Slight increase in the gulls on on field of the old Radclyffe School at 1030 this morning,

373 Black-headed Gull
56 Common Gull
5 Herring Gull
3 Lssr Black Back

Still hoping for a Ring-billed or a White-winged Gull

248 Black-headed Gull
22 Common Gull
2 Herring Gull
3 Lssr Black Back

on field of old Radclyffe School at 0930 this morning

Quite surprised today to see a Shellduck fly down and land on the Rochdale canal right outside our office on Broadgate, Chadderton. Just happened to be looking out the window at the right time.

71 Black-headed Gull
10 Common Gull
1 Herring Gull
1 Lssr Black Back

on field of old Radclyffe School at 0830 this morning

Bill Myerscough wrote:

---

Goosander is certainly an excellent local record. Again Wince Brook is one of those under-watched areas but holds some decent birds at certain times of the year. In this latest cold snap it has held good numbers of Teal and also several Snipe forced away from their usual haunts.

---

I used to spend a lot of my time in the summer holidays in that area - epescially when there was the 'Brookside' 9-hole pitch and put course. I certainly remember there being Meadow Pipit and Yellowhammer around - and even Sand Martins

Bill Myerscough wrote:

---

Uploading you records sounds like a great idea. At the moment in GM we are three-quarters of the way through collecting sightings records for our very own local breeding birds atlas project. So if you are up in the summmer months and see any evidence of breeding birds in GM whilst out and about and are able to submit your records via Birdtrack or via The BTO Atlas website then I'm sure they will be very gratefully received!

---

Looking back at my records for 2010, it appears that I didn't actually visit my mum that much. :( I have uploaded all my records as far as April. On my visits in May and September, it appears that we went for a walk at Dovestones instead.

chazzyf wrote:

---

Visited Chaddy Park with my sister (who often goes for a run there) on Dec 24th.

It was rather icy and the canal was well frozen up. Nevertheless there seemed to be lots of Canada Geese in the surrounding fields - which took flight, circled round and returned to their orignal locations - presumably having been disturbed by a do or something.

Otherwise we saw
- 2 Pied Wagtail on the canal
- 1 Redwing in the hedgerows
- 1 Mistle thrush
- plenty of tits and Robins

had been hoping to see some fieldfare, but didn't see any in Middleton/Chadderton/Rochdale during my various birding trips.

also on Dec 23rd there was a (male) Goosander on Wince Brook which is on the edge of your tetrad, Bill - I must find some time this weekend to upload my sisghtings to Birdtrack.

---

Hi Charles,

Goosander is certainly an excellent local record. Again Wince Brook is one of those under-watched areas but holds some decent birds at certain times of the year. In this latest cold snap it has held good numbers of Teal and also several Snipe forced away from their usual haunts.

Uploading you records sounds like a great idea. At the moment in GM we are three-quarters of the way through collecting sightings records for our very own local breeding birds atlas project. So if you are up in the summmer months and see any evidence of breeding birds in GM whilst out and about and are able to submit your records via Birdtrack or via The BTO Atlas website then I'm sure they will be very gratefully received!

Best wishes,

Bill.

Visited Chaddy Park with my sister (who often goes for a run there) on Dec 24th.

It was rather icy and the canal was well frozen up. Nevertheless there seemed to be lots of Canada Geese in the surrounding fields - which took flight, circled round and returned to their orignal locations - presumably having been disturbed by a do or something.

Otherwise we saw
- 2 Pied Wagtail on the canal
- 1 Redwing in the hedgerows
- 1 Mistle thrush
- plenty of tits and Robins

had been hoping to see some fieldfare, but didn't see any in Middleton/Chadderton/Rochdale during my various birding trips.

also on Dec 23rd there was a (male) Goosander on Wince Brook which is on the edge of your tetrad, Bill - I must find some time this weekend to upload my sisghtings to Birdtrack.

Collared Doves are nesting in my (Mossley) garden as well

Magpies have been nest-building for the past 3 weeks - though the structure never seems to get much bigger!

Steve

Chadderton - 4th January.

A pair of Collared Doves was nest building amongst a stand of traffic lights that was situated on a pedestrian refuge halfway across a very busy road intersection! At one time a bird appeared to be sitting, although it may just have been "moulding" the nest into shape. They've obviously not been spending a great deal of their spare time watching Kirstie and Phil and "Location, Location, Location!"

Also Mistle Thrush singing this morning.

Cheers,

Bill.

Today (19th) - a walk this morning southwards along the Rochdale Canal from Chadderton Park to just short of Failsworth and back. The canal mostly totally frozen over except some areas below locks kept ice-free by moving water being sluiced around the locks. One such area held a small number a common wildfowl (26 Canada Goose, 17 Mallard and 3 Moorhen) amongst which a surprise find was a single Pink-footed Goose! Plus c150 Pink-feet flew NW over Moston/Failsworth at 10.40 am. Also a flock of c10 Bullfinch together. Was surprised on my walk to find seven fishermen fishing in the style of Eskimos through man-made holes in the middle of the iced over canal! When I asked one of the fishermen how they made the holes he said that they just walked across the ice to the middle of the canal and hacked open a hole before returning to the bank to start fishing!

On 6th December - a short local (Chadderton) walk found a single Snipe (also in exactly the same spot on 19th) on one of the small local brooks, with a single Lapwing on a field nearby. A flock of c50 Jackdaws were near Chadderton sewage works. Also 3 Bullfinch (2 males) and 2 Jays.

On 7th December - another walk in a different part of Chadderton and on another of the slightly larger local brooks there were c30 Teal on a very short stretch of water and also 2 Snipe. Also here 1 Grey Heron and 2 Grey Wagtails - one of which gave very brief bursts of song! A Coot was also on the brook - the first time I have ever seen this species there. Feral Pigeons were sitting on nests (as they do almost all year round) underneath a box girder bridge.

Cheers,


Bill.

29th November.

A Kingfisher along the River Irk in Chadderton this morning, plus 2 Grey Wagtails. Also in and around Chadderton Hall Park - 7 Mistle Thrush, 6 Goldfinch and c5 Siskin.

Went specifically to look for Dipper in the location where I had found one of 12/5/10 but with no luck. Whilst in this area watching, without binoculars, a Magpie appeared to be chasing a wader a short distance downstream along the Irk - possibly Snipe or Woodcock but it was all over far too fast to ID with any certainty.

Cheers,

Bill.

26th November.

3 Dunnocks have spent much of the day displaying in and around my Chadderton garden. Obviously the cold weather doesn't seem to have dampened their ardour!

The local pair of resident Magpies have in the last 10 days or so started lightly messing about with nest building. They have been seen attempting to snap off twigs and have also been seen to remove a twig from the nest which they used in the summer of 2009 and carry it away to a new unknown nest site. The other day another pair of Magpies looked like they were trying to muscle in on the territory but after a brief skirmish - one pair won - although it was impossible to tell if the remaining pair were the original resident pair or the interlopers.

Cheers,

Bill.

10th November.

Arrived back home in Chadderton late this morning after a wander around the Brushes Clough Reservoir and Crompton Moor area to be handed a carrier bag by one of my next door neighbours, which unfortunately contained a freshly dead bird. Amazingly and sadly the bird turned out to be a Woodcock. The neighbour said that the bird was just still alive when he discovered it but died shortly afterwards and from where he had discovered it, he thought it had flown into the wall of my other next door neighbour's house.

It was very upsetting to handle such a magnificent bird but in some ways I felt privileged and fortunate to be able to look at the bird in detail, whilst it was held in the hand. Remarkably beautiful, subtle and cryptic plumage and an extraordinary bill, at the base of which could be seen small internal serrations or "teeth". The bill length was 7cm. The bird weighed 302g. Well what else are kitchen scales supposed to be used for! I had a peruse of the BTO website to see if from the weight I could judge if this might be a male or female bird but apparently the average weight of a male is 291.1g ± 59.81 with a range from 169.5 to 359.5g. The website stated there was insufficient data of the weight for female Woodcocks. I understand that this species is sexually dimorphic, with the males much larger than the females. So I'm still none the wiser but at least I learnt a bit about the species! The one other really noticeable feature was the very large, dark brown bulbous eyes set at the side of the head. The plumage of the bird seemed to be in good condition and from handling the bird it did appear that it might have died from a building or window strike, as the neck appeared to be broken.

Many thanks to Simon Hitchen for the gentle reminder to check that it wasn't an American Woodcock! I have to own up that I didn't even know there was one!! A look through my Smithsonian field guide quickly eliminated that exciting possibility!

All in all very sad but at least the birds demise hasn't gone without some benefits. I am taking the corpse into Henry McGhie at the Manchester Museum tomorrow (see Paul Cliff's thread on the topic "dead birds" on the General Birding Discussion section of this forum). I'll probably be the person with the most "interesting" hand-luggage on the train tomorrow! Also, as the bird was still alive it when it was first discovered, it has been entered up as a winter roving record for my home town square of SD80X Middleton Junction, for the ongoing BTO Atlas project.

Bill.

A follow-on from last night then, Bill.

Birds heading south over Lansdowne Road & then Suthers Street 10.45 - 11.15 p.m
(contact calls)

No sign of any movement this afternoon along the same route

11th October.

Chadderton - early am.

Small single figure flocks of Redwings flying over, seemingly moving in all directions!

1 Chiffchaff singing.

Cheers,

Bill.

Single Fieldfare past Rountree House

2 Grey Wagtail very vocal in and out of trees on Lansdowne Road

8th August.

Short local (Chadderton) walkabout early this afternoon.

Highlights were a Kingfisher and a single Treecreeper. I think this may well be the first time I have seen a Treecreeper near my home. Certainly a new species for the atlas for tetrad SD80X Middleton Junction.


Bill.

peregrine flyover at my works on rochdale road near oldham town centre at 1.00pm today

16th June.

This morning I did my second and final breeding season Timed Tetrad Visit (TTV) for the BTO and GM atlas projects for the 2 by 2 km square that is SD80X Middleton Junction. Looking at the map this appears to be a quite unattractive area to survey, with a large expanse of suburban Chadderton and Middleton to the north of the tetrad. However, there is also a small area of decent farmland, a small but attractive municipal park, a good stretch of the Rochdale Canal and it also includes a small brook and some scrubby areas surrounding the local sewage works!

40 species recorded today, compared to 30 on the earlier visit on 10th April 2010. Was very, very pleased to be able to confirm breeding for 20 of the 40 species seen today, although all but 19 of these 20 species had been confirmed as breeders at some time earlier in the atlas projects for this tetrad.

Highlights included: - my route took me past where the pair of Whitethroats were seen carrying food into a nest in brambles on 14/6. Today 2 small nestlings (probably still flightless?) were perched and huddled closely side by side together on a bramble shoot just above the entrance to the nest site. What a really gorgeous sight! The adults regularly brought in food. I also managed to come across another adult male Whitethroat carrying food in another area this morning. I spent a while chatting to the local farmer and he kindly allowed me to look at the nesting Swallows in his barns. When I visited this area on 10th May, at least two pairs of Lapwings had chicks in the fields. At least 2 immature birds were present in these fields today and the farmer told me that thankfully some of the chicks had managed to survive the predations of the local Foxes and Magpies! Whilst chatting with one of the park keepers in the local park, we watched as an adult Mistle Thrush collected food for 2 begging juveniles, which trailed after it. He also told me where he thought the Great Spotted Woodpeckers had bred and a female was seen today and there were at least 2 other unseen, calling birds present in the park - probably the male and the juvenile seen on 14/6? A family party of Greenfinches were in the park, which included some begging but unseen juveniles. 6 House Martin nests, being regularly visited, were found on a single building.

Also evidence of positive breeding activity for - Mallard, Moorhen, Feral Pigeon, Sand Martin, Wren, Robin , Song Thrush, Blackbird, Blue Tit, Great Tit, House Sparrow, Magpie and Jackdaw.

Cheers,

Bill.


-- Edited by Bill Myerscough on Wednesday 16th of June 2010 03:40:16 PM

Maybe the male whitethroat ate the insects rather than feeding them to the young so as not to reveal the nest site while you were watching?
Steve

14th June.

Had a quick look around some of my local "doorstep" sites early this afternoon. A single independent juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker was in Foxdenton Park - I have seen adults here before but not today.....and the juvenile seemed to be doing OK on its own. Also along the local brook some Sand Martin nests, with about 7 holes present including two which had 1 and 2 juveniles peering out from the entrance to the holes. 3 family parties of Moorhen, 1 with 5 young, 1 with 4 young and 1 was sitting, with a large juvenile close-by from an earlier brood. Managed to come across a pair of Whitethroats giving their churring alarm calls around a suitable nesting site of nettles and brambles. How do they manage to make that sound without the food dropping out of their bills? I watched the female twice carry blue damselflies into the nest site to feed their young. I also watched the male twice collect smaller insect prey and carry it towards the nest site, which he then promptly ate himself....not the most responsible and impressive parenting skills I've ever seen!

Cheers,

Bill.

PS - have been doing a bit of reading since this post on the diet of nestling Whitethroats...well who wants to watch Paraguay verusus Italy?....and I can't find any mention of damselflies being part of it. I personally wouldn't have thought that such an item of large long-bodied insect prey would be really suitable for small birds in a nest. However, that said I did also observe adult Sedge Warblers carrying damselflies into cover to either feed nestlings or hidden away, recently fledged young at a site on the outskirts of Bury last year on 5th July. Any comments appreciated.


-- Edited by Bill Myerscough on Monday 14th of June 2010 09:22:18 PM

-- Edited by Bill Myerscough on Monday 14th of June 2010 09:24:00 PM

12th May.

The sighting of my first ever Dipper in Chadderton was the highlight of a stroll around my local area this afternoon.

Cheers,

Bill.

10th May.

The highs and lows of local birding all in the space of a few minutes.

Had a great 20 minutes or so watching a pair of Lapwings with three reasonably well grown young. All of a sudden many of the Lapwings and Jackdaws were in the air, as what was presumably an unseen bird of prey, made an appearance. I watched an adult Lapwing making an erratic escape flight over my head but it must have touched a fairly low overhead power cable and "exploded" with a puff of feathers and plummeted to the ground. Really, really upsetting......the only very, very small compensation being that it did not appear to be either of the adults attending the 3 young.

11th May.

First fledged Long-tailed Tits of the year seen this afternoon alongside the Rochdale Canal. Also Dunnock feeding young and pair of Canada Geese with 5 goslings.

Bill.

Many thanks for that interesting info Sean. It's really nice to be able to leave the car in the drive and just walk out along the Rochdale Canal and see a really decent selection of birds. Yesterday on the 5km transect I recorded what I consider to be a pretty decent total of 48 species.

Perhaps more than half of the transect is in Oldham MBC and the remainder in Rochdale. Things of note from yesterday included - in Chadderton, Oldham - Goldfinches collecting the "down" from old bullrush heads for nesting material, a female Chaffinch collecting and carrying food. Blackbird, Jackdaw and Woodpigeon all nest-building. Along this 5 km section of the canal there were, without really looking too hard for them, 7 Canada Geese nests and 1 pair with three very small hatched young. Just to extrapolate these figures for the whole length of the canal would give a very substantial breeding population for this species!

The only maddening part of the morning came at the Rochdale end, beyond Higher Boarshaw and towards the Slattocks area where a very large area of the good scrubland next to the canal, that has attracted the good warbler and Linnet population, has in my opinion, been irreparably damaged following mindless recent burning by the local yobboes.

No sign of the Yellow Wagtail this afternoon (27/4) , although it's place in the same field had been taken by a female Wheatear.

Cheers,

Bill.

Hi Bill, it's a cracking WBBS that one, i've done it for the last 4 or 5 years but had to give it up due to other survey commitments. The lesser whitethroats breed at the top end, with oystercatcher a surprise roof top bird there too. A lovely sand martin colony exists at the top end too, whilst i've had sedge, reed and garden warbler over the years too. Towards the bottom end near the warehouses that are unused! There used to be breeding lapwing, little and ringed plover on the rough ground. Something interesting turns up every year, so enjoy it and don't forget to ask the fishermen if they've seen the kingfisher, as it can be missed sometimes! Also had redshank, dipper and common sand along the canal too. Good luck, sean.

26th April.

Did my first visit for the Rochdale Canal WBBS this morning.

2 very pleasant surprises in the Chadderton area - a Lesser Whitethroat was singing near Foxdenton Hall and a stunning Yellow Wagtail was foraging around the feet of horses at SD890065 near Limefield Farm. The beauty of surveying....you never know what is going to surprise you.

Cheers,

Bill.

Tetrad today

1 Chiff Chaff (Crossley Brook)
2 Blackcap (1 Crossley Brook, 1 Chadderton Cemetry) - singing males
5 Willow Warblers - 4 singing ( all Chadderton Cemetry)

1 Red-tailed Hawk - have seen the hawk far more regularly than any Common Buzzards

22 Blackbirds (mostly singing males) but in general, lower numbers of certain species such as Blue Tits, House Sparrows etc, hopefully because half of the them are sitting on eggs

9th April

Red-tailed Hawk soaring over Westwood Industrial Estate. Unlike the Common Buzzard I saw here in February this bird is dark-plumaged below and currently has innermost primary missing from left wing.

Also Female Sparrowhawk around Stockfield Mill

10th April

Pale-bellied full-winged Common Buzzard being harrassed by a Carrion Crow over the area of Featherstall Road & Westwood Industrial Estate.

Grey Heron over Broadway, flushed from Crossley Bridge area, harrassed by single crow. Also regular Common Buzzard over Busk. 2.20pm

2nd Winter Visit House Sparrow 44 Robin 6 Magpie 33 Blackbird 5 Blue Tit 31 Collared Dove 14 Wood Pigeon 17 Great Tit 17 Sparrowhawk 1 ( in Chadderton Cemy harrassed by 5 Carrion Crows) Redwing 50 (min - parties of 29, 45, 50, 13 but last 3 at least probably all same flock) Wren 4 Nuthatch 1 Carrion Crow 16 BHG 38 Starling 25 Greenfinch 3 GSW 2 (both drumming) Long-tailed Tit 4 Mistle Thrush 2 (Singing Male - Chadderton Cemy) Goldfinch 7 Chaffinch 9 Lesser Black-back 1