Tickets for a West End show...

 

This year, for the first time in ten years, I'm buying season tickets to a West End show. It's called 'Waders' and runs in Apr-May and again from Jul-Oct. Some performances are matinees, others evening and the cast constantly changes, but if my last season ticket are anything to go buy... boy is the show a good one and an absolute patch 'must see'. It takes place on a bend in the river at the West End of the reserve and stars a wealth of well-known names plus occasional surprise performances from some of the patch's bigger stars... and the joy is, you never know who's going to turn up. The plot is usually the same... a group of friends get together to pick worms out of the mud and then sit, stand and fly around for variable lengths of time whilst uttering classic one-liners and whistling a variety of jaunty tunes - I of course refer to Spring and Autumn passage at Halfway House.

In 2012 I attended 49 shows, 17 in the spring and 32 in the autumn and enjoyed a cast of thousands - well 15,563 to be exact, most in the autumn and most were the 'chorus line of Lapwing, Curlew, Dunlin and Golden Plover, but with double-figure cumulative tallies for Ringed Plover, Common Sandpiper, Green Sandpiper, Oystercatcher, Redshank, Greenshank and Black-tailed Godwit, all of which are occasionally reported from some of the pools on the main reserve, but with nowhere near such regularity and numbers. Add to that special showings from Sanderling, Knot, Common Snipe, Whimbrel, Ruff and Avocet, together with 'for one night only' appearances from Wood Sandpiper, Bar-tailed Godwit, Little Stint and Turnstone... and in total 21 species can be found at that one spot... and I'm sure others have been missed.

So I thought I'd summarize the tallies (cumulative counts in parentheses) and give a little personal insight regards when what turned up. I'll be interested to see how things have changed...

First the (reasonably) regular species...

Lapwing (14,651) - By far the commonest wader back then,  hitting over 1000 birds during the autumn months, with just handfuls on that part of the river during the spring. You'd maybe catch some 1/3rd of visits in the spring and 2/3rds during the autumn.

Curlew (466) - Less frequent than Lapwing in the spring, but about the same in the autumn, peaking at around 100 birds.

Dunlin (144) - Always a favourite for me. Up to 30 birds, mostly in the spring (1 in 2 visits), with less frequent shows in the autumn (~1 in 5 visits). Both schinzii and arctica have turned up.

Golden Plover (103) - regular hanger-outers with the lapwing flock in October, but only between 16-30 birds. No sign of any in the other months, not surprisingly...

Ringed Plover (50) - Almost identical patterns of occurrence to Dunlin, but in lower numbers... up to ~10-12.

Common Sandpiper (38) - 1-5 birds during every other autumn visit, more or less but just singles in last week of April during spring (some birds have been known to overwinter on the Manchester Ship Canal)

Green Sandpiper (25) - 1-4 birds autumn only, again about once every other visit. More predictable back then on the pools, especially Pumphouse Pool and the wet flash in the NW corner of Mill Brook Pool where one or two regularly overwintered and moved between there and the Black Fields.

Black-tailed Godwit (19) - Between 1-5 birds present on about every 5th or 6th visit during the autumn. Never saw them in the spring.

Redshank (17) - Not as regular or common as you'd think. Only ever 1-3 birds and all but one, during autumn. There on about 1 in 5 visits.

Greenshank (10) - Usually single birds but 3 on one occasion... luck of the draw during either passage. Turned up twice during each.

Single figure spring birds...

Whimbrel (5), Sanderling (3), Avocet (2), Knot (2), Bar-tailed Godwit (1), Little Stint (1), Wood Sandpiper (1).

Single figure autumn birds...

Ruff (2), Turnstone (1)

SO, if you frequent Moore, it's ALWAYS worth a tromp to Halfway House during passage months. You really don't know what you might see...