Irlam

Jackdaws, Irlam Moss

I caught up with my sleep. Or, more truly, sleep caught up with me. I woke up half an hour too late to set off on today's planned jaunt. I looked out at the vertical sheet of cold water that passed for Flaming June and decided I'd have half an hour's lie-in before getting up. Breakfast was by way of being a late lunch. I hadn't missed much: the spadgers and blue tits were huddled in the gooseberry bushes by the feeder when they weren't demolishing the last of the suet blocks. The male blackbird came and helped. Everything else was in deep cover out of the rain, even the school playing field was a woodpigeon-free zone.

Even the spadglings were fed up

The rain abated mid-afternoon and I got itchy feet. I decided to get the train into Irlam and have a walk up Astley Road and back down Roscoe Road just to get a bit of exercise. I was also hoping there might be some grey partridges about.

Astley Road
I keep reminding myself that we can't have all this green without the rain.

It wasn't raining as I walked up Astley Road but it was cool and damp and grey as February. This didn't stop the blackbirds, goldfinches and collared doves singing from the trees and rooftops. Blue tits and wrens churred, house sparrows fussed about in hedgerows, woodpigeons and lesser black-backs flew overhead and swifts hawked low over the chimney pots. Days like this are odd, had the rain been lighter it would have been a quiet afternoon but everything was trying to fit a day's activity into the window between downpours. As, indeed, was I.

Dozens of swifts hawked over the rough turf field on one side of the road while a couple of swallows hawked over the mown field on the other. Blackbirds and pied wagtails hunted on the mown grass, carrion crows and pheasants on the unmown. Blackbirds, goldfinches, blackcaps, robins and wrens sang in the wayside trees and bushes. Blue tits, chiffchaffs and dunnocks fidgeted through the foliage (sorry, once it came to mind I had to write it down) and chaffinches and greenfinches bustled about the treetops. Most of the song thrushes were busy hunting in the field margins but one started singing in a tree by the Jack Russell's gate and for some reason that set off the chiffchaffs and they weren't for shutting up until the thrush did.

A kestrel was hovering over the field by Prospect Grange. I got confused because it looked like the female as I walked up but looking over the field it was the male I was seeing. It was only when I turned the corner onto Roscoe Road that it became apparent that both the pair were on the hunt. And judging by how quickly they were coming back after flying off with field voles in their talons they have an active nest on the go.

Spear thistle

In the trees at the road junction a chaffinch and a whitethroat sang a baffling duet. Half a dozen herring gulls loafed on the field behind Worsley View. A couple of lapwings and a flock of jackdaws kept well away from them. The stubble fields looked deserted at first glance, subsequent glances found lapwings that might have been on nests and others just fussing about generally, starlings digging for leatherjackets, goldfinches and house sparrows picking aphids off cow parsley, and skylarks and meadow pipits fossicking about on the ground. A buzzard that had been circling over the motorway drifted over a little and put the jackdaws to flight.

House sparrows

The fields between Roscoe Road and Astley Road were busy with woodpigeons and pheasants. A single stock dove flew by, something that rarely happens in my experience, if I don't see a stock dove paired up I'm inclined to think I've misidentified a pigeon. I had no luck finding grey partridges but I'd been lucky with the weather.

I decided to push my luck. I walked down to Princes Park and joined the Irwell Old Course. There was a songscape of blackbirds, blackcaps, goldfinches, robins, song thrushes, chiffchaffs and wrens. Yet for all that it felt quiet. A few mallards pootled about on the water, there was a conspicuous absence of moorhens and coots.

I walked down to The Boat House, crossed Cadishead Way and walked through to Irlam Locks. Which was easier said that done with such a lush growth of brambles along the path. It reminded me that once the fruit's all ripened and picked I'm going to have to go through the back garden with a combine harvester. A goldcrest sang me on my way, which was sweet of it.

Irwell Old Course 

A couple of great crested grebes drifted upstream of the lock. Half a dozen mallards dozed on the lock in the company of an oystercatcher and a drake mandarin duck. I spotted the mandarin as I was walking across the lock gates. I struggled to find it from the Flixton side, it sort of merged into the rusty browns and flaked white paint of the old bollard behind it. It's wonderful how nature provides natural camouflage against industrial architecture. It was reassuring to see a couple of dozen pigeons about the lock gates and a few cormorants drying their wings on the superstructure. The grey wagtails were busy and probably had youngsters to feed. The sand martins definitely did, at least six nests were on the go. The most active nests were the one which had their entrance holes in the lockside mortar almost completely hidden by vegetation.

Irlam Locks

A few dozen magpies and a couple of black-headed gulls fussed about on the water treatment works. As I was checking them out a commotion broke out on the lock. The dozing oystercatcher had company, it had been joined by its mate and another pair. The two pairs of oystercatchers had a prolonged territorial dispute which displaced most of the mallards off the lock and into the water. They eventually quietened down and joined forces to try and get the rest of the mallards out of the way, too. Mallards can be as stubborn as mules, they sat right and the oystercatchers had to give it up as a bad job. It all seemed a lot of effort to no effect.

Oystercatchers and mallards

As I got to the corner and turned onto Irlam Road proper a common tern flew in and started flying around the lock. I keep wondering if they're going to nest on the locks here but they haven't yet to my knowledge.

I only had five minutes to wait for the bus home. It had been a very productive walk and a bit of luck well pushed.

An accidental walk: Strinesdale

Looking down the Medlock Valley

I thought I'd have a lazy dawdle of a day and took a Pennine walk instead.

It's easy to forget it's June, what with the cold nights, the cold winds and the low pollen count. And it's easy to get a bit cavalier about remembering to put on the Factor Thingy and taking precautions before waltzing about meadows in bloom and freshly cut fields. I got away without sunburn after yesterday's walk, I didn't get away without the hayfever and today the get up and go didn't even leave a forwarding address.

I still had the fidgets so I thought I'd do a bit of passive birdwatching. I've hardly touched Yorkshire this birdwatching year so I thought I'd take a leisurely tour around, stopping off and having a dawdle round a couple of places along the way, taking the air more than going out birdwatching. There's a bus service between Ashton-under-Lyne and Holmfirth that only runs on Tuesdays. I could get the train to Greenfield and it would be about ten minutes' wait for the bus. I've done it before a couple of times, it's a nice ride over the tops and there are plenty of bus connections when you get into Holmfirth.

Half an hour later I gave up on the bus. Something must have happened to it, I assume it had been cancelled. So I got the 350 to Oldham, it being the next one not going back to Manchester. I've struggled to find many walks in Oldham that don't involve striding up onto Saddleworth Moor. I keep meaning to visit the Denshaw end of Piethorne Valley and Strinesdale Reservoir was on my list of possibles when I was scouting round the maps at the beginning of the year. The 350 passes nearby, I decided to go and have a look.

I got off at Church Street, crossed the road and walked past Waterhead Academy then up Holgate Street to the Strinesdale Country Park car park by the reservoir. Five minutes' walk, there's no excuse for my not having done this before, I've been through this area often enough. 

River Medlock

It took a few minutes to register that the pretty little stream bubbling its way past the car park is the River Medlock. Nowhere along its length is it a big river but even so… Blackbirds, blackcaps, robins and wrens sang in the trees and a grey wagtail called and flew into cover upstream. 

Lower Strinesdale Reservoir 

Almost immediately I was on Lower Strinesdale Reservoir, which is one of the smaller local reservoirs. I think Upper Strinesdale Reservoir is slightly bigger. The two are relics of a larger Reservoir built in the early nineteenth century which covered the whole of the country park area. Birdwise it was pretty quiet. I could see a Canada goose lurking in the reeds and that was about it. I got the impression it's a busy angling pool.

Strinesdale Country Park 

I crossed over the bridge where the Medlock escapes the reservoir and followed a path through open meadows girt with alder scrub. Song thrushes and willow warblers joined the songscape and blue tits fidgeted through the trees. The magpies bouncing about probably gave them good cause to fidget. I thought the wind too cold to see much in the way of insect life other than bumblebees. Painted ladies, meadow browns and a banded demoiselle proved me wrong. I noticed that common spotted orchids were starting to poke their way through the grass and buttercups.

Common spotted orchid

I got to a convergence of paths and took one going uphill past Upper Strinesdale Reservoir, which I caught glimpses of through the trees. About halfway up chiffchaffs took over from willow warblers. 

At the crossroads 

I emerged from the trees at a crossroads of sorts and was thoroughly rattled at by a mistle thrush in the tree at the centre. Dead ahead I think the path becomes Green Lane with roads radiating out from The Roebuck. A path to the right eventually joins Holgate Street. And the path to the left follows the Medlock up the valley to Turf Pit Road. I decided I'd go this way and get a bus to Oldham from Sholver.

The mistle thrush escorted me on my way and handed my supervision on to a pied wagtail as I set off on the path between the trees above Upper Strinesdale Reservoir and the pasture land above. The wagtail sat on the wall and watched me pass by then settled back to rummaging about in the wayside. I ducked instinctively every time a swallow sailed over the wall and rose inches above my head. 

Walking up to the river

The singing blackbirds, blackcaps, chiffchaffs and woodpigeons of the woods gave way to whitethroats, willow warblers, goldfinches and wrens in the rowan and heather scrub of the riverside. I crossed the bridge by a drover's ford, both only necessary to stop the bank becoming a muddy quagmire, and walked up the path heading North. 

The ford across the river

Looking upstream

The river became hidden by trees and bushes in contrast to the open pastures surrounding the little valley. Jackdaws and carrion crows bustled about then exploded into a fury as they chased off a sparrowhawk. The sparrowhawk put up a flock of a couple of dozen lesser black-backs foraging on a freshly manured field by the lane. They quickly settled back down again — any one of them would be a fair match for a sparrowhawk — but they were skittish and rose up again as I passed by.

Starlings and house sparrows commuted between the houses on Turf Pit Lane and the fields. Swallows buzzed round, greenfinches and goldfinches bustled about in field margins, somewhere a couple of cock pheasants were gearing up for a fight. Blackbirds and blackcaps sang in the trees and somewhere in the rank grass at the top of the opposite bank a grasshopper warbler was reeling its song. It's been a week for surprises and it's only Tuesday. All the places I've been expecting to hear a grasshopper warbler, not a sausage, yet here on an unlikely hillside… Birdwatching wouldn't be fun if it was always predictable.

The view from the bus stop
Stockport's getting some filthy weather. 

I didn't need to walk into Sholver. The path brought me close to the bus stops for the 356 and the next bus was the one to Ashton-under-Lyne due in five minutes. It would have been rude not to. While I waited I looked over the rolling landscape and marvelled that some dirty great glacier had gouged out this wide u-shaped valley and left the tiny River Medlock to carve into it just a little more.

Woolston

Juvenile grey heron, Woolston Brook 

It was a game of two halves. The morning continued the heavy rain of the night before and had a cold wind to add to the misery. The wind lingered past lunchtime but the clouds rolled away and by mid-afternoon it was a sunny Summer's day. I decided I'd have a walk down to Woolston Eyes to see how the nesting Mediterranean gulls were getting on — the reports are that they have chicks — and see if I have any luck spotting any young black-necked grebes.

Woolston Brook 

I got the train to Padgate and walked down to Woolston Brook. Blackbirds, blackcaps, wrens and robins sang in gardens and the hedgerows by the brook. The wind eased and I took my coat off as I walked along the brook. A chiffchaff joined the songscape, as did greenfinches, dunnocks and woodpigeons. A song thrush scuttling along the path had too many worms in its beak to venture a song. Blue tits marshalled youngsters through the trees like the Bash Street Kids on a school trip. Halfway along a young heron, all dark and grey, was picked out from hiding by the sun shining through the reeds.

The New Cut

The songscape was sparse along the New Cut Trail, for the most part just the occasional chiffchaff, woodpigeon or wren, the songbirds were busy gathering food for hungry mouths or herding unruly youngsters through the undergrowth. Dunnocks and blackbirds reluctantly made way for passersby, flying up into the trees on the cut if the passersby had four legs each. Song thrushes were a bit more cautious, the robins so cautious I was a long way down the trail before I heard or saw one. The warming sun brought out the butterflies, a few speckled woods and large whites skittered over the reeds in the stretch by Grey Mist. My first black-tailed skimmer of the year hawked low over a patch of borage sown behind one of the gardens by the trail. 

Ladybird larvae eating aphids
I think these are harlequin ladybirds, there were a lot of 13-, 14- and 15-spot ladybirds about.

The calls of black-headed gulls heralded the approach to the end of the cut at Woolston Weir. Just before I got there I heard an unfamiliar gull call and looked up to see a Mediterranean gull, a second calendar year bird, float over the treetops. I shouldn't have been so surprised, if there's a pair nesting on Woolston Eyes it's not unreasonable to find others nearby.

Tufted ducks

The river was high and fast after a weekend of heavy rains. A crowd of tufted ducks dozed on the river upstream of the weir and a gadwall quickly disappeared into the cover of the bank. Mallards fussed about by the bridge over the gates. As I crossed over I was escorted by a cob mute swan whose pen was on a nest in the reeds on the other side.

Woolston Weir 

The walk up and along the bank by No.2 Bed was accompanied by peacock butterflies and a thin songscape of blackcaps, chiffchaffs, Cetti's warblers and song thrushes. Black-headed gulls flew about, calling loudly whenever a lesser black-back cruised by. The views of the river were now largely obscured by a lush growth of bracken and Himalayan balsams. Every so often I'd see a few tufted ducks or a great crested grebe. Most of the time I'd just see a lush growth of bracken and Himalayan balsams.

Walking over to No.3 Bed

I was so busy worrying about fiddling with the padlock on the gate on the bridge and dropping my keys in the river that I walked past the path to the bridge, only realising I'd overshot when I got to the car park. Which shows how useful irrational anxieties are. The padlock opened first go and I was across the bridge. For once there weren't any ducks at all lurking on the river on this bend.

Blackbirds and blackcaps were doing the bulk of the singing on the other site with backing vocals from wrens, chiffchaffs and dunnocks. As I got to the top of the bank a buzzard flew over from No.2 Bed and headed westwards. Oddly, this didn't cause a clamour from the black-headed gulls nesting on this bed. Unlike the great black-back that passed by as I was settling into the Sybil Hogg Hide.

From the Sybil Hogg Hide 

A crowd of gadwalls littered one of the pools by the hide. Canada geese, coots and greylags cruised about, the greylags heard more than seen. There was a lot of kerfuffle in the distance as the black-headed gulls saw off a lesser black-back. Closer to hand a male marsh harrier rose out of the reeds and quickly flew over the river.

Blue-tailed damselfly 

The bracken and brambles by the hide swarmed with blue damselflies. There were yet more along the path. Most were common blue damselflies, they swarmed about the bracken tops. Blue-tailed damselflies flitted about the path verges with their rather fluttering flight. A few azure damselflies were mixed in with the common blue damselflies, I could see that they were different but it was only when I caught them at rest I was confident of the identification.

Azure damselfly

Common blue damselfly

I'd managed to pick out the azure damselflies — well, the male ones anyway — from the swarms but there were a few individuals that looked different again. I wasn't sure if it was just that they were freshly emerged and still not in their mature colours or if there was something else I was seeing but not registering. Luckily a couple stayed still long enough for me to take photos to check out when I got home. I had a surprise. I've often thought I'd have no chance identifying variable damselflies but it wasn't much of an issue because they're very uncommon in Northwest England so it wasn't like I'd be likely to bump into in one. Well, I was wrong. 

Variable damselfly
The wine goblet-shaped black mark at the top of the abdomen is the easiest identifying feature.

Blue tits, goldfinches and long-tailed tits fidgeted about in the trees and bushes along the path. As the path led into the meadows whitethroats churred from the brambles or jumped up into hawthorn bushes to watch me on my way. There weren't a lot of butterflies about, just a handful of red admirals. After an encouraging start it's being another bad early Summer for butterflies.

A map of No.3 Bed

From the John Morgan Hide 
The nesting rafts are on the right.

I went straight to the John Morgan Hide to see what was about. A couple of lapwings flew about, it looked like they'd finished their breeding season, I couldn't see any evidence of any youngsters. Most of the black-headed gulls were nesting on the rafts in the pool though one pair had a nest on the go in front of the hide.

Black-headed gulls 

Canada geese, gadwalls, shelducks and pochard

Canada geese, gadwalls, a few mallards and shelducks loafed and dozed. Tufted ducks and pochards pottered about or drifted on the water. Here and there a great crested grebe cruised by the reed margins. A dozen swifts hawked low over the reeds, I couldn't see any hirundines. Aside from the black-headed gull colony, a big aside admittedly, it was all rather quiet. 

The grass on the little islands was high enough to nearly hide Canada geese, the gulls on nests were small patches of white showing through. The rafts further out were carpeted in gulls. They were too far away to be able to see any youngsters though it looked like parents were feeding something at a couple of the nests. The Mediterranean gull nest was largely hidden from view from where I was sitting. I was relying on memory as to where it was and had just decided I'd got it dead wrong when I was proved right as the pair switched over and the sitting bird got up to stretch its legs and have a quick wash.

Black-headed gulls, Canada geese and Mediterranean gull (left)
(Heavily cropped photo)

Black-necked grebe 

The black-necked grebes were mostly distant and hugged the reed margins. A couple had youngsters in tow. One pair and their youngster were closer to hand but kept the reeds between them and the hide.

Black-necked grebe and chick

I decided that the cuckoo I was hearing was wishful thinking but it was very insistent and flew behind the hide and called for a good five minutes, which I concluded was convincing evidence it was real.

Walking back to the bridge

As I wandered back one of the whitethroats sang from the air before settling into a hawthorn bush. Walking down to the bridge I bumped into a family party walking up. "Is the cuckoo about?" I was asked. "Yes, it's calling now," I replied. The Cetti's warbler belting out a song by the path obligingly took a break and the cuckoo could be heard from the meadow. We parted and I walked down to struggle with the padlock on the gate and thence back onto the path by the Ship Canal.

Google Maps always tells me I'm going to take ten minutes longer to get to the bus stop at Latchford Locks than it does but better safe than sorry. I bustled by singing greenfinches, Cetti's warblers and chiffchaffs. Blackbirds, song thrushes and a chaffinch sang in the trees. I was expecting the ducks flying in out of the sun to be mallards but they were shovelers, a reminder not to make assumptions.

I had ten minutes to wait for the 5a which took me into Partington and five for the 255 back to Urmston whence I walked home. The noisy part of the breeding season is definitely over but there's still plenty about to be seen.

Home thoughts

Spadgling

The blackbird and the robin started singing simultaneously at ten to four, as if on some prearranged cue. Why any of us were awake at that time of the morning is a question for the ages.

I've been noticed

The spadgers and the blue tits are doing a good job of demolishing the suet blocks, and a better job of making the squirrels feel unwelcome at the feeder. They're a lot more careful about the magpies, and not without reason.

It occurred to me that I'm taking it on trust there's a resident blackcap, I've not actually seen it since the beginning of May. For all I know it may be a dunnock with a tape recorder.

Over the road a substantial tonnage of woodpigeons has been grazing the turf. The peak count for the week has been eighty-four birds, it's not often less than fifty birds if the kids aren't using the field.

Stretford Meadows

Whitethroat

There have been times this week when the back garden has resembled a crèche. The blue tits, great tits and spadgers park the youngsters in the rowan tree and Pyracantha bush to fend for themselves for a bit, either catching their own insects or dropping down to the feeder and having a go at the suet blocks. After half an hour or so the parents check in, there's a bit of fussing about and the family moves on as a unit to reappear later when the parents want a rest. The first batch of young goldfinches arrived today. Ordinarily I'd have feeders full of sunflower seeds for them but the advice from all the bird charities is to not do so this year to try to curb the spread trichomonosis. They'll have to make do with dandelions and nipplewort gone to seed this Summer.

I decided I'd go orchid-hunting on Stretford Meadows. In part because I didn't want to miss them like I did the cuckoo pints in Cob Kiln Wood, in part because if I was specifically looking for orchids there'd probably be more birds about than usual. And so it came to pass.

(A quick confession here: I find the marsh orchids baffling, there's lots of variation and they hybridise like billy-o so my identifications are tentative. Having said that, there's no excuse for my misidentifying southern marsh orchids and thinking they were early purple orchids the other day. I've gone back and rectified the error in the blog post.)

Stretford Meadows 

A grey, gloomy and heavy sort of afternoon kept hinting at rain. The trees at the end of Newcroft Road were seething with birdsong. Even the house sparrows joined in. Blackbirds, dunnocks and wrens provided the bulk of the chorus with support from blackcaps and chiffchaffs. For once the robins were silent. Out on the meadows every substantial bramble patch and many of the hawthorn bushes had a singing whitethroat. Goldfinches and greenfinches gamboled about when they weren't singing from saplings, song thrushes duelled from young oak trees, reed buntings from stands of great willowherb, chiffchaffs and blackbirds from the trees by the cricket ground and dunnocks from the bits of willow scrub at the edges. Woodpigeons and magpies clattered about, parakeets screeched from the treetops, jackdaws and carrions crows flew overhead, a couple of swallows zipped by, a heron flew low across the corner by the stables, a couple of mallards low over the cricket pitch. It was the busiest I've seen here for ages.

Marsh thistle

Common vetch

Southern marsh orchid

And so I looked for orchids. The Southern marsh orchids were plentiful, though mostly poking through in the depths of grasses, willowherbs or goldenrod. Here and there I found what I think are early marsh orchids, the concrete cap on the municipal tip underneath all this dampish earth would probably provide the right conditions. Then there were a lot that were best described as "almost certainly Southern marsh orchids" with variations in markings and shapes of the lower lips of the flowers. Bafflement abounded.

?Southern marsh orchid

?Early marsh orchid

Southern marsh orchid

I went looking for twayblade up top, I've found them there a couple of times. Its probably a bit early but I thought this might be a good way of bumping into a singing lesser whitethroat. I had no luck in either case.

Incoming rain

A glance to the East saw a band of filthy weather heading this way, I decided not to walk headlong into it on my way into the Mersey Valley. There are plenty enough paths up top to be able to avoid retracing my footsteps on my way back to Newcroft Road. I bumped into more greenfinches, song thrushes and whitethroats. 

At this point I consoled myself that we can't have all this green without some rain.

The teeming rain, accompanied by bright sun and dramatic lighting effects, hit a hundred yards away from the car park. I'm not sure if the great spotted woodpecker in the trees was objecting violently to me or the rain. Rather than walking home in it I got the bus into Urmston, did a shop and got the train home.