Red-rumped Swallow, Audenshaw Reservoirs

I wasn't going to bother at first because I don't like twitching hirundines and swifts because they're usually gone before I get there. I'm also not a big fan of Audenshaw Reservoirs for a variety of reasons including the often heavy traffic in the area and the difficulty of access, but in the end I decided to go and I'm glad I did because I had nice views of a cracking red-rumped swallow on no. 1 reservoir.

It was only my third in the UK and my first for 11 years, and it was particularly pleasing because it or another individual was present at the same place on 6th May which I went for and more predictably on that occasion didn't see. 

It's also a North West tick for me, bringing my North West list to 372 species. I use the area covered by Birdline North West as my definition of "North West", in otherwords all of the coastal counties from Cumbria to Angelsey plus Greater Manchester. 

Actually when I arrived at the reservoirs I was a bit worried that events were about to follow a familiar pattern, because I couldn't see any other birders and even more alarmingly there were hardly any hirundines, just hundreds of swifts. I don't think I saw more than about 10 swallows in all of the time I was there, even less house martins and perhaps 30 sand martins. However eventually I spotted a small group of about five other birders and they got me onto the red-rumped swallow pretty quickly.

Personally I'm not convinced that this is the same bird as that seen on 6th May. Having looked at photos of that earlier bird and compared them to my photos and other better photos I have seen of todays bird, there seem plumage differences to me, plus on the 7th May a red-rumped swallow was seen at Little Woolden Moss heading south west. I'm not quite sure where this sighting fits in with the others, but the timing would perhaps indicate that it was the same bird as that seen at Audenshaw on 6th, however it's possible that all three are different birds. 

It was a great morning for swifts and they almost made it worth the trip alone. Hundreds were flying over the reservoirs and as I walked along the causeways they would fly towards me and right over my head little more than a meter away from me until I almost thought they were bound to hit me. It's one of the highlights of birding to look into a swifts eyes when it's that close!

Audenshaw no.1 reservoir. It was the heavy, overcast conditions with a few spots of rain which convinced me that it was worth trying again today. No point in looking for a red-rumped swallow on a bright sunny day, it's the bad weather which keeps it in one place. The bird wasn't seen in the afternoon, no doubt it moved on when the weather cleared.