I remember the days when the River Irwell in Manchester City Centre and Salford owed more to the contents of a chemistry set than Mother Nature. These days it's not uncommon to see cormorants, goosanders and grey wagtails and there's often a few sand martins flitting about.
On the way to visiting friends in Salford I got off the bus at Lower Broughton and had a nosey from Broughton Bridge to see what was about. The most obvious, and noisy, were the big flocks of Canada geese and black-headed gulls. The mallards were a lot quieter; I was surprised to see one duck still sitting on a nest. Three grey wagtails, an adult male and two youngsters, hawked for flies from an upturned shopping trolley on one bank, two cormorants sat on rocks on the other, with a heron a bit further down.
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| Heron, River Irwell, Lower Broughton |
A couple of goosanders quietly made their way upstream.
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| Goosander, River Irwell, Lower Broughton |
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| Goosander, River Irwell, Lower Broughton |
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