Short-eared Owl at Chorlton Ees

I spent an enjoyable morning on my first ever visit to Chorlton Ees today. An ees is a water meadow or a place liable to flood and this area is so-named because it is part of the River Mersey's floodplain. Following a tip off by Steve Scrimgeour that a Short-eared Owl was in the area, I got some excellent instructions from Gary Edwards via Facebook and found the location much easier to get to than I had previously thought.

After I had parked up around 11am, I soon met Tony Darby on the cobbled road which runs along one side of the rough cow field in which the bird had been seen, and he pointed the areas in which he'd seen it this morning as well as giving me an idea of the layout of the area.  There was a dead tree in the middle of the field and the bird had often been seen in and around it.

After spending a while looking and seeing it only once in the distance when it was chased by two Crows over the tree tops at the back of the field, I decided to move my car and look along a different side of the field. Here I met Tom Dolan and we had a good chat about things until the Owl eventually reappeared only to be chased by Crows high across the field and out of view in the other direction. We also saw a couple of Jays which seemed to be burying nuts in the field and a Common Buzzard also flew over us.

I had a few more views after being joined by Chris Nield and Bill French when the Short-eared Owl was being mobbed by Magpies and whilst I was there spent much of the time just trying to avoid them. At one point it seemed to go down on the ground underneath the tree to do this.

It was also nice to meet everyone (and a few others whose names I did  not get) and this made it another enjoyable experience.  As for the photos, well I'm afraid poor light = high ISO = grainy shots, but hey, what can you do?

Here's link to the Mersey Valley site guide on the Manchester Birding website which includes a basic map of Chorlton Ees : Mersey Valley Site Description

And here's one to the sightings page on the forum: Chorlton Ees sightings

Lunt Meadows Nature Reserve

Lunt Meadows is rapidly becoming THE place to go to see a wide variety of birds.  It's not just the regular Short-eared Owls and Barn Owls - Marsh Harrier and Kingfishers are seen fairly regularly with Hen Harrier and Great White Egret seen occasionally as well as a whole host of more common birds. But today it was the Owls that were calling me.

 

Rindle Road

Here's the only half-decent shots of a Kestrel I got whilst out on a quick trip down Rindle Road in Astley on a very grey and dismal day today. Sorry about the grainy photos but there was very little light.

I saw:

• 2 Kestrels
• 2 Buzzards, one being mobbed by about eight Carrion Crows
• 2 Jays
• Both Song and Mistle Thrushes
• Blackbird, Robin and BlueTit
• A few Goldfinches
• Good numbers of Starlings congregating on the telephone wires.
• Small numbers of Redwings and Fieldfares overhead.
• Hundreds of Woodpigeons
• Large numbers of Jackdaws and a few Carrion Crows
• Loads of Pheasants

Nuthatch at Bunting Hide, Pennington Flash

A trip to Pennington Flash today produced very few decent photographs today, or so I thought. However, when I finally got round to processing them I was quite pleased to come across this one of a Nuthatch, one of very few that were in focus as the bird doesn't stay still for long:

Ainsdale Beach in October

Ainsdale Beach is one of my favourite places to see wader flocks especially on high tides, and since having my camera serviced and repaired I've been desperate to go there. However, car trouble has prevented me from going very far from home until today, when I decided to risk it.  I was trying to get there about an hour before high tide because this is when the birds are gradually pushed in to the shore, but as it turned out I only managed to get there as the tide peaked.

When I arrived I was very disappointed to discover that the gates to the beach were locked, when every other time I've been in the winter months (October to April) it had been possible to drive on to the beach and park for free.  It wasn't too much of a problem today though, as with fewer people about I could park quite close to the gates.

My main target bird was the Grey Plover as seen here and I managed to get these shots almost as soon as I had arrived. Little did I know that bar some Sanderlings and a few gulls, these would be all the photos I'd get today thanks to a couple of thoughtless dog walkers.

The dog walkers to whom I referred earlier were walking down the edge of the sea putting up large flocks of roosting birds one at a time. They didn't just do it once, but continued walking until four large groups had taken flight before they simply turned round and walked back.  There was absolutely no point in doing this and they could have walked a little further up the beach without disturbing any of the birds.

For the most part they were completely oblivious of me walking a hundred metres behind with a camera and a tripod, but at one point they did turn round and look at me before continuing doing the same thing along the shoreline. I have no problem with dog walkers on a beach as it must be very pleasurable for them, but I do have a problem with those people who disturb the wildlife just because it's there. Thoughtless, mindless, antisocial behaviour by those old enough to know better. Rant over ..... !

Here's the best of the rest ....

Little Woolden Moss

Even though my main camera and lens is currently at Fixation in London being serviced, I had to get out today to take some photographs.  Apologies for the quality of these images.

Ruff, Wood Sandpiper and juvenile Little Ringed Plover at Little Woolden Moss

I had a good morning and early afternoon out on Little Woolden Moss today, mainly in search of the Wood Sandpiper which had eluded me on my previous visit to Croxdens Pools a mile or so away.  I started walking from Moss Lane at the Culcheth end of the moss and soon decided that this was a mistake, especially as I picked the longer of the two possible routes (the footpath which partly follows the Timberland Trail along the River Glaze) onto the moss. Some of the footpaths as marked on my OS map have been moved slightly due to the peat works and in parts the route through the trees is unclear.  On my walk to the hide I saw a Buzzard, a Kestrel in the trees and many Mallards and Canada Geese on the banks of the Glaze which took to the air 'en masse' as I approached.  There were also plenty of pigeons and doves about.

Wood Sandpiper - a lifer!

I eventually made it to the hide and immediately saw a stunning female Wheatear - so, a great start, but the only trouble was that there was absolutely nothing else here. So I left the hide and walked along the gravel footpath and soon came across David Steel and a couple of other birders, one of whom I had met only recently looking for the Wood Sandpiper at Croxdens. It seems that bird had now flown here and was quite settled having been here for over a week.

Wood Sandpiper

David soon put me on to the Wood Sandpiper and a juvenile Little Ringed Plover. There were also three rather smart looking Ruff. several juvenile Pied Wagtails,  a Meadow Pipit and several immature Herring and Lesser Black-backed Gulls. A little later a Sparrowhawk flew quickly past us, flushing some of the Gulls and apparently being chased by two Pied Wagtails.

Ruff

After David left to continue on his walk, a juvenile Peregrine Falcon landed on the peat behind the Gulls. It spent sometime looking round it before eventually taking off, flushing all the birds on the pool and flying past me and back round in a circle. Then something surprising happened.

Juvenile Peregrine Falcon bathing

I thought it had flown off but to my amazement I found it a few minutes later bathing at the edge of the main pool - this is something I've never seen a Peregrine do before.  I tried my best to get some record shots of it bathing, but when I tried to do some video I was so bothered by a couple of horseflies that kept landing on my camera that I couldn't concentrate on doing it before the Peregrine flew off.

Juvenile Peregrine Falcon bathing

Shortly after the Peregrine flew off I was joined by a couple from Stockport who'd I'd first met looking at the recent Sabine's Gull at Pennington Flash.  We had a good natter about all sorts of things before noticing that the sky had very quickly turned dark black and a thunderstorm was imminent. I told them about the hide a little further up the path and we beat a hasty retreat to it before the heavens opened. And 'open' they did - wind, heavy rain, thunder, lightning and hailstones.  The hide might not be in particularly good condition or in a good position, but at least it's dry inside!

Juvenile Peregrine Falcon bathing

After around 15 minutes in the hide, waiting for the rain to stop and seeing nothing but one Pied Wagtail, we ventured outside again.  It was still drizzling a bit, but we kept walking to have another look at the Wood Sandpiper and Ruff which by now had both come their closest to the path. We took some photos and said our farewells - I took the path around the peat to go back to my car the way I should have come in the first place.

Juvenile Peregrine Falcon bathing

I met David Steel again on the way back while he was scoping a juvenile Peregrine on a kill which he kindly pointed out to me. As it stripped the feathers and began to eat, David thought that it might have been a Wheatear that had met it's unfortunate end. The Peregrine was probably the one I had seen earlier and as it didn't seem to have any tags on it, it probably wasn't one of our local Leigh birds as I first thought it might be.

Juvenile Peregrine Falcon

I left David as he was walking across the peat to pick some of the feathers from the kill after the Peregrine had flown -  he wanted to know what it had been eating. The route back to the car was much better although I did cop for another heavy downpour with nowhere to hide except a feeble little birch tree which was of no use.  Although drenched, I was still very happy to have connected with another lifer, the Wood Sandpiper and I had a very pleasant trip out with some nice people.

Assorted Gulls

The Yorkshire Dales around Giggleswick, Settle and Malham

I spent a week at Giggleswick in the Yorkshire Dales with my wife Sarah and her twin sister Susan and husband Bill in August this year.  We had a great time scrambling to the top of Malham Cove, walking along the River Lune at Kirby Lonsdale, having lunch at Aysgarth Falls and visiting the Wensleydale Cheese Shop in Hawes.

Our rented barn cottage conversion overlooked fields with sheep and swallows and a family of swallows were nesting in the porch on one of the buildings.  I knew I wouldn't really be able to do too much birding during the week but on the last day I did manage to get a bit of time for some photographs at two locations the way home.

The first stop was on the River Ribble on the outskirts of Settle.  I'd noticed a weir here on the day we drove to the cottage when I immediately thought 'Dipper'. A little later in the week I came down on my own one morning and was pleasantly surprised to see one almost immediately.  However, getting a decent photo of it was another matter due to it not showing for long and bad light.

So I stalked the bird for a few days, sometimes not seeing it at all,  and the locals often watched me but never asked what on earth I was up to!

So on the final day of the holiday everything seemed to come together - the light, the bird and my wife agreeing to stop for a while - she even got the binoculars out and enjoyed looking at it herself.

We decided to take the scenic road home from Settle, back over the tops past Malham Cove, especially as on our previous walking trip here I'd noticed that there were a few Wheatear about. At first I thought they'd all left because there were none where I had previously seen them earlier in the week, but I needn't have worried because a couple soon appeared a little further along the road.

 

 

 

 

Note to Self

Time to kick this thing off again and finish the backlog of posts and photos from 2015.  I'll begin by changing the background colour to the blog (well it's a start).  Next I'll make a list of the important posts I've got to write.  Here it is:

• August - Sabine's Gull at Pennington Flash, Ring-billed Gull, Yellow-legged Gull and Terns at Preston Marina, Grey Wagtail at Settle and Malham. 
• July - Montagu's Harrier at Blacktoft Sands.
• May - Puffins Gannets, Kittiwakes and Fulmars at Bempton Cliffs
• April - Iceland Gull, Hooded Crow and Black Guillemots in Oban, Scotland
• June - Little Tern at Gronant, Arctic and Sandwich Terns at Cemlyn Bay

Also Great Grey Shrike at Lytham Moss, Red-Throated Diver at Fairhaven Lake, Kingfishers at Pennington Flash, Ring-necked Parakeets at Chorlton Water Park.

I may start the list from top to bottom in reverse chronological order.