Yeah you couldnt miss it Rob, it was quite loud. I think its a good spot for Grey Wagtails around The Quays.

A Grey Wagail was singing outside No.9 this evening, but Abby and Imran didn't seem to notice it. I've read that Grey Wagtails can live for up to 7 years, so there's a slim chance that this is the returning bird from 2016.

Mary flushed a Grey Wagtail from the back yard of number 7, just after 19:30 tonight. Maybe the same individual that wintered on the cobbles last year (see previous post).

Grey Wagtail heard at around 19:35 tonight.

I'm pretty sure I heard a Skylark calling over the Rovers Return this evening. I think Liz heard it too, she was looking skyward as the scene cut...

This evening Marcus couldn't wait to get his garden list up and running at his and Maria's new place, where a Great Tit was calling loudly. A belting record for Weatherfield. Sadly subsequent events mean that Marcus will be adding no more species to that particular garden list...

What else can you do on a dark january evening but look to get your weatherfield year list up and running? That adopted Windass kid mooches off to meet her real dad and as a bonus gets a few weatherfield rarities thrown in. In the little known oasis of habitat where they met, early signs of spring were singing Blue Tit, Wren and Chaffinch. Was that a Buzzard calling too? Really should pay more attention. It would have been the first Buzzard record for Weatherfield since Emily Bishop saw one on passage during her tree top protest. Rarity descriptions from itv-player will be accepted

Just wandered through the west wing and caught a glimpse of fridays corrie,a classic outdoor event,
House martin ,and House sparrow,a hint of Song thrush yet to be confirmed.
Outside location in Hale Barns/Clay lane

cheers geoff

Great news,my mates updated methe archers peregrines are once again nesting in the church tower and are currently sitting on two eggs,some speculation that gulls (sp unknown) have 'removed' the others.

cheers geoff

JamieDunning wrote:

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Should admit I have an Archers heard list.
the millennium woods is pretty good for Chiffchaff. ;)

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Err a mate of mine texted me and claimed to have heard a chiifchaff this afternoon,very timely and not that i,m following this can anyone update us on the peregrine status,cos my mateis trying to work and listen at the same time.

cheers geoff

very vocal House Sparrows (plural ) tonight at Audrey's Oakhill residence and Bessie Street Primary School.
Also, whilst watching tonights episode, when Peter Barlow said "I threw it in the Irwell", I was asked "what's an Irwell?"

-- Edited by Rob Thorpe on Thursday 15th of March 2012 10:06:54 PM

First time I had seen a Corrie episode for about five years (was at my dad's) I tried craning my neck to see where they were lest a mega sighting should pop up, but neither a mega popped up nor could I discern which piece of lush (probably private farmland!) ground they were on!

Audrey and Gail got Greenfinch and singing Chaffinch while exploring their new patch this evening. Probably would have got more species if they'd spent more time listening and less time chatting!

-- Edited by Rob Thorpe on Friday 17th of February 2012 09:45:04 PM

Eileen staked-out her fireman friend Paul's front doorstep, in the dark yesterday, where the unusual night-time calling of a Great Tit could be heard.
Hopefully she'll send a note to British Birds on 'Nocturnal behaviour of Parus species in a ficticious northern town'

Re Dave's post dated 2/1/12.....I'm not quite sure if such a specialised bird watching organisation existed in the "good old days" in Weatherfield, when men were men and women were women but who still managed to find the time to keep their men folk firmly in their hen-pecked place. No, the idea of strong women in those days meant something entirely different! Yet again returning to the aforementioned Ena Sharples, who ploughed a lone furrow for female birders long before the days of Women's Lib had dawned. As well as her position on the Weatherfield Rarities Committee, it's a little known fact that she was the first approved bird ringer on the street. With her trademark hair net often put to a secondary good use as a mist net, when it was stretched across a Weatherfield ginnel, allowing the capture and ringing of a sample of the local bird population. There is even a story of Ena seen sat in the Snug bar at the Rovers Return, nattering away over a milk stout to Minnie Caldwell and Martha Longhurst, with an apparently overlooked Greenfinch still trapped and flapping about in Ena's by now head-bound hair net. Rumour was that Minnie and Martha were too frightened to mention it, for fear of being on the receiving end of Ena's legendary sharp tongue. Not sure if there is any truth in this tale, as it seems possible that this was just another one of those made-up stories put about just to try and discredit ringers. Anyway, in those good years Ena ringed hundreds of House Sparrows and Starlings. Sadly, species numbers for both are now much lower on The Street and the three, possibly four figure Starling roost that used to take place in the churchyard is very much a thing of the past, numbers that modern day visiting birdwatchers groups, of whatever orientation, could now only dream of.

Pied Wagtail heard overflying the cabin, 7mins in to tonights first episode, just as Kevin Webster interrupted Sophie's VisMig-ing.
House Sparrow also heard.

The first ever meeting of the Weatherfield Lesbian Birdwatchers Society took place over Christmas, with a field trip to the churchyard. Over the obligatory shrieking and wailing, singing Song Thrush was a good December record, as were Jackdaws - a surprisingly scarce corvid on Coronation Street's chimney pots.

Mystery Bird - if anybody is short of something to do, go to December 23rd on ITV Player. At around 16 minutes of Coronation Street there's a singing bird in Weatherfield's little-visited conifer plantations.......................

Enough of these modern day records and current scandals! A quick look into the murky past will show that there have always been some unsavoury birding practices going on in the Street. I've recently spent a bit of time re-appraising an old record of a reported Veery (Catharus fuscescens) sighting on the Street and the rumours of a remarkably long staying bird that first appeared in the mid 1970's and incredibly was then seen off and on around Weatherfield for the best part of four decades. I think this record, when it was first reported, was put to the highly-regarded Weatherfield Rarities Committee of that time - Ken Barlow, Albert Tatlock and Ena Sharples. The latter of whom Elsie Tanner maliciously and sarcastically gossiped was an ideal Rarities Committee member, as she knew absolutely nothing about birds whatsoever but being the street busybody just had to stick her nose into everything. I understand that the record was firmly rejected on the grounds that the written evidence produced then was at best considered unreliable and indeed Ena's cutting verdict was that the description provided was more worthy of a soap-opera script and doubt too was expressed as to the believability of the alleged sighting location.... supposedly seen at that most unlikely of sites....near a pigeon loft in a grimy Weatherfield back yard. All this meant that this rarities submission was categorised as not proven and it has therefore remained gathering dust in the Weatherfield Rarities Committee archives ever since.

We all know how it is with the birding grapevine and Chinese whispers and how information can often get distorted as it gets passed down the line. My own not so lengthy case review and opinion of this old submission is that the original verdict was indeed the correct one. What seems most likely is that this rarity sighting was submitted as a second-hand record based on an overheard conversation, when it was thought that someone misheard another supposedly mentioning our Veery, when what they were actually referring to was our Vera.

Rob Thorpe wrote:

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reports of a heron on the street.

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This has led to one of the biggest ever birding scandals on Coronation Street.

Owen dug out a bird scrape in his back yard, presumably having received grant monies for habitat creation and some assistance from the Lancashire Wildlife Trust. However he then claimed it be merely a 'fish pond' and installed a plastic heron. Rumours began to circulate of a Grey Heron, the first record on Coronation Street since Ken Barlow was a lad. Accusations that this had been supressed from Weatherfield's birding fraternity led to anger among the leading listers. David Platt and his scrote of a wife nicked Owen's plastic heron, partly in protest and partly in the hope that the genuine Grey Heron may reappear.

Time will tell whether anybody admits to having seen the Heron. A farcical situation and the poor fish have ended up in David's bath, but I suppose they belong on the 'Other Wildlife' section of the forum......

On a walk around the duck-pond this evening:

Greylag Goose
Canada Goose
Muscovy Duck
Pigeon

reports of a heron on the street.

Blackbird on the street this evening - alarm call heard at 19:37.


-- Edited by Rob Thorpe on Friday 25th of November 2011 07:42:27 PM

Should admit I have an Archers heard list.
the millennium woods is pretty good for Chiffchaff. ;)

With the final year of the breeding atlas taking observers elsewhere, there seems to have been little coverage down Coronation Street this year. David Platt's missus (Carly?) visited her son, even though he barely acknowledged her it wasn't a wasted trip, with Blackbird, House Sparrow and Blue Tit all heard in the garden. If the kid wants a decent garden list he'd be better off staying in foster care........

-- Edited by dave broome on Friday 2nd of September 2011 08:12:37 PM

Don't you just hate when you're down Coronation Street checking out the churchyard for late autumn migrants and you can't hear 'owt for folk coo-ing over a baby? With Starling becoming a red-listed species and the huge roosts around Piccadilly Gardens a thing of the past, one calling at the Christening of Molly and Tyrone/Kevin's nipper this evening was a welcome sound on a dark Thursday evening

Following Mr Broomes advise that weddings and funerals are always good for a 'biggy'
Roy and Hayleys wedding proved to be a classic with a cuckoo calling in between the steam whistles .Site tick for me

cheers geoff

What was singing in Gail Platts back garden tonight? Was that a Black redstart?

dave broome wrote:

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Robins were singing at two Weatherfield locations last night - in the garden of John Stape's colleague

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There was also a tawny owl calling in the woods when they were burning the dead guy's stuff

dave broome wrote:

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Next somebody will be dismissing them as dubbed sounds.

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Not me Dave! Yours and Mike Chorleys explanation about the seasonal delay syndrome etc etc have really made me appreciate the fact that maybe, just maybe, Corrie and its surrounding environs could just be waiting to throw up that big one. Its just a shame that the camera man is so focussed on filming the day to day goings on in this docu/soap type programme that he misses some good birding action. I suspect you are correct that it will only be records of calls and songs submitted - mind you the song of a Red Breasted Flycathcer for example is pretty distinctive.



(Did I actually just waste time typing that???? )

Robins were singing at two Weatherfield locations last night - in the garden of John Stape's colleague (if they cared to shut up arguing they might have heard it, no wonder there are so few records from around Coronation Street in the annual Greater Manchester Bird Report), also at Audrey's, where there was a healthy flock of House Sparrows too. Funny how so many of these are 'heard only' records. Next somebody will be dismissing them as dubbed sounds.

A mate of mine tells me he sometimes catches the long running Archers on radio 4,heard only list,swallow,reed bunting,house martin,

it,s an affliction not a hobbyGeoff

The frustration at not being able to take part in any bird races or the monthly May-hem GM listing last month became too much to bear for convicted murderer Tony Gordon. He finally cracked and escaped from prison yesterday, the final day of the month (though surely he's had Peregrine from his window in Strangeways?).
He should have read the May-hem rules more closely. He couldn't count his eco-race total on 2 counts of blatantly using motorised transport: firstly the ambulance which carried him out of the nick, followed by his get-away motorbike ridden by his mate from the Vicar of Dibley.
Despite being too late for his May list, House Sparrow and the first HOUSE MARTINS of the year were good records tonight. Nice one Tony, well worth absconding for. You'll have plenty of time to submit your records when back inside. Either that or going back in to panto....

A funeral or wedding in Weatherfield is always worth staking out. Blanche's funeral didn't disappoint tonight. When the mourners cared to shut up for a moment (never has there been a noisier funeral), in the background there was Great Tit, Willow Warbler, Song Thrush and best of all a ROOK. The call of the latter delivered right near the end, as sharp as one of the late Maggie Jones' (aka Blanche) one-liners.

For anybody who cares to twitch these, Coronation Street returns in half an hour...

Nurse, time for my medication....




-- Edited by dave broome on Monday 10th of May 2010 08:35:20 PM

Craig, this must have been an example of the phenonemon described by Mike Chorley last autumn:

Mike Chorley wrote:

"Wetherfield is an area which experiences SDS - Seasonal Delay Syndrome. It's an uncommon climatic phenomenon, rather like temperarure inversion, but of longer duration though more limited in extent.

As a result of this process, seasonal effects are delayed by up to three months, causing asynchronous climatic events, such as antipodean style Christmases and over-extended breeding seasons. Though limited to a very small area of Manchester SDS is not unique to this area, also ocurring in, I believe, areas of Chester, rural Yorkshire and the East End of London

-- Edited by dave broome on Monday 3rd of May 2010 10:05:48 AM

dave broome wrote:

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A potentially awesome Weatherfield record this evening - a calling CUCKOO. Cynics might say that this was a deliberately dubbed sound, placed to coincide with the descent into madness of Norris's female bunny-boiler friend. I however maintain that it was in fact a genuine migrant....

Nonetheless, Norris fell in to the same trap that Tyrone did, of stretching his Wetherfield year-list on to the moors. He's fooling nobody, there's no way he can count it. He should have consulted his OS map and stayed within Weatherfield's true boundary.

I would also like to point out that I was merely in the room at the time of this broadcast and paying no more than a cursory glance...




-- Edited by dave broome on Sunday 2nd of May 2010 10:07:10 PM

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I had just come back to settle down to prepare for some more interesting viewing when I too heard the said Cuckoo. The thing that struck me was the obvious late arrival of spring in this area. I've never personally seen or heard a cuckoo whilst the country is still under snow!!! Its grim up north.

A potentially awesome Weatherfield record this evening - a calling CUCKOO. Cynics might say that this was a deliberately dubbed sound, placed to coincide with the descent into madness of Norris's female bunny-boiler friend. I however maintain that it was in fact a genuine migrant....

Nonetheless, Norris fell in to the same trap that Tyrone did, of stretching his Wetherfield year-list on to the moors. He's fooling nobody, there's no way he can count it. He should have consulted his OS map and stayed within Weatherfield's true boundary.

I would also like to point out that I was merely in the room at the time of this broadcast and paying no more than a cursory glance...




-- Edited by dave broome on Sunday 2nd of May 2010 10:07:10 PM

As much as they tried to blame it all on the unfinished brake repair, the crash was clearly down to Tyrone watching the Oystercatcher whilst drivingAs you say, it may have been in vain, as the moorland habitat puts severe doubt as to whether it can be counted on his Weatherfield year listA pity as there were also singing Skylarks audible at one point....

Catching up on last week's Corrie, oystercatcher calling in the field where Tyrone totalled the car. Not sure whether they were still in GM tho

OOOHHH does anyone know if they fancy drowning anyone at Portland Basin again? That's a TAMESIDE tick, then there's the weddings at either Ryecroft Hall, Audenshaw or Dukinfield town hall, both TAMESIDE. Photographic proof- what more do you want
Mind you, I'd be gobsmacked if they found any decent birdlife at Portland Basin at the moment

Cos it,s a bit strange this thread,it,s still going on the the list ,I was in GM when I heard it,so it was either very close or very loudand there,s a rumor going round that the scene was shot at sale water park(very much in gm).

int listings geoff

where is cumbria

Geoff, sorry to break this to you, but the Tawny was in Cumbria. Can I remind you that any bird news from outside Greater Manchester should be posted in the Out-of-County Birds and Birding forum...

-- Edited by Rob Thorpe on Saturday 13th of February 2010 02:17:57 PM

I,ve just added tawny to my list (heard only) i,m not sure where gail and david where but it,s a tick for me

ont cobbles geoff

A singing Willow Warbler tonight was a staggering find by Gail, in the Lake District. She rang her son David, who twitched it. Gail's husband Joe was so amazed that he fell off his boat and drowned in the lake! However, somebody needs to remind them that they can only count species actually seen within the Weatherfield boundary on their year-list. Such a pity, as the calling Siskins would have been most welcome......

-- Edited by dave broome on Thursday 11th of February 2010 08:59:09 PM

-- Edited by dave broome on Thursday 11th of February 2010 09:00:29 PM

I'm hopeless at bird calls, but if anyone catches the omnibus today, when Leanne and Peter arrive at Simon's grandad's house there are loads of birds singing.

Rob Thorpe wrote:

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Dean Macdonald wrote:

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What about Roy Cropper still noting pipistrel bats in november after being nearly drowned? Respect

Not that i watch it or anything

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Dean, I'm sure Mr Winnard would prefer you to post this on the Manchester Wildlife forum. However, since you have mentioned it, did anyone else see these "bats"? Possibly the poorest CGI I have ever seen! And since when did pipistrelle make a sound like that?!

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Didnt hear it myself Rob, but if it sounded like a series of wet slaps at c45khz then it could well have been. I once suggested on here that perhaps recordings were used to supplement the natural ambience of wetherfield but Dave reckoned i was miles off the mark. So if it wasnt a 'pip' sound perhaps they have leislers or something??

Anyway - it seems to have been quiet down there recently - no one been to teh rec or cemetry lately?

..you've got to be mightily impressed with Roy's hearing, though

Dean Macdonald wrote:

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What about Roy Cropper still noting pipistrel bats in november after being nearly drowned? Respect

Not that i watch it or anything

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Dean, I'm sure Mr Winnard would prefer you to post this on the Manchester Wildlife forum. However, since you have mentioned it, did anyone else see these "bats"? Possibly the poorest CGI I have ever seen! And since when did pipistrelle make a sound like that?!

What about Roy Cropper still noting pipistrel bats in november after being nearly drowned? Respect

Not that i watch it or anything

dave broome wrote:

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Tawny Owl calling in the Weatherfield cemetery this evening

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Was just about to post that, you beat me to it!
What's your Wetherfield list on now? And why hasn't Mr McKerchar added it to the County Site Lists page yet?

Tawny Owl calling in the Weatherfield cemetery this evening

I presume the Blackbird was set off by those cats from the opening titles on the prowl.

Kevin and his bit on the side checked out some playing fields tonight, where there was a flock of Black-Headed Gulls. Oddly enough the only gulls I could hear were Herrings/Lesser Black-Backed. I'm not sure whether they were passing overhead or whether somebody should send a behavioural note to British Birds journal on "mimicry in gull species"

Advice to Kevin - if you want to scan a gull flock to try to read metal rings don't flush them with your bright orange pick-up truck

-- Edited by dave broome on Monday 26th of October 2009 09:34:58 PM