which emerged a second Peregrine. It also began calling, so there was this 'duet' going on as the birds flew around, amiably enough it seemed, before flying off south over the Manchester Ship Canal. Now I don't know if I'd been on visual autopilot and all their racket had tuned my ears in or what, but suddenly I began hearing things. Ringed Plover calling. Blackcap 'teck-ing', Whitethroat churring and... Coal Tit singing. Coal Tit? Here?? Never had THAT before...bit odd. Then there was another calling. Two Coal Tits. Then a *Great Spotted Woodpecker flew past - never had one of those from here either, nor theTreecreeper that was now trilling from the scrubby trees behind me from where the Coal Tit was singing. Then Goldcrest... hang on, that's new for here too (!) and another Coal Tit... another Treecreeper... 2 more Goldcrests... 2 more Coal Tits. another Great Spotted Woodpecker. Woodland stuff dispersing? I decide to have a good mooch at the trees and bushes from the canal path. There's LOADS of stuff in there... 4 Robins, 2 Wrens, 1 Dunnock, 3 Willow Warbler, 2 Blackcap, 6 Whitethroat, 1 Chiffchaff, 5 Bullfinches, 2 Greenfinches, 2 Blue Tits, 1 Great Tit and something else... well I never. I certainly did NOT expect that here today... *COMMON REDSTART! Another woodland bird on the move. An immature from the look of it, busily feeding away. A patch first for me and year tick 128. Happy days :)

Got 2 Dunlin on the mud as I packed up, thoroughly pleased with my short jaunt and headed off. Also bagged a few other things round and about, best of which were 2 Kingfishers, 1 Green Wooodpecker, 1 Green Sandpiper, 10 House Martin, 2 Sand Martin, 24 Swallows, 60 Goldfinch, 4 Common Buzzards, 3 Grey Partridge and a flock of 23 Long-tailed Tits.

* Moving east. Everything else was moving west

Autumn (+ winter) Waders: a running total...

2010-08-24T13:46:00.000+01:00

Yet to get one of these on the patch this year...

Thought I'd keep a running tally of autumn passage on the patch. Good to look back and see how the season has developed so far... It's a bit subjective because it reflects, in large part, where I spent my time and how long I was out for as much as anything, but it does give a feel for what's about and the various comings and goings of the patch waders :)

July 1st - 8 Lapwing, 2 Oystercatcher

July 8th - 1 Green Sandpiper

July 12th - 3 Green Sandpiper

July 13th - 2 Common Sandpiper, 2 Green Sandpiper, 1 Curlew, 30 Lapwing, 2 Oystercatcher

July 14th - 1 Green Sandpiper

July 15th - 4 Common Sandpiper, 1 Curlew, 4 Dunlin

July 16th - 5 Common Sandpiper, 4 Curlew, 29 Dunlin, 6 Ringed Plover, 1 Redshank, 220 Lapwing

July 17th - 2 Common Sandpiper, 2 Curlew, 2 Dunlin, 22 Lapwing, 1 Redshank, 1 Ringed Plover

July 19th - 5 Common Sandpiper, 1 Curlew, 474 Lapwing, 5 Oystercatcher, 1 Redshank

July 22nd - 1 Common Sandpiper, 119 Curlew, 825 Lapwing, 2 Oystercatcher

July 23rd - 52 Curlew, 965 Lapwing

Keeping my eyes peeld for one of these...

August 1st - 10 Curlew, 1100+ Lapwing

August 2nd - 5 Curlew, 580 Lapwing, 1 Black-tailed Godwit, 1 Oystercatcher

August 4th - 1 Common Sandpiper, 3 Curlew, 1 Green Sandpiper, 874 Lapwing, 1 Redshank

August 5th - 3 Curlew, 1 Green Sandpiper, 1 Turnstone

August 6th - 1 Common Sandpiper

August 7th - 1 Common Snipe, 109 Curlew, 902 Lapwing

August 10th - 2 Common Sandpiper

August 12th - 1 Black-tailed Godwit

August 16th - 3 Greenshank

August 18th - 1 Green Sandpiper, 2 Lapwing

August 19th - 4 Green Sandpiper

August 20th - 5 Curlew, 4 Green Sandpiper, 1485 Lapwing

August 21st - 1 Black-tailed Godwit, 2 Common Sandpiper, 13 Dunlin, 1 Common Snipe, 2 Green Sandpiper, 939 Lapwing, 3 Redshank, 1 Ringed Plover

August 22nd - 5 Black-tailed Godwit, 2 Common Sandpiper, 1 Greenshank, 96 Curlew, 1 Dunlin, 2 Green Sandpiper, 825 Lapwing, 3 Redshank, 12 Ringed Plover

August 26th - 1 Common Sandpiper, 1 Green Sandpiper, 11 Curlew, 1579 Lapwing

September 3rd - 170 Lapwing, 2 Curlew, 1 Ringed Plover, 2 Dunlin, 1 Green Sandpiper

September 12th - nc Lapwing, 29 Curlew

October 2nd - nc Lapwing, 30 Golen Plover, 1 Ruff

October 5th - 1298 Lapwing, 34 Golden Plover, 9 Curlew, 1 Ruff

October 6th - 1150 Lapwing, 16 Golden Plover, 1 Curlew

October 8th - c1200 Lapwing, 23 Golden Plover, 1 Curlew, 1 Redshank

Any patchers out there got running tallies? Would be nice to get a feel for how my patch compares with others!

Sun Arise!

2010-08-22T18:20:00.000+01:00

4:45am and I'm driving along the track to Bob's Bridge - destination Halfway House to watch the sun come up. I don't usually manage to get down until after 7am on an early start and so this is a real patch treat!

I imagine that there'll be all sorts going on. Birds feeding up after a long night of fasting. Birds on the move as they look for that next stop-over. Birds leaving roosts. Birds moving through. Then again of course, things could be far less frenetic. The day may begin with a gentle stretch and yawn. Or, to put it another way, I might be treated to a light Continental breakfast rather than the full English! The point is, I have no idea what to expect and I have been looking forward to this since the other half announced she was going on a 'road trip' with one of my daughters just over a week ago. So here I am. Back where I was 6 hours ago (see Patch Persistence, Day 4 - Part II), parked up, togged up (it's cooler this morning) and ready to go!

I wonder what my first bird will be. Well, I can kinda guess tbh, but lets at least wait and see, I tell myself. Yep. Sure enough... 04:54... Robin. Singing across the canal by the warehouses. Propping its little eyelids open against its floodlit dawn maybe. Then again, maybe he's just the first one up. He must have slept at some point and certainly wasn't singing last night when I walked this way. The proper sunrise is 'officially' just after 6.00am today but even now the first hint of morning sky is peeking through to the east. It's the only colour on this morning's palette so far. All else is night grey. Another Robin is singing and a third is 'tipping' nearby. I thought I might catch the silhouette of a Tufty or Great Crested Grebe, or even the palest grey of a Mute Swan on the canal, but there's nothing out there on the water that I can see.

05:10 and I'm at the river. I wondered if I'd find my stashed green fezzie chair in the dark, but it's OK - my night eyes are working. Quiet. Can't even hear a Robin now as I set up my kit, not that I'll be able to use it just yet - too dark. Ears tell me though that things are waking up out in the gloom... Lapwing, Grey Heron, Gadwall. Can't see to write in my notebook so use my phone as a proxy torch. It'll do. Mallard 'laughing'.

05:18 give my bins a go and SEE the first recognisable silhouette of the day; Grey Heron and it looks like its started looking for food already. Nearby are a variety of dark rounded blobs - gulls and/or ducks no doubt, but I can't tell you which or what even though I can now just about read what I've written without the need for my phone. Carrion Crow reversing, Song Thrush singing and... Grey Partridge? Well I didn't expect that! Looks like a fox has been out and about on the mud... footprints everywhere

05:26 and I can see enough to tell that there's not a lot out there on the mud and that the blobs are Lesser Black-backed Gulls and 4 Gadwall. I thought, judging from the number of gulls heading to roost last night that the place would be packed with them at first light. Not so. Guess they must have moved further downriver. I suppose there must be a bit of a risk of being flushed by the incoming tide in the middle of the night if you stay out on the mud. I can now see that I'm wearing green camo trousers. Of course I knew this, but I can actually see some colours now... at least close in. Common Sandpiper calling, Wren singing, 7 BHGulls low east above the water. Gadwall and Mallard calling. Lesser Black-backed too as 20 more BHGulls head right followed by a single Herring Gull. Nothing yet has broken the skyline. Everything is hugging the river. I can see the now almost continuous threads of BHGulls following the bend in the river as they fly past from downstream in groups of 10...20...30. Always just above the water. Redshank calling.

05:38 I can see colours across the river and there's enough light to use the scope despite sunrise not being for another 20 minutes! Apart from a sprinkling of gulls there are 96 Curlew out on the mud. I had no idea so many had dropped in last night, especially as there'd only been 1 or 2 knocking about during the day. Lapwing numbers are quite the reverse. Hundreds yesterday, just 10 this morning. Kestrel gets the award for first raptor of the morning as gulls finally begin to circle overhead. Sharp 'tacking' from the reeds in front of my directs me to a cracking little Sedge Warbler. Ah, so they ARE still about then. Single Great Crested Grebe is out on the water again, 2 Sand Martin over and I've got the munchies. Breakfast methinks. Cheese and Crisp Sarnies. Splendid.

06:00 SUN ARISE! Cue geese! 52 Canada Geese over starts a steady stream during the next hour in which, all told, 430 fly over together with a fistfull of Greylags. Three minutes after sun up and I get another surprise. Swift! I thought they'd long gone. It's flitting around low over the river with 4 Swallows... I mean 12... no hang on... 20... 46... 95... 120 (!). ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SWALLOWS have just decended en masse and are feeding over the water, twittering away. Long time since I've heard such a noisy bunch. And that's how it is for the next 10 minutes... the air full of Swallows... and then, as quickly as they came, they have gone. South. Bloody marvellous sight!

06:30 Pied Wagtail over. Chiffchaff and Wood Pigeon singing. Willow Warbler and Pheasant calling. Flock of 15 or so Goldfinch left. A quick scan of the mud yields just 15 BHGulls (hundreds had flown past earlier - guess they must have kept going to Richmond Bank maybe), 20 LBBGs, 1 Herring Gull, 1 Grey Heron, 32 Lapwing (where did the other 22 come from?), 2 Redshank and 5 Crows. During the next 30 minutes I add 2 Little Egret, Dunnock, Chaffinch, Magpie, Jackdaw, Whitethroat, Magpie, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Blackcap and Raven to the morning's tally, but have not had the flurry of wader activity that I did yesterday.

07:00 -What did I just say about flurry of wader activity? Well, the next hour saw things change! Here's how
07:04 - Common Sandpiper (same one as previously I guess)
07:16 - Jay, 2 Swift, 3 House Martin, Tufted Duck
07:23 - 322 Lapwing, 3 Redshank, 1 Common Sandpiper (same again...), 22 Shelduck, Bullfinch
07:41 - 6 Ringed Plover, 1 Greenshank (juvenile and sounding kinda hoarse when it called)
08:15 - 825 Lapwing, 1 Common Sandpiper (again)
08:22 - 5 Ringed Plover, 1 Dunlin (juv)
08:53 - 5 Black-tailed Godwit

Then as I left an hour or so later; 2 Common Sandpiper together, 1 Ringed Plover and there were still 3 of the original 5 Black-tailed Godwits hanging about. Not a bad morning at all. Oh, and to cap it all there were 2 Green Sandpipers on Black Fields again. That's NINE wader species today. Super cool. No sign of the Garaganey on Pumphouse though, but then again, when I was there late pm there was no sign of any Teal either... go figure ;)

Sun arise, she bring in the morning.

Sun arise, bring in the morning, fluttering her skirts all around.

Sun arise, she come with the dawning.

Sun arise, come with the dawning, spreading all the light all around.

Patch Persistence, Day 4 - Part II

2010-08-22T14:18:00.000+01:00

Having spent a pleasant morning staking out Halfway House (see Patch Persistence, Day 4 - Part I) the plan this evening is to do the east end for drop-ins and Upper Moss Side for owls. Arrive at Pumphouse Pool to find it occupied by a couple busily working their way through a stack of beers. Chat for a bit but as there was nowt going on bird-wise decide to check the Black Fields north of the Eastern Reedbed as the new scraping had held a couple of Green Sandpipers recently. Same story tonight... in almost the same spot, but alas no Wood Sandpiper or similar goodie to add to my tally. There IS a late reeling Grasshopper Warbler though, which is totally unexpected. Not had one reeling here since April! Wonder if it's the resident or a migrant just passing through?

As it is still hours until sunset and I've done the east end rather more quickly than I'd imagined I would, I think I'll sit in the south hide on Lapwing Lake for a bit and see how many Cormorants and Little Egrets come in to roost. Quickly becomes apparent though that you can't actually SEE the roost tree from the hide, so I head instead for the bench near the raptor view point and pour a coffee. Trouble is, it's no better from here. Ah well, time to just sit and soak up the evening glow. Not a lot going on except for the too-ing and fro-ing of gulls, the odd Coot dispute, a few Gadwall unable to make up their minds about where to settle for the night and the occasional sweep of a Cormorant doing laps of the lake before finally landing on the far side of the roost tree out of view. Thankfully one or two things are calling to spice up my temporary loaf... Linnet in the willow in front of me, Willow Tit calling from the gorse to my right. Curious that. The Willow Tit. I'd had one calling this morning at HWH having not heard any for a ages. It's beginning to feel like things are getting a bit restless on the patch. Signs of birds starting to think about making a move?

19:15 and still some time to kill before it gets dumpsy and I can start looking for owls. A stroll through Hillcrest Quarry is pleasant but unproductive as far as birds are concerned and it's Bob's Bridge before I see anything of note - 49 Swallows on the wires. Numbers up from yesterday. Flock is building before heading south. Also on a different line of wires are 28 Goldfinches. Lots of juveniles among them. They flit between the wires and the thistledown in the White House Path Field. Many will stay now for the winter I think. The sun is against me here and I can see nothing. I'm relying on my ears. Brief snatch of Yellowhammer song is about the only new sound. Not long before I reach the fields by the Norton Marsh hide. The field on the right (Long Pond Field), has a muddy pond in it. Looks good for passage waders (if only the Longhorns would stop using it), but I've yet to have anything except Moorhen, Mallard and Gadwall on it. Tonight though there's a solitary Common Snipe - woo hoo!

20:00 I let the Longhorns gingerly sniff my phone (they are such softies!)...

...and decide to watch the sun set on the marsh from the hide. I can hear Lapwing close to the waters edge. Plenty of them it sounds like. They must have come in early. Curlew are arriving in ones and twos and heading towards Halfway House, calling. There are gulls there already... Lesser Black-backeds and Black-headed judging from the size and shape of their distant silhouettes. There are more pouring in from the east now... and geese too. Regular large groups of Canada Geese and smaller, occasional groups of Greylags. The gulls are silent as they drift in, the geese noisy, but it doesn't last long. They either fly over and are gone or settle on the edge of the marsh. It is SO quiet. Quiet enough even to hear the soft scratch-scratch-scratch of a wasp on the outside of the hide as it scrapes off tiny pieces of wood to chew into paper for its nest.

21:00 The light has drained from the marsh and has taken with it all trace of colour. Everything now is monochrome. As I leave the hide a Wren slips in to roost. She popped her head around the doorway twice earlier... and both times chittered scoldingly at me for keeping her up. Time to walk the fields! I use up the last remaining binocular-available light quickly, even with my Leicas, and it's not long before I'm birding by moonlight. Naked eye stuff - movements and dark shapes are what I'm after now. There's a Long-eared Owl out here somewhere and I'm determined to find it. Tree Sparrow Field... Balloon Hut Field... Lane End Field... Daisy Field... nothing. Nothing to see, nothing to hear. I cut through the short overgrown path to the ship canal track in the hope that the light from the warehouses will help me spot things. It doesn't. There are no owls out tonight. I get back to the car, hit full-beam and drive down Lapwing Lane in one last hope of getting a Tawny Owl. Nothing. Car park and I use the headlights to illuminate the field in case of Barn Owl. Nothing. Ah well, the sunset was gorgeous and the sound of the marsh going to sleep pretty damn lovely. Home for some kip then up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to see the sunrise at Halfway House. Wonder what THAT will thow up? Can hardly wait. Why twitch when you can patch I say!!!

Patch Persistence, Day 4 - Part I

2010-08-21T13:27:00.000+01:00

Day 4 and it's an early morning start today. Plan is to stake out Halfway House first thing then do the east end for drop-ins and Upper Moss Side for owls tonight. So, 7am I drop the lad at work and head straight to Bob's Bridge and park up. Very quiet as I do the familiar yomplet along the ship canal... just a solitary Chiffchaff singing.

Halfway House 07:30

It's warm, there's a slight breeze and it's pin-drop quiet. Common Sandpiper calling to my left (good start!) as I unfurl the fezzie chair and set up. Pour a coffee and it's the first scan of the day with my bins. Lots of gulls and lots of Lapwing... it usually starts like this. 65 Gadwall flying over is the biggest count here for a while as a Ringed Plover calls somewhere and I spot 4 Little Egrets feeding close in to the bank far right. VERY good start! Lapwing numbers are less than half yesterday's record count, just 939 this morning and it's a similar story as far as the Lesser Black-backeds - 700 compared to over 2000 yesterday. Black-headed Gull numbers conversely are twice as high as yesterday (736) and there are more Herring Gulls about too... I count 26 among the LBBGs. 4 Great Black-backeds is also a higher than of late count. Other stuff... 6 Grey Heron, 1 Great Crested Grebe, 3 Cormorant, 4 Mallard, 103 Canada Goose, 26 Shelduck.

08:14 and an orange 'rowboat' with an outboard has appeared upriver. There are 2 blokes in it. Looks like they're doing some kind of survey as the guy steering is holding what looks like a piece of scientific kit maybe. They chug quietly downstream. This could actually be quite useful! Who knows what's tucked in along the banks that they'll disturb as they wind their way downstream. Answer: 3 Redshank! Thought I half heard one earlier. Nice. Funny things patches. I love the way that nothing-of-any-note birds become elevated to excellent tick status simply by turning up unexpectedly. I mean where else but on a patch would a Redshank be worthy of comment? I remember a good few years back Steve White telling me that Great Tit was patch twitch-worthy at Seaforth. Ya godda luvvit. The boat chugs on. 2 waders low over the water in front of it... 2 Common Sandpipers (nice) and the Ringed Plover is calling again... insistently this time and the sound is tracking right. Pick it up in flight and watch it land on the mud. Cool.

08:42 another 'routine' scan of the Lapwing flock picks up 8 small waders. Where the hell had THEY come from? This is SO typical of Halfway House - stuff just drops in unseen - brilliant. Scope on them and... well, well, well... first juvenile Dunlin of the year! Bloody marvellous. They stay for 10 minutes and then fly off downriver. 2 Sparrowhawks have also appeared and are soaring overhead in the sunshine. Hmmm Crows. I suddenly notice there are lots of Crows out there on the mud. There'd only been 3 or 4 earlier and now there are 61 with a dozen or so Jackdaw mixed in. See? They snuck in too. It's always a state of flux here. And there are Starlings too... 33 among the Lapwing... and something else. Reddish looking wader, head under wing. Well it's definitely a Godwit, but which one? I'm hoping for Bar-tailed, but my brain already knows the legs are too long. That said, I still manage to hang on to the possibility for a few minutes before the bird lifts its head and shows off that long bill and then flutters away left a few feet, flashing its white wing bars. Cracking fresh juvenile Black-tailed Godwit (no colour rings Matt!).

Ringed Plover flies past again calling, followed by the only Curlew of the morning. This is brilliant. Patching at its best. I've lost count of how many days like this I've had at Halfway House. Dead as a doornail most of the time, then a little burst of good birds. THE place to be on the patch this morning for sure as a call from a fellow patcher confirms. "East end very quiet. Female Garganey still there though and a Green Sandpiper." Worth a quick look though I decide before I head home for curry. Pick up 3 Swallows, 1 House Martin and 7 Sand Martins mobbing a Sparrowhawk as a Raven flies by... nice little montage moment that :) Not seen any martins recently either. Good stuff.

Pumphouse Pool 10:30

Yep. There she is... female Garganey (4th consecutive day) and 1...2...3... Green Sandpiper. Looking forward to this evening's stint now... pun intended ;)

Moore Groundhogging...

2010-08-20T22:41:00.000+01:00

Day 3 of the patch quintuplet and things are... well... sunshine, showers and a certain degree of similarity...

Halfway House 15:00

Quiet here today. The hoped for Greenshank melingering seems not to be on the cards and instead the only waders are Curlew and Lapwing - but what numbers of the latter! Max count for the year...1485! Curlew on the other hand are sparse... just five. There is only 1 Little Egret herentoday, feeding along side roosting Canada Geese. These have shot up since my last visit... there are 196 today sandwiching the group of 10 Cormorants sharing the mud-roost with them. Lesser Black-backed Gull numbers are also up (2850 today), so too Black-headed Gulls I think (355) but I count only a solitary Great Black-backed and just 2 Herring Gull. A Great Crested Grebe on the river is another new addition since last week though as are 5 Shelduck near Wigg island and there are still a couple of Swallows zipping about, but no Sand Martins.

Pumphouse Pool 16:15

Well, the news today is that there's only 1 Greens Sandpiper on the pool-within-the-pool today but the female Garganey is still in attendance. Numbers of everything else is as follows; Gadwall 12, Shoveler 4, Little Grebe 4, Coot 37 (a new max I think...), Tufty 9, Mallard 45 (up???) Moorhen 5 and Teal 16. There's also a Raven just flown north mobbed by 2 Jackdaw... hmmm.

Black Fields 17:15

3 Green Sandpiper. Well that's quite interested as the max on Pumphouse had been four but there's regularly been a single there. SO, looks like a single and a trio on the patch...nice.

Birchwood Pool 17:30

Rain has been threatening for a while (the odd spot of drizzle earlier) and is now falling as I head to the east hide. General impression is of things being similar to my last visit about a week ago maybe... 112 Coot, 3 Mute Swan, 6 Little Grebe (incl. 2 juvs), 23 Mallard, 2 Pochard, 28 Gadwall, 46 Canada Geese, 2 Greylag Geese, and SEVEN white 'domestics'... OK, maybe there are a few things different. There are 29 adult Tuftys plus 2 broods of 4 full grown and 9 x 3/4 grown respectively... both along the west shore, 4 Moorhen (1 with a brood of 2 x 1/3grown young), 2 Great Crested Grebes and... and... that's it.

Pumphouse Pool revisited 18:00ish

Bumped into Den and Mal on way out and decided to give PHP another look and try to find the Garganey again. No problem. She actually put on quite a nice show. Also added Green Woodpecker again, Peregrine on its usual spot and a Common Buzzard. SO... all in all, not a bad couple of hours really. Early door on the river tomorrow... looking forward to that ;)

Moore today...

2010-08-19T19:07:00.000+01:00

Back to the patch this afternoon... part of a 5 day run before work on Monday. Surprise bird of yesterday was a female Garganey on Pumphouse Pool (my first autumn Garaganey on the patch) so I was curious to see if she'd hung around. Arrived at Pumphouse about 3:30. Where yesterday there had been a single Green Sandpiper on the small pool-within-the-pool, today there were FOUR! That's the highest patch count so far this year. They seem to like to drop in to Pumphouse around this time. Last year I saw my first returning birds (3) on Aug 13th and they peaked at five on Aug 16th so it'll be interesting to see how long they hang around and if the numbers increase over the next few days. Other changes from yesterday... no obvious sign of the Garganey. There seemed to be fewer Teal about and they'd moved to the SE corner so my guess was that if she was still around she was probably tucked away on the south bank of the island with the remaining Teal. Trouble was, it's not easy to view that bit at the moment. Magpie numbers were up... 14 today... and there were a couple more Shoveler about compared to yesterday. Well, after a bit of a yomp around to try to find the Garganey, she eventually turned up with some Teal after a couple of hours and began pottering around in the small bay by the spit as yesterday - cracking little bird.

Geez...

2010-08-19T13:23:00.000+01:00

Well, I finally manage to get to the patch for a couple of hours tonight after last weekend's heavy metal mayhem and some subsequent long overdue domestic loft activity. Guess I had owls in mind as I set off on account of 3 Little Owls, 2 Barn Owls and a Long-eared Owl being reported during my absence. A quick glance left as I shot past Big Hand Ranch about 6.45 didn't throw up any dumpy blobs and it was a bit early for Barnies so I head for...

Pumphouse Pool 18:52

In the hide and straight away... wader. The water levels are dropping again (go figure with all this rain...) and so there's a small pool cut off from the rest of the pool near the now high and dry Kingfisher perch. The wader is pottering around in tight circles. The momentary flash of Red-necked Phalarope through my brain is quickly gone as I raise my bins - Green Sandpiper. Nice enough though. There seem to be a lot more ducks about tonight - all spread out across the water so it's time to sift through them. There's mostly a mix of Gadwall (33) and Mallard (20) with 11 Tufty at the far end, with a generous sprinkling of Coot (30) and juvenile Moorhens (5) scattered about. Smaller stuff too... a pair of Little Grebe with a well grown youngster and a few Teal. I decide to do a systematic scan and count everything. Green Woodpecker yaffling. Cool. It's still about. Count all the above and add 41 Canada Geese. Teal numbers are well up on my last visit. All told I count 20. There are 2 Shoveler back too, roosting on the spit - the first of the returning winter birds and something else among the Teal... head under the water feeding. Small. Head up and the stripey head markings and pale dot at the base of the thick grey bill identifies it as a female GARGANEY. Well bugger me! I did NOT expect that!! Bloody marvellous and patch year tick 127. 2 Lapwing, 2 Grey Heron, 2 Magpie and 3 Crows completes the tally and I text a couple of patchers the news. Three good patch 'G's then at Pumphouse: Green Sandpiper, Green Woodpecker and Garganey.

Eastern Reedbed & Millbrook Pool 19:39

Inspired by the PHP goodies I forgo shooting straight to Upper Moss Side and decide instead to quickly drop in to the pools at the east end. Needn't have bothered: 5 Coots, 6 Gadwall and 1 Mute Swan is all that's visible on ERB, although I do hear a Kingfisher zip past. MBP is just as bad: 3 Gadwall, 2 Teal, 1 Coot, 1 Grey Heron. Time to head to...

Upper Moss Side 19:50

Head along Lapwing Lane past the lake rather than the usual more direct route to park up at Bob's Bridge and check the Cormorant roost along the way - 15 tonight in the trees on Lapwing Lake and 2 Little Egrets. There have been recent reports of up to 5 roosting there. Something to check more thoroughly next time. In a bit of a rush now as have to pick up the missus from one of her nights out and I really want to check Norton Marsh Pool for waders and the fields of Upper Moss Side for hunting Long-eared Owl. Birds of note en route to Norton Marsh; 4 Jay, 32 Swallows (most hawking over the little copse in the corner of Tree Sparrow Field), a brood of 9 Pheasants and 2 Brown Hares. Arrive at Norton hide and...

Long story short... get soaked to the knees stalking Norton Marsh Pool for a paltry 10 Gadwall (water levels way too high after recent tides to leave any muddy margins for waders) and get coated in thistle down yomping miles of owless fields until dusk when my phone goes and it's time to play taxi. The other half is done and so am I. Do get a consolation Little Owl silhouetted on one of the pillboxes though on the way back... wich is nice. Halfway House tomorrow maybe methinks...

A fortnight's neglect...

2010-08-09T12:51:00.000+01:00

Hadn't visited Birchwood Pool on the patch for two weeks and so figured I really needed to check it out this morning during yet another flying visit (household chores - say no more...). One of the Little Owl parents on the Big Hand Ranch roof as I drive by on the way in. Quick check of Pumphouse Pool before togging up. Male Kingfisher on his usual perch and nowt else obvious after a bin and scope scan. Slight further digression to Eastern Reedbed finds just Mike, Roy, Mike's new kit and a few Anatidae.

Right. Birchwood Pool. Park up and something biggish and white is low flapping behind the trees bordering Pumphouse. takes me a while to realise it's a Little Egret. It alights briefly in one of the low trees by the track before spotting me and flying off over Birch Wood towards the pool. Five minutes later I'm at the east hide expecting it to have dropped in on the big island. It hasn't.

Two species had dominated the BWP avifauna back end of July when I was here last; Coot and Tufted Duck so I was curious to see if they'd gone up even more. They have. 67 adult Tufty now compared to 46 then and there's an extra Tufty brood. The female with 5 ducklings is still pottering about at the far end, but there's another female with 4 ducklings in the NW corner. Coot have shot up to 139 from 95 a fortnight ago so looks like the moulting flock has probably peaked. I'll check it in another couple of weeks time. Other stuff as follows...

5 Pochard, 2 Great Crested Grebe, 7 Mallard, 20 Gadwall (looks like the 2 big broods and their mums), 3 Mute Swan, 3 Canada Geese, 2 Grey Heron, 2 Moorhen, 5 Little Grebe, including a pair with 2 well-grown young that i don't recall being there last time. Good few scopes of all shores and the big island yields nothing. I had thought maybe there's be a Snipe or two after the one dropped into Pumphouse the other day. Ah well...

SO. Heads up peeps!!! If you want to get some good stuff at Moore, best time will be Thursday 12th until Monday 16th because that's when I'm off to the BLOODSTOCK FESTIVAL. Sod's Law being what it is, it's also the time when something cracking is just bound to drop in. Happy Hunting ;)

Patch Snack...

2010-08-07T20:46:00.000+01:00

Had a patch snack this afternoon. Just an hour. Halfway House yielded 902 Lapwing, 109 Curlew, 6 Grey Heron, 5 moulting Shelduck and a Common Buzzard hovering in the breeze. No time to count the gulls... Pumphouse Pool had 4 Common Buzzard nearby calling (2 adults, 2 juvs so probably a family party), female Peregrine over the viaduct, Kingfisher on the pool and the first returning Common Snipe of the year. Immaculate bird, so presume at the moment that it's a juv until I can check snipe moult patterns... that's it.

Seconds...

2010-08-06T13:21:00.000+01:00

Well I enjoyed Wednesday's patch sarnie so much that I decided to have seconds today (Thursday). Took Ezzie with me to speed up transit between patch portions and arrived at Pumphouse Pool 09:30.

Pumphouse Pool 09:30

249 Lesser Black-backed Gull, 20 Black-headed Gull, 13 Herring Gull is the gullage on't pool this morning. Kingfisher puts in his usual appearance... today zipping along the north shoire of the island, calling. There are 5 juvenile Moorhen pottering about, 2 Grey Herons, 4 Gadwall, 7 Tufty, 1 Pochard, 4 Mallard and 20 Coot on the water. In a change from yesterday, there are 19 Canada Geese here today and no waders at all; not even a single Lapwing. On the shore there are 2 Pied Wagtails, 3 Magpies and 3 Carrion Crows. No Grey Wagtails today and no hirundines. Time to head for the river...

Halfway House 10:00

25 Gadwall fly over as I'm setting up my stuff, else things look similar to yesterday... Can't decide though where the Lapwing are at though, as they're strung out along the mud. Takes a count with my clicker to realise that numbers are up again - 874. Curlews are about the same (3) and the single Little Egret is here again feeding in the shallows. Lesser Black-backed Gull numbers are down (215), Black-headed Gulls about the same (224) as are Great Black-backed (2) and Herring Gull (12) but there are twice as many Common Gulls. Yes, there are two! There are Canada Geese and Greylags out on the mud again (12 and 10 respectively) and the 2 white 'domestics' are here again too. Don't know where the rest of yesterday's Canadas are, nor where the 3 extra Greylags came from. 31 Wood Pigeon, 5 Feral Pigeon, 2 Stock Dove, 3 Cormorants, 1 Grey Heron, 2 Sand Martins and a female Kestrel complete the feel of 'yesterday-ness'... UNTIL...

A Raven has just flown over calling and I'm watching the Little Egret that has just flown across the river and landed on the muddy margin on the far shore in front of Cuerdley Marsh. The wind has picked up. No rain today but the wind has a fat northerly edge to it, which tends to push things right to left from where I'm sitting, from upriver to downriver. The Little Egret has caught something. I'm hitting the x60 on my trusty Zeiss and sharpening the focus on it when there's a sharp, harsh 'teuk... teuk' close in. I look up to catch a solitary TURNSTONE blow past low along the near shore. I dash around the reeds in front of me to look downriver towards the stoney embankments and wall but can't find it again. Maybe it flipped over onto the ship canal. Either way it is THE patch bird of the year so far for me!!! Better even than the spring passage Knot and Sanderling. I really didn't think I get a Turnstone on the patch (see This week, I have been mostly eating... roasted chicken). Bloody marvellous and patch year tick 126!!!

Well, something tells me that I'm not gonna get better than that on the river this morning and so I decide to head off and check a few more spots. First off Norton Marsh Pool. There's been bugger all on here since mid-Jul and I figured with stuff starting to move through it was worth a look. Money was on, if anything, Green Sandpiper as there'd been one at Pumphouse yesterday so they were definitely about. Dump everything but my bins in the car and me and Ez are flying down the tracks on Upper Moss Side. Get to the hide in no time, lean Ezzie against the benches inside and nip out onto the marsh. Looks like Duncan's cut a path through to the pool... handy. Sneak along it through the Phrag and... Green Sandpiper up and away. Ha! Well, if there's one, there could be more. Hop on the bike and shoot around to the Tower Hide Pools, but alas, they are completely overgrown and there's no water anywhere. Upshot... no waders. Meh! SO, Pumphouse to finish methinks.

Pumphouse Pool 12:00

Pretty much the same as earlier, but minus the Kingfisher. Moorhen juvs seem to be liking the conditions - there are 10 spread around, max count that I think. Coots are clearly resting up out of sight as there's only 10 on show compared to double that a couple of hours ago. Gull numbers are about the same... OK. Just got time to check the Viaduct Pools.

Viaduct Pools 12:40ish

There are 2 pools by the viaduct separated by a bund. The larger, eastern pool which you can see through the fence from the track along the south side of Pumphouse is shallow and dries out very quickly and never really pulls much in, although finches like to feed on the slopes during the winter. The smaller, western pool holds water, is Typha fringed with muddy margins and sometimes pulls in passage stuff, like Green Sandpiper. Worth, therefore, a check. Today the area to the west of this pool is also watery, but a soggy sedgey slosh around both yields nothing except 40 Goldfinch that erupt from the thistle - a max patch count for the year.

Not a bad way to end a sesh.