Fortunately I usually have a pair of binoculars in the car, so immediately made a grab for them and was onto the bird straight away. I was astounded to see that it was an Osprey, a rare, migrant visitor to St Helens with less than 10 records ever, despite the species increasing nationally in recent years. The bird flew across the car park, up over the poplar trees and over Queens Park school playing fields, accompanied by its entourage of gulls and was lost to sight behind the trees. However, I could still hear the gulls, and a minute later it was back, having seemingly decided to ride the thermals over the school playing fields and over Queen Park itself. 

It was actually right over my house, but I resisted the temptation to dash home in order to add Osprey to my garden list, because I was more concerned with watching this magnificent raptor for as long as possible. After a couple of minutes, it decided it had seen enough, and headed powerfully away in the direction of Eccleston Mere and Prescot Reservoirs. 

At first, I was a little confused as to why an Osprey should be over Ruskin Drive, in the centre of St. Helens. Almost uniquely amongst British raptors the Osprey feeds exclusively on fish which it catches by plunging into the water, sometimes almost completely submerging.  Obviously it couldn't always be over water, especially on migration, when it must cross land so I decided that I must just have been incredibly lucky to have seen the bird as it passed over. 

However, I then remembered that just a week earlier I had seen a Common Tern flying over Ruskin Drive playing fields with quite a determined flight. This had also confused me at the time, because again, terns feed by plunge diving into water for fish. On investigation at the time, I had been surprised to discover that this wasn't the first Common Tern I had seen over Ruskin, and in fact I had records of several sightings over a four year period. 

So what was happening? I began to wonder if there was some lake nearby which I knew nothing about, however unlikely that may be.  In fact as is so often the case, the answer was quite simple. There are three large water bodies in St Helens, Carr Mill Dam, Eccleston Mere and Prescot Reservoirs. If you take a map of St Helens, and draw a straight line from the centre of Carr Mill Dam to the centre of Prescot Reservoirs, it goes right through the centre of Eccleston Mere, and more interestingly for me, the line goes straight down the centre of Ruskin Drive for the entire length of the road! 

So the answer appears to be that these birds are taking the most direct route between Carr Mill Dam and Eccleston Mere / Prescot Reservoirs, which just happens to take them right along Ruskin Drive. In the case of the Osprey, I later learnt that it had been seen at Prescot Reservoirs and Eccleston Mere BEFORE I saw it, suggesting that it was initially heading towards Carr Mill Dam rather than from Carr Mill Dam as I had initially assumed. Perhaps it was intercepted on its journey by the gulls, and decided Carr Mill Dam wasn't worth the effort, and a return to the reservoirs / mere was in order. This might explain it's decision to climb high and 'thermal' for a while, to re-orientate itself, and work out in which direction it needed to head. Once it had done this, it headed strongly in the direction of Prescot Reservoirs. 

Armed with this exciting discovery, and with my son having another cricket match the following day, this time at home, at Ruskin Drive, I determined to watch carefully to see exactly which birds passed overhead. In a three hour period, two Common Terns flew individually along Ruskin Drive, both heading towards Carr Mill Dam, and a number of Grey Herons, ducks and gulls all flew along the road, in one direction or the other, but always following the road.

Excitingly for me, my house is almost on the same line as Ruskin Drive, which means that any bird which commutes from Carr Mill Dam to Eccleston Mere / Prescot Reservoirs is a possible flyover and addition to my backyard list. This probably explains most of my 'odd' backyard records, such as Oystercatcher, Dunlin, Common Sandpiper, Common Tern, Cormorant, Raven and the Great Crested Grebe which landed on the stream in the park just outside my house, and had to rescued because it couldn't take off again.  

** UPDATE - 25/10/2005 **

Since I became aware of this "migration route", I have seen several further examples. On 25th September 2005, I saw a Buzzard right over my house. This is little more than half a mile from the town centre, and is a hard to explain record, except that it was flying from Carr Mill Dam to Eccleston Mere, and was therefore taking the most direct route. On the 14th October 2005 I saw a Peregrine flying along exactly the same route, heading towards Eccleston Mere. This is not quite as surprising as the Buzzard, since Peregrines have been in the town centre for years, but in the following few days I had several sightings of Peregrine at Eccleston Mere, my first at the mere in 2005, and I don't doubt that it was the same bird. 

Most exciting however, has been the passage of passerines. In September and October there was a noticeable passage of Meadow Pipits and especially Skylarks over Eccleston Mere, all heading south west, which is the same direction as the line from Carr Mill Dam to Eccleston Mere. At the same time, I was also seeing Skylarks and Meadow Pipits flying along Ruskin Drive from my house at Queens Park. I couldn't prove that these were the same birds of course, but the chances seemed good. 

The best evidence I have yet though came on the 24th October 2005, at the start of a large passage of Fieldfares over St Helens. I noticed 30+ Fieldfares fly over the back of my house, at little more than 10 feet above the house, heading south west, following the exact line of Ruskin Drive, in the direction of Eccleston Mere. So I jumped in the car and headed off for the mere. As I approached Mill Dam I saw  the flock fly over, still heading in the same direction, though they appeared to land in some trees just before the mere. I parked up at the mere and started to walk round, and after about 100 yards, I saw the flock flying low over the water, then away over the fields and off in the direction of Prescot Reservoirs. If only somebody had been up at the reservoirs at about 3:45pm, they may have seen them arrive. During the 24th, I saw several flocks of Fieldfares pass over the mere, and all came from the direction of Carr Mill Dam. The following day, another flock, this time of 70 birds took exactly the same route over my house, and though I didn't follow these birds, I have no doubt as to their destination. Several further flocks were also seen heading south west at Eccleston Mere on the 25th.