My local patch

I spent an hour this afternoon pottering round my local patch dodging rain showers. This is one of those bits of "waste ground" you find in odd corners that aren't viable for development. In this case it's roughly ten acres of land which was on the wrong side of a freight line when most of what we used to call "cornfields" were built over for warehouses and metal bashing. Although it's ten acres it wouldn't be worth the expense of putting in the usual services: at it's widest it's about twenty yards wide, at its narrowest less than three and it has a public footpath running down the middle of it.

Back in the sixties when we first moved here the fields supported hares, lapwings and grey partridge but what's left of it these days is a patch of scrub: bramble patches and swathes of rosebay willowherb, golden rod and Michaelmas daisies punctuated by hawthorns, sycamores and hazels.

Barton Clough.
The Lombardy poplars line the public footpath alongside Lostock Park

Barton Clough
The dog walkers' rough path through the willowherbs

The animal life is unspectacular but the importance of patches like this isn't the number or variety, they're oases dotted about the urban development. Having said that, I've seen 55 species of bird here so far including flyovers (these are listed at the end).

In Summer this area supports a few pairs of warblers — whitethroat, blackcap and chiffchaff — together with finches, tits, robins and wrens. There are good numbers of wood pigeons and blackbirds. For some reason chaffinches are only a Winter visitor round here. In Autumn large flocks of goldfinches descend on the thistles and golden rod. Dozens of blackbirds and redwings spend the Winter here and this is the best time to be able to see great spotted woodpeckers in the copse by the school. Once in a while there'll be a nice surprise like a whinchat stopping by to refuel on migration or an overflying yellow-legged gull.

For the past couple of years there's been a resident buzzard, though it's been seen a lot less frequently this year, perhaps because of competition from the pair that have territory over near the Trafford Centre. Or it could be that the workings for the new tram line to the Trafford Centre are providing rich pickings in disturbed small wildlife, which might explain why the local kestrels aren't around so often either. This is also part of the hunting territory for a pair of sparrowhawks which seems to stretch from here down to the River Mersey.

Buzzard, Barton Clough

I'd been worrying about the lack of whitethroats but today there were two pairs and a third singing male. Two pairs bred last year. This very obliging chap is the male of the pair that seem to have taken over the elderberry bushes by the old rail line.

Common whitethroat, Barton Clough

Just the one each of chiffchaff and blackcap singing, which is half the usual strength, but they've been around a while so the others could be busy. A nice surprise was the appearance of a male lesser whitethroat which disappeared into the brambles as soon as it noticed my camera then promptly yelled out a burst of song just to reassure me I hadn't imagined it. No sign of the buzzard or the kestrel today; haven't seen the kestrel for a few weeks but the buzzard drifted high over the other day.

Site List

Black-headed Gull *
Blackbird
Blackcap
Blue Tit
Bullfinch
Buzzard
Carrion Crow
Chaffinch
Chiffchaff
Coal Tit
Collared Dove
Common Gull *
Cormorant *
Dunnock
Feral Pigeon
Fieldfare
Goldcrest
Goldfinch
Great Spotted Woodpecker
Great Tit
Greenfinch
Grey Heron *
Grey Wagtail *
Herring Gull *
House Sparrow
Jackdaw
Jay
Kestrel
Lesser Black-backed Gull *
Lesser Whitethroat
Long-tailed Tit
Magpie
Mediterranean Gull *
Mistle Thrush
Nuthatch
Pied Wagtail
Pink-footed Goose *
Redwing
Robin
Rook
Skylark *
Snipe *
Song Thrush
Sparrowhawk
Starling
Stock Dove *
Swallow *
Swift *
Treecreeper
Whinchat
Whitethroat
Willow Warbler
Woodpigeon
Wren
Yellow-legged Gull *

* Flyover sighting