Etherow CP and Keg Woods

Etherow Country Park

The original plan for the day was to bob over to Lunt Meadows to see if the weekend's American golden plover was still about but lousy train services put the block on that so I decided to put my trust in buses and went over to Etherow Country Park and have a wander round Keg Wood.

Probably just as well I did: I hadn't checked my camera battery before I came out and it turned out to be flat. Bad enough missing nice shots of species you see regularly, missing out on something unusual that way would have been heart-breaking. Instead, I can bore people about the lovely photos of mandarin ducks, great spotted woodpeckers, coal tits and nuthatches that got away.

Keg Wood

Walking through the car park I had a surprise when a snipe flew in, tried to find somewhere to land, discovered that the car park was full of pensioners intent on having a nice cup of tea in the café, and flew off again. As always, the mandarin ducks on the little canal were being ridiculously photogenic, especially the juvenile male picking blackberries from a dangling bramble. A sparrowhawk and a buzzard soared high overhead. Walking down to where the river goes over the weir I was hoping there might be a dipper around; no joy but a family of grey wagtails were a good consolation prize.

Keg Wood

Keg Wood was busy with roving mixed flocks of small birds. Nuthatches seem to have had a good year, I counted a dozen all told. A couple of flocks of tits each included over half a dozen coal tits and the flock that came to have a look at me as I sat in one of the bus shelter affairs included a goldcrest, a chiffchaff and a couple of treecreepers. I bumped into three great spotted woodpeckers in different parts of the wood, a male and two females. Jays were very much in evidence, bouncing round the oak trees collecting acorns. 

Despite all the signs of Autumn there were still some signs of lingering Summer, especially a common darter dragonfly quartering the garden of the house in the middle of the wood.