Etherow Country Park

Collared doves waiting for me to replenish the feeders

Given the weather and yesterday's train performance I wasn't up for a day out by rail. Once I'd made sure the feeders in the back garden had something on offer (between the squirrels, sparrows and starlings I'm filling up two or three times a week lately) I decided to get the buses over to Etherow Country Park and get Mandarin duck onto the year list. Plenty of them about in the stream feeding the boating lake, quite a few of them courting couples with lots of head-bobbing and their odd little whistle.

Mandarin ducks, Etherow Country Park

A drake goosander fishing in the stream was a nice surprise. Usually you only see them in the middle of the lake. I suspect it might have been persuaded over here by the men at work over on the far path.

Goosander, Etherow Country Park

The alders along the stream were peppered with goldfinches and siskins. Try as I might (I tried quite hard) I couldn't make any of them into redpolls. The mixed tit flocks included nuthatches and a treecreeper and a couple of bullfinches tagged along for the ride.

Etherow Country Park

I didn't venture long in Keg Wood, just a short walk up to the junction with the path to Keg Pool. The breeze had stiffened considerably and looking at the bits of branches littering the paths and the energetic swaying of the trees I got a bit windy. I would be just my luck to be felled by a bit of beech the one time there weren't any dog walkers around. This stretch was a lot quieter than usual, I think all the small passerines had gone for the shelter of the trees by the boating lake stream.

Walking back I stopped awhile to watch the trees dancing in the wind over at Ernocroft Wood. This being densely planted birches, alders and telegraph pole conifers the whole effect was like a field of corn.