 |
Jay, Duncan Wood |
Yesterday's very high pollen count and high humidity had cut my strings but I thought I needed to make an effort today. I headed into Bolton with the idea that I'd take a walk through Leverhulme Park and Moses Gate Country Park and try and make sure I did as much as possible of that in the shade.
As I got off the bus at Stephen Street, next to the Lancashire Wildlife Trust resource centre and the entrance to Seven Acres Country Park it occurred to me that although I've gone past here scores of times I've never had a look at it. It seemed as good a time as any to rectify that.
 |
Rosario's Pond |
I followed the path by Rosario's Pond next to the resource centre which was lively with midges and whirligig beetles but not damselflies or dragonflies. I was a bit underwhelmed by the woodland walk at first, a song thrush and a blackbird sang over the traffic noise but I wasn't seeing or hearing any small birds. I passed a heavily vegetated little pond where a common blue damselfly zipped around and an unidentifiable dragonfly with a shot of blue about it patrolled the undergrowth. Then the path dropped down to Bradshaw Brook and the fun began.
 |
Coal tit |
It was fairly young woodland with a dense understory. Wrens, robins, blackbirds and blackcaps sang in the trees. I hadn't gone far when I bumped into my first mixed tit flock of Autumn: families of blue tits, great tits, long-tailed tits and coal tits bouncing round the trees in the company of nuthatches, chiffchaffs and blackcaps. I stood and watched them for ten minutes, they paid no heed to me save to flit out of shot whenever the camera got them in focus. They were ruthless and restless hunters, rummaging about on mossy tree trunks, gleaning from leaves and darting out to catch insects on the wing.
 |
Juvenile blue tit |
The path followed the twists and turns of the brook as it headed upstream. The brook was running fast and shallow, burbling over shoals and pebbles. I chided myself for wishful thinking about grey wagtails then turned a corner to find one having a bath.
 |
Grey wagtail |
The path carried on. Sometimes the brook dropped out of sight behind the undergrowth, there was a stretch where the far side was constrained by the retaining wall of a factory then brook and path both lurched to the east into the woodland.
 |
Bradshaw Brook |
 |
Brambles |
Here and there the trees thinned out a little and the path was lined with densely flowering brambles, nearly all big and white-flowered, a few smaller, pink-flowered types sheltering under oak trees, and bumblebees and hoverflies buzzing about. In the light shade it was all ferns and hogweeds and Himalayan balsam with occasional stands of sweet cicely along the brook side. Speckled woods and large whites fluttered about by the shady lengths of path, red admirals and small tortoiseshells about the brambles. Along the way I bumped into a couple of smaller mixed tit flocks that tended to keep to the oak canopy.
 |
Small tortoiseshell |
A juvenile chiffchaff that tagged along with a family of long-tailed tits by the pathside didn't notice me coming along and when it did finally notice it didn't much care. It's not often you get any wild bird too close for the camera to focus on easily as it fidgets about, let alone a warbler. I eventually had it nicely framed in a profile shot with the yellow gape at the base of its bill showing well when it noticed a passing fly…
 |
Juvenile chiffchaff |
It's an odd thing: Bradshaw Brook gets bigger as you go upstream here. I carried on and crossed the bridge over the brook when I got to it. The hayfever had been behaving itself so I didn't walk through the meadows to the car park, I carried on walking by the brook. A pair of blackcaps looked and sounded as if they had mouths to feed. Another long-tailed tit family passed by, then a mixed flock of blue tits and great tits. Young wrens retreated into the brambles when told to by a scolding parent.
 |
Approaching Thicketford Road |
The landscape opened out on the approach to the bridge carrying Thicketford Road. A couple of mallards dabbled amongst the water crowfoot as I passed.
I had about twenty minutes to wait for either the 561 or 562 bus back to Bolton. I wondered if the path continued along the brook. There was a cut in the wall with steps leading up to the housing estate, I had a nosy and yes, there was a path down. It didn't take me directly to the brook, instead it passed through a meadow dotted with oak trees. Blackbirds and wrens sang and bullfinches wheezed in the trees.
 |
By Bradshaw Brook |
 |
In my experience it's unusual for a jay to fly over to have a look at you. |
It soon became apparent how the oak trees got planted. A jay bounced through the trees as wrens and robins scolded their displeasure. I wasn't sure if it was the same jay I was seeing a little further along. It spotted me and instead of doing the usual jay thing of either melting into the background or flying off in a huff it flew over to have a better look at me.
 |
Jay |
It turned out I wasn't anything special so it went back to fossicking about in the tree roots.
 |
Jay |
The path entered Duncan Wood and the woodland became denser as it neared the brook. My first sight of the brook coincided with a dumpy bird shape that could have been a kingfisher or a dipper but was convincingly neither shooting downstream. Dunnocks, nuthatches and a song thrush sang in the trees, blue tits and great tits bounced by, I got scolded by a treecreeper as I passed too close to something I didn't see.
 |
Duncan Wood |
The path split. I followed it along the brook until it petered out at the end of a wall. I retraced my steps and followed the path up a steep climb through the trees. I'd promised myself no climbing this week. The ground leveled out and I checked the maps. It looked like I should be able to join the path from Bottom o'th'Moor along the brook to Longsight Park and thence the bus back to Bolton. The first path I followed round led to a precipitous descent down to the brook that wasn't inviting to an old man with dodgy knees.
 |
No. |
The alternative was closed due to a landslide.
 |
Also no. |
I took the hint and walked down Bottom o'th'Moor and got the 507 back to Bolton.