Local patch

Barton Clough
I've no idea why they didn't use the freight line for the tram route to the Trafford Centre but I'm glad they didn't.

Of course, now we can't go anywhere the weather's going to be lovely isn't it?

I had an hour's pottering about my local patch. The few gulls that were around were flying high overhead and all the Winter thrushes have left now, leaving behind a pair of mistle thrushes and a couple of pairs of blackbirds (no song thrushes, which is unusual). A pair of chaffinches look to be taking residence which is nice, for some reason they seem to be mainly Winter visitors this side of the railway line. Another harbinger of Spring was the chiffchaff singing from one of last year's territories.

A buzzard soared high overhead and headed off over Davyhulme. I suspect it's one of the ones from the Trafford Centre, there were four of them flying round the bus station last week.

On the way home I nipped to the Co-op in the vain hopes of buying a lettuce (I'll forage in the back garden for dandelion leaves and Winter bittercress, the wild garlic I'm saving for next week's faux minestrone). A chap stopped me by the empty vegetable shelves: "You're the birdwatching man aren't you? Can you identify this bird we saw when we were walking the dog by the canal? We reckon it's a cormorant but me mate says it isn't." It was a cormorant, and in one of the pictures he'd also got a hovering male kestrel in the frame so he left happy.