Local patch

Woodpigeon

An hour's walk around the park and the waste ground, mostly dodging dog-walkers. One consequence of the lockdown is that places that would normally be very quiet are heaving with people who would ordinarily be at work or out shopping or a hundred other things and are now, like me, only allowed out for their one piece of daily exercise.

• Blackbird 12, 1 singing
• Blue Tit 11
• Carrion Crow 3
• Chiffchaff 1 singing
• Collared Dove 1
• Cormorant 1 overhead
• Dunnock 2 singing
• Feral Pigeon 43
• Goldfinch 12, 2 singing
• Great Tit 6, 3 singing
• Greenfinch 1 singing
• House Sparrow 8
• Jay 1
• Lesser Black-backed Gull 2 overhead
• Long-tailed Tit 2
• Magpie 15
• Mistle Thrush 3, 1 singing
• Robin 10, 8 singing
• Song Thrush 1
• Starling 3, 1 singing
• Woodpigeon 28
• Wren 6 singing

The bit of waste ground behind Barton Clough School

Just this once I'm showing you how narrow this patch really is. On the left the bed of the old freight line and the engineering works. The dark band running centre right is the concrete fence separating this ground from a strip of land owned by United Utilities.