Pairs of curlew and kestrel plus single raven. A grasshopper warbler has been reeling from the area around Upper Swineshaw for a few weeks.

mallard and canada goose on upper swineshaw - tufties appear to have departed.

one buzzard, four wheatear, two curlew seen but more heard, half a dozen red grouse seen and more heard, one skylark over hollingworth hall farm, four swallow over higher landsdown green farm, plenty of chaffinch, greenfinch, goldfinch and loads of meadow pipit plus nutchatch and mistle thrush.

2 Ring Ouzels (appeared to be m & f) present early afternoon.

Male was singing and showing very well on wall. Then he started scolding blackbird-style and flew off disappearing round the hill. Other bird (f) stayed, but had also left when I went back later.

Late afternoon

Just 1 Ring Ouzel at Middlebank at 4.30pm.



-- Edited by Ian McKerchar on Friday 8th of April 2011 07:03:00 PM

4 Ring Ouzel 2M 2F
Stonechat 1M 1F
3 Wheatear 2M 1F
c20 Curlew
70+ Meadow Pipit
plus all the usuals
And a Guinea Fowl that made my heart flutter for a second.

-- Edited by Tony Mario on Friday 8th of April 2011 07:54:30 AM

-- Edited by Ian McKerchar on Friday 8th of April 2011 08:37:31 PM

Yes, four Ring Ouzel feeding in the fields along Lees Hill, approximately 1/2 mile further along from Hollingworth Hall Farm.

Also present were two Mistle Thrush, Culew, one Swallow and plenty of Meadow Pipits including a few small groups heading North with plenty of Chaffinch singing and c6 Goldfinch came through by the farms.

Two Brown Hares also.

Late news for Tuesday night: male and female Tufted Duck still on Upper Swineshaw plus a pipestrell bat on the walk back to the car.

Mid afternoon

2 male Ring Ouzels around Lees Hill

Iain Johnson has seen four up there this evening, I'm sure more details will follow

Also seen in the area:

2 Raven
Curlew

past the hall round the end of lees hill on to higher swineshaw and return.

6 black headed gull
4 gold finch
dunnock
2 robin
pied wagtail
5 crows
plenty of tits blue great and coal

4 nuthatch.
curlews bubbling in every direction.
stopped counting mippits when i'd passed 20 hadn't reached the quarry by this point.
kestrel

on higher swineshaw
5 mallard
4 canada goose
1 red grouse and one phreasant

1 wren near the bench.

absolutely no rouzles in sight which is a shame



-- Edited by jason fisher on Saturday 2nd of April 2011 10:14:54 PM

Late am/early pm 100+ Mipits vis mig just before Lees Hill 1 Reed Bunting male 6-8 Lapwings displaying over fields Several Curlews bubbling in background 3 Redwing and then it poured down

circa 10 brambing and one meadow pipit at by higher green lansdown farm

A long trek today past the farm, across the moor round Lees Hill via Swineshaw and down to Brushes Road.

On Hobson Moor Road

1 Stock Dove, no escaping today!
c30 Fieldfare

Unfortunately no sign of any Brambling today, this was probably due to there being around 10 shooters shooting the Pheasants. Some of them were stood within 10 feet of the public footpath and one of the birds was lying dead on the public footpath as we walked past. Surely this is illegal. Thankfully a friend was with me.

Male Peregrine near the stand of conifers, using the wind to effortlessly drift across, gaining speed, then did another fly past. Brilliant views of this stunning bird at eye level, hopefully the shooters didn't see it.

Numerous Red Grouse between Lees Hill and Swineshaw including two at Swineshaw having a stand off and one showing off on the wall.

A surprise in the area were two Meadow Pipits and a male Stonechat which I thought would have moved elsewhere by now.

Dropping down towards Brushes I found it quite amusing when I saw a male and a female Pheasant balancing on the end of a branch eating berries

Also in this area I saw another 100 Fieldfare and 6 Bullfinches (5 female and 1 male)

late news from Saturday morning.

Walk up and return to Swineshaw from Walkerwood.

3 GS Woodpecker
2 Nutchatch
3 Pheasant (1 feeding at the bird table of the last house, 2 above swineshaw)
wood pigeon
carrion crow
robin
blackbird
dunnock
blue tit
great tit
LT tit
chaffinch
12+ pied wagtail on swineshaw inc a couple of juvs
numerous meadow pipits in a beautiful fresh autumn plumage
8 linnets
1 stonechat - looked like a juvenile
1 juvenile reed bunting
1 stonking willow warbler in a fresh autumn plumage
2+ wren

But the real highlight was still to come. Firstly, a single peregrine flew over and disappeared over Lees Hill. Minutes later a raven appeared with a second peregrine joingin it on the thermals only for a potential third peregrine (can't rule out the 1st bird not returning) to join them.

A buzzard then appeared, closely followed by two more so that at one stage i had three buzzard and two peregrine in my bins!

Great morning.

No waders, wildfowl or gulls though!

3 curlew over hobson moor quarry at 6.45pm Wednesday night.

A walk this morning through the farm and round the hill, mainly for breeding records

Overall very quiet.

Blackbird feeding young by the stables
Swallows going into the stables
Family party of GS Woodpeckers in the wood, taking bark from trees
Nuthatches calling everywhere
Blackcap male and female seen
Great Tit begging for food from parent

Little Owl glaring at me from a wall at Lees Hill
6 Rooks over
Lapwing with large young


-- Edited by Karen Foulkes on Sunday 27th of June 2010 07:39:34 PM

plenty of meadow pipits, a large mixed group of jackdaw and carrion crow, 1 BH Gull, blue and great tits and chaffinch family.

A walk today from Tintwistle to Mottram Rise via Lees Hill & Swineshaw Reservoirs

c25 Mipits
1 Common Sandpiper & 19 Canada Geese inc 5 Goslings on Upper Swineshaw Reservoir

Walked round Lees Hill and Middlebank and through Hollingworth Hall Farm, it was very hot and quite quiet bird wise.

Just outside the gate looking towards the woodland, there was a pair of Red Legged Partridge on the woodland edge, which disappeared back into the woodland, probably keeping cool!

Got to Lees Hill today approx 12 noon and saw a Ring Ouzel on a collapsed dry stone wall, first time in Gtr M/C for me.

Can you give more details as to location - several Mottram Rds in that area - ideally a 6 fig OS grid reference. Thanks.

passing along the cutting top of mottram road on way back from day out and what did we see sat on top of a lamp post.

1 ring ouzle white collar and all.

not that far away really.

Zooming in worked - doh! Thanks too for the PMs

Rob Smallwood wrote:

---

I can find Lees Hill on the map but not Middle Bank - can anyone clarify?

---

You probably have the 1 : 50000 map. You can see on the 1:25000 the Middle Bank is just south of Lees Hill, and slightly east of Pack Saddle.

Look on Multimap/Bing and zoom in on the Ordnance Survey setting.

Cheers

I can find Lees Hill on the map but not Middle Bank - can anyone clarify?

ring ouzle thanks to both ladies who gave me directions :)

well we followed the directions given then got lost which meant we blundered into the area from the wrong direction unfortunately, which disturbed them.
on the other hand as we approached from round a tight corner it also meant we saw lots more of them, there are more than 10 in the area. possibly up to 20 birds. we then backed off to a reasonable distance and got some good views through the scope for about 20 minutes of them moving back into their obviously preferred area.

on the walk down the lane to the site in both directions we saw a pair of coal tit

numerous blue and great tits
2 green finch
6 gold finch
heard 3 different robins having a sing off
1 small warbler probably chifchaff but only a short view.
1 curlew calling very low
1 good view of a kestrel

-- Edited by jason fisher on Wednesday 14th of April 2010 04:47:13 PM

-- Edited by jason fisher on Wednesday 14th of April 2010 04:47:46 PM

I had a walk up today to where I thought I may of seen them but nothing,either they have moved on or I was at the wrong place

-- Edited by shaun arrand on Monday 12th of April 2010 02:03:14 PM

any chance you could send a private message with a grid ref for the lees hill as ring ouzle would be a lifer for me so we went to the place where we know holingworth hall farm is and then walked roud the hills till our feet fell off probably on the wrong hill without seing any. it's local to us and we would love to find them :)

I went out to the area again this morning with Rachael Hill.

Small flock on feeding on ground disturbed by walker contained 1 Brambling, could have been more, although most of them passed through.
1 Nuthatch
10 Ring Ouzel, in the same area as yesterday, unable to ascertain how many males and females there were, they were disturbed by a raptor, probably a Peregrine, although I couldn't say for certain.
Kestrel
Sparrowhawk



-- Edited by Karen Foulkes on Sunday 11th of April 2010 11:13:38 PM

PM

Still at least 5 Ouzels present 4 males and 1 female. My first in GM

No sign of any Brambling unfortunately.

Special thanks to Paul Hammond and Rob Adderley, cheers

10/4/10 AM

Ring Ouzel - at least 5, possibly 6 birds between Middle Bank and Lees Hill this am.

Brambling - 7 by Hollingworth Hall Farm.





-- Edited by Ian McKerchar on Friday 6th of April 2012 02:21:31 PM