Saturday 30 October 2010

Pennington Flash

The Spit in Sunny October


Following yesterday's somewhat disappointing birding trip, I went out to Penny today in bright autumn sunshine.  I had agreed to meet Dave Broome at Horrocks Hide because he was getting rid of some old birding magazines and had said I could have them.


Redwing Eating Berries


After meeting up with Dave and talking to David Wilson, I carried on round the hides, meeting various other people along the way including Jon Taverner, John Tymon and two other very nice birders whose names I don't know.  I spent a good half hour with Jon trying to photograph the elusive Redwing which were eating berries in several locations - I did manage to get some shots, but their quality isn't that great.


A Closer View

A kestrel also flew over as we waited patiently for the Redwing.

Kestrel hunting for food

Bidding farewell to Jon, I moved on to Teal Hide down a wooded path I haven't tried before.  It was clear from some of the holes in the trees that Woodpeckers feed in this area.  At Teal Hide my first encounter was with a Robin that just had to be photographed.

Please take my picture !

And then I concentrated on the drake Goosander which had been forced closer t the hide than usual due to the high water levels.

Drake Goosander with duck behind
Drake Goosander in the water

I also had a fleeting glance of two Snipe which I only identified by looking at this photograph later.

Two Snipe flashed by


From here I went to the feeding station at Bunting Hide to try to get some better pictures of the Nuthatch.  Instead I got some more of the Greater Spotted Woodpecker and Reed Bunting as the Nuthatch wouldn't keep still for long enough.

Greater Spotted Woodpecker
Reed Bunting


I finished off a very pleasant day by talking to John Tymon back at Horrock's Hide about cameras - he's sold all his unused camera gear and got a new hybrid camera toy to play with - naturally he was keen to tell me all about it.

In summary today I saw:
  • Redwing
  • Grey Wagtail
  • Kestrel
  • Goosander
  • Cormorant
  • Snipe
  • Teal
  • Gadwall
  • Shoveller
  • Tufted Duck
  • Grey Heron
  • Lapwing
  • Greater Spotted Woodpecker
  • Sparrowhawk
  • Goldfinch
  • Nuthatch
  • Bullfinch
  • Willow Tit
  • Chaffinch
  • Dunnock
  • And various Gulls
I was also told that there was a Siskin present at the feeding station and although I heard it, I didn't actually see it.  One to look out for in the future.
Yep, we should have taken Grandad Bob to Penny to see the birds - I counted over 30 species here today compared to a rather paltry seven at Mere Sands Wood.

P.S. Thanks for the magazines Dave, they're much appreciated.

'The Usual Suspects'

From now on I'm not going to bother listing birds that are generally categorised as 'The Usual Suspects' unless there is something special about them.  These include:
  • Canada Goose
  • Mallard
  • Coot
  • Moorhen
  • Black-headed Gull
  • Mute Swans
  • Blackbird
  • Starling
  • House Sparrow
  • Blue Tit
  • Great Tit
  • Robin
  • Wood Pigeon
  • Collared Dove
  • Carrion Crow
  • Magpie
The reason is that these birds are found pretty much everywhere I go and are always there.  That's not to say I've got anything against these birds, like people who regard some of them as pests. Indeed they pretty much got me interested in birding in the first place, being easy to see and identify.

Those birds which I'm not including in my own 'Usual Suspects' list are:
  • Grey Heron
  • Lapwing
  • Tufted Duck
  • Long-tailed Tit
  • Bullfinch
  • Greenfinch
  • Coal Tit
  • Chaffinch
This might surprise some people but to me these birds are still something of a novelty as I have only recently started observing them regularly.  However, they may well be added to 'The Usual Suspects' list as time goes by in my birding activities.

So you take it for granted that many of these birds will have been seen on most of my birding trips as well as those to which I've drawn particular attention.  They will simply be listed as 'The Usual Suspects' from now on.

P.S. In addition to not listing these birds, from now on I will only be tagging my posts with the names of birds for which I have included pictures in order to facilitate finding them.

Friday 29 October 2010

Mere Sands Wood, Lancashire

I went out to Mere Sands Wood LWT today with Sarah and her dad (Grandad Bob) with the original intention of going on to Marshside at Southport later in the day.  We were also doing a spot of geocaching in the area to show Grandad Bob the ropes of this outdoor activity.

Mere Sands Wood looked to be a great place but we saw very few birds today.  The birds we did see were the 'usual suspects' including:
  • A solitary Cormorant
  • Grey Heron
  • Teal
  • Tufted Duck
  • Coot
  • Moorhen
  • Mallard
  • Wood Pigeon
Unfortunately the star bird, the Kingfisher, didn't make an appearance today although we did find the right place to see them.   While we were out, the weather changed very quickly from being very breezy but bright to being dull and overcast with some rain.  It was too dark for photographs for most of the time were birdwatching here.

Back on the car park just before we were leaving we met a man who had videoed some Tree Sparrows on the feeders and he also showed us some fungi which were quite abundant here.

We decided that it has got a bit too late and dark to carry on to Marshside today and so we finished off our trip with a couple of caches. So it was a slightly disappointing day in terms of birding but quite good from a geocaching and scenery point of view (see my other blog).

Wednesday 27 October 2010

Jay - A First For My Garden !

Today I saw a Jay in my garden for the first time ever.  I only had time for a brief glimpse (no oak trees or acorns here)  but it was unmistakable - a largish bird with a big head and distinctive profile.

As it flew off I clearly saw the brownish back, black tail with a white rump and iridescent blue wing edges that make it easy to identify. There was no chance of getting my camera in time so I just had to make do with a visual sighting.  I do hope it comes back sometime soon.

Monday 25 October 2010

Blackleach Country Park


Whilst out following my other pursuit of geocaching I visited Blackleach Country Park, a little oasis of nature about half a mile from Walkden.  It was a beautiful autumn morning, cold and frosty but bright and sunny.

I'd never been here before and I was quite impressed and whilst out I saw the following birds:
  • Cormorant (over)
  • Mute Swan
  • Mallard
  • Coot
  • Moorhen
  • Canada Goose
  • Robin
  • Magpie
  • Carrion Crow
  • Various Gulls
Nothing really special here today then, but still a very nice place to visit and who knows, there may be some interesting visitors at other times in the year.

Wednesday 20 October 2010

Rindle Road and Moss Lane

The Manchester Birding Forum has gone very quiet about the Rindle Road and Astley Moss areas, but as it was so sunny when I got home from work tonight, I just had to go out somewhere and this is closest to home.  I also combined it with dropping off a geocache, but that's another blog.


I started off as usual by going down Moss Lane and on the way down a large bird of prey flew out of a tree and over the field next to 'Cobs and Plod's riding school.  I didn't quite catch what it was but I suspected it was a buzzard due to its size, colour and broad wing shape.


After dropping off the cache I continued down to the bend in the road near the end of Moss Lane where I normally park up and walk back along the through the trees.  It was here that I first saw a Little Owl earlier in the year.  Tonight however there was a large lorry loading stuff for the new pipeline and making a lot of noise and activity, so there were no birds to be seen apart from the odd Woodpigeon.  So I decided to go back to the place where I'd seen the bird of prey earlier.


I parked up just off Moss Lane and walked down a footpath on the edge of the wooded area alongside the field.  After a few minutes a large brown bird with broad wings appeared again briefly overhead, barely 20 metres away.  It was definitely a Buzzard and the closest I've ever come to one -  a great sight, but too fast and difficult to photograph as it flew straight into the sun.  Well it was worth stopping just for that view.


I then moved on to Rindle Road, parking up at the feeding station.  After a quick scan around with my binoculars I first thought there was nothing of note to see, but then I noticed a large flock of what I first believed were Mistle Thrushes on the ground in a field towards the railway line.


Upon closer inspection I realised they weren't Mistle Thrushes but something else - a brownish body with a reddish brown speckled breast and lighter underparts - were they Fieldfare?  Well,  yes it was (later verified by Ian McKerchar of Manchester Birding Website fame). I was quite excited by now as I hadn't seen Fieldfare before and there were a lot of them.  I attempted a few snaps with my camera to take record shots for later identification purposes, but they really were too far away to get anything decent, so I moved on.


I went down the path towards Rindle Woods and could here various types of Tit and then something else singing in the trees at the start of the wood.  I went for a look but couldn't see anything.  But as I stood at the entrance the wood and looked round I noticed in the distance that the flock of birds I'd seen earlier had taken off.  At first they looked a little like a flock of starlings and then I thought their flight looked a bit like a dove or pigeon.  They moved left and right in a flock of 50 or more birds - I kept wishing they would come my way for for a long while it didn't look as if they would.


But then suddenly turned and as they got closer I realised they were something new for me.  I fired off lots of shots in rapid fire mode, varying the zoom to try to get some wide shots as well as closeups.  I was quite surprised that in the excitement of seeing the birds, I did get one or two half decent shots as shown on this page, especially as they were quite high up and moving.



After this I walked down the path through Rindle Hedge and although I disturbed a few LBJ's and Woodpigeons, there was nothing much to see.  I took a few photos of the view across the fields towards Winter Hill which looked great in the evening sunshine.  But now it was starting to get cold and so I headed back to the car.


I'd put everything away and was sitting in the car casually looking down the drainage ditch to see if there were any bank voles in view. I was just about to start the engine when in the corner of my eye I noticed a splash in the water about 100 metres away and a bird fly up and sit on the nearby fence.


I reached for my binoculars off the back seat and as I was doing this the bird flew even closer and landed about 15 metres away in a Hawthorne bush.  It was difficult to see it clearly in the fading light but I recognised some of the familiar features of a Sparrowhawk.  I sometimes still have difficulties in separating this bird from a Kestrel when in flight, but with a close-up view there was no doubting that this was a female Sparrowhawk. As this was the closest I'd ever come to a wild one in the field, I just had to get a photo of it, but I knew it would fly off the moment it heard me or saw me move.


Very slowly I leaned over to the back seat to get my camera and then set about shooting as many pictures as I could through the car window.  Sometimes the camera would focus on the window and sometime on the trees, but I managed to get a few record shots of the bird, which thankfully stayed in place for a few minutes.  I thought I might as well try to get some pictures from outside the car and so I slowly opened the door and actually managed to stand up before the bird flew off!  I fired a few shots off in hope as it flew low across the next field and into the distance and that was that.  As I packed up for the second time I thought, "I should have just wound the window down instead of getting out of the car - I wouldn't have got any closer".  Next time maybe.

Well, in spite of not getting any really good photographs of the Sparrowhawk, I had a great closeup view of the bird and it was a fantastic end to a short spell of birdwatching on a cold October evening.

Saturday 16 October 2010

Pennington Flash, South Side

The view across Pennington Flash from the South Shore

This morning I decided to have a look at the south side of Pennington Flash as I'd only been down there once before and not for watching birds.  I'd checked out the sightings on the Manchester Birding Forum last night and so I was expecting to see some Goldeneye and perhaps a Black Necked Grebe as well as the usual suspects.

Rivington Pike and Winter Hill from Pennington Flash
Parking at the first car park and using OS Memory Map and the SatNav on my PDA phone, I traced my way along the public footpaths towards Sorrowcow Farm on the south shore of the Flash.  I'd decided to leave the spotting scope at home as I was carrying my large zoom lens and binoculars as well as the PDA phone and that was enough!

A juvenile Great Crested Grebe still showing its stripes
I first came across and the usual suspects for Pennington Flash: some Coots, a single juvenile Great Crested Grebe and some male and female Tufted Ducks.


A female Tufted Duck -  a common sight at the Flash
After a bit of searching with binoculars I found two female Goldeneye a little further out in the Flash.  At first I thought they were Tufted Duck but closer inspection revealed their true identity.

Two female Goldeneye
Just having a stretch

Ruddy Ducks are a bit of a problem for me as the birding world is divided over them  Apparently they are not a native species and were introduced from America in he 1930's to enhance captive wildfowl collections.  However, they now breed here and hybridise with the White-headed Duck and for that reason there has been a cull on them.  But not everyone agrees that there should be a cull and so reports of sightings are usually kept to a minimum.  This little fellow will be well-gone by now as I didn't include this picture until several weeks after I spotted it - and what is a native species anyway?  Let's hope they don't start on people.

Female or Juvenile Ruddy Duck?
I also got a good view of a Grey Heron which flew over me and circled round for a while.  I've been quite lucky with getting pictures of Herons recently as I'm managing to get a little closer with every shot.

Heron banking to the right
Grey Heron through the trees

But perhaps the highlight here was a group of four or five Cormorants which were gradually moving towards me with just their heads and necks visible, like a fleet of partially submerged submarines showing only their periscopes.

Cormorants pretending to be U boats

Occasionally they would DIVE-DIVE-DIVE and then reappear in a new position a little later. And then one by one they took to the air in a series of great splashes as they paddled with their feet to take off - a great sight.  I took some photos of all these birds but they were all a little far out to be of any real quality.

A cormorant taking off

Just as I was moving off I noticed a group of three darkish birds landing in the middle of the Flash.  I fired off a few frames on my camera in the hope of catching them, but it was set to Aperture Priority mode from my previous shots rather than Shutter Priority mode which is necessary to freeze the movement of moving objects - so unfortunately the shots are all a little blurred. Later on I found out what species they were from a fellow birder.

Three Common Scoter coming to land

Moving a little further down the shore towards Leigh Sailing Club and Green Lane, I met Rob Thorpe and later David Broome, who I'd not me before.  Rob wasn't too well and so we didn't talk much but he did tell me the three blackish birds were Common Scoter and they had only arrived recently - another first for my tick list!  He let me look through his scope where I got a much better view.  I asked Rob about the Black Necked Grebe but he hadn't seen it today over here. After he left I chatted to David for a little while and he told me about a few of the sightings he'd made recently in this area - nice bloke.

Pochard from near East Bay Hide

On my way back to the car I stopped close to East Bay Hide as I spotted something else in the water.  After taking a few pictures and zooming in to them, I decided that they were Pochard in amongst the Tufted Ducks - another positive identification first for me!

Reedmace (No, not Bulrushes!)

It was a nice change to see a different side of Pennington Flash and I'll certainly be back, probably with my bike next time to do a full circuit of the Flash.

There were some other types of bird around too.

Friday 15 October 2010

My Garden Highlights of the Week

This week I had a family party of about eight Long-Tailed Tits on and around the feeders in the Hawthorne tree at the bottom of my garden.  There was also at least one Coal Tit and one Great Tit in amongst them and I suspect there may also have been a Blue Tit or two.  There were certainly lots of birds making lots of noise for a five minute spell and then the phone rang.  When I returned with my camera they had all gone.

The second highlight for me was when I had my first Goldfinch on a feeder in my garden.  It's only this year I've really noticed Goldfinches around this area and I can now recognise their song and flight patterns without much trouble.  In summer this year I've seen them regularly calling from the next door neighbour's TV aerial, eating insects out of a spider's web on another neighbour's shed and a pair briefly paid a visit to the thistles in my front lawn (when I had one - it's now gravel). But mostly they've been flying over my garden without actually stopping off,  so to find one spending some time at my feeders was a highlight.

Sorry, no pictures of any of these as they didn't hang round long enough.

Tuesday 5 October 2010

Moses Gate Country Park, Bolton

Moses Gate Notice Board and Site Map

As it was still sunny when I got home from work tonight, I decided to go out to Moses Gate Country Park in Farnworth because I hadn't been for a while.  When I got there the trees were clearly entering their Autumn phase and many were covered in red and golden leaves.
Sycamore Autumn Colours

There had been some reports of a Gannet there although I was not holding out too much hope for it still being present, especially as some birders seem to think it was not at all well.  I also combined my trip with some geocaching in the nearby Farnworth Park.

Grey Heron posing on fence

On this visit I managed to get really close to a Grey Heron, which just appeared only 15 metres away on the boardwalk in front of me as I walked round one of the rear lodges.  It jumped up onto a fence and hung around for over ten minutes whilst I took several bursts of photos and then crept slowly closer after each batch.  Eventually it flew off and my only disappointment was not managing to get any decent flight photos - but I'm really pleased with some of the others I took.

As close as I've ever been to a Grey Heron

The other highlight of the trip for me was getting fairly close to a solitary Great Crested Grebe, which was happily mingling with all the usual ducks, swans and geese being fed by the visitors.  I'd never seen this before and was amazed by how close it actually came.

Great Crested Grebe on main Crompton Lodge

I did have one problem whilst out and about which was saved from being an absolute catastrophe by my darling wife Sarah - My glasses spontaneously sprung apart and both lenses fell out whilst I was using my binoculars to view the Heron - I always take them off when using my bins.  It seems that both screws which keep the lenses in place had worked loose. Without my specs I'm pretty useless and I certainly wouldn't be safe to drive home - some say I'm not even safe with my glasses on!  So I phoned Sarah and asked if she would drop my spare pair off which she duly did despite being full of a cold - what a dear!

Great Crested Grebe

So what's surprising is that I took most of tonight's photos without my glasses, just relying on the autofocus to do it's job, which it seems have done OK.  Good stuff!

Saturday 2 October 2010

Pennington Flash

I popped out to Penny mid-morning today whilst the rest of the family were out playing badminton in Bolton.  The highlight of the trip was seeing my first Nuthatch close up, but I also enjoyed seeing a group of six Snipe, a Grey Heron which flew right over me and some female Goosander which had returned after breeding.  Here's a summary of today's sightings in the order I visited the hides:

Bunting Hide

Nuthatch at Bunting Hide Feeding Station
  • Nuthatch
  • Chaffinch
  • Greenfinch
  • Bullfinch
  • Robin
  • Magpie
  • Moorhen
  • Mallard
  • Willow Tit
  • Great Tit
  • Blue Tit
Puffed up Blue Tit at Bunting Hide Feeding Station
Teal Hide

Two female Goosander and a male Shoveller at Teal Hide
  • Goosander
  • Shoveller
  • Tufted Duck
  • Lapwing
  • Coot
  • Gadwall
Male Gadwall at Teal Hide

Ramsdale's Hide

Juvenile Black Necked Grebe
  • Juvenile Black Necked Grebe (thanks to Rob Thorpe)
  • Gadwall
  • Coot
  • Moorhen
  • Mallard
  • Mute Swan and juveniles
Juvenile Mute Swan at Ramsdale's Hide
Horrocks Hide

Six Snipe in front of four Canada Geese
  • Common Snipe
  • Teal
  • Cormorant
  • Lapwing
  • Great Crested Grebe
  • Canada Goose
  • Various Gulls
  • Grey Heron
Grey Heron Flying over Horrocks Hide
There was nothing much to see at Pengy's, Lapwing and Tom Edmonson's Hide whilst I was there today. I'm sure there were other birds around, but none that I could identify on my own.