Local patch

Barton Clough

The cat woke me early on in a state of excitement because she could hear geese overhead. I got excited because it wasn't the expected Canada geese, it was a small skein of pink-footed geese, possibly the last stragglers on the way back up to Iceland.

The garden is full of birdsong, but it's devilish hard to see most of the culprits. The male robin's started singing again, the great tits are quietly slipping in and out to the feeders and one of the blue tits makes a noisy performance of coming into the garden. Just the one young house sparrow seen so far, it's only a matter of time before they descend en masse and judging by the sounds in neighbours' eaves there'll be a few young starlings accompanying them.

The leaves have been hiding the nests in the trees along the road. I haven't seen much activity around them so assumed they'd both been abandoned. A dead baby jackdaw at the base of the alder made me look up as I was passing. A pair of jackdaws have taken over the crows' nest this time.

A walk around the local patch was rewarding. Birds singing in the park included four singing blackbirds, two blackcaps, two robins, three wrens and a chaffinch. Songsters in the waste ground included five blackbirds, two chiffchaffs, four blackcaps, two robins and five wrens. I couldn't work out whether there are three or four whitethroat territories, there were certainly four birds jostling round the brambles. While I was trying to make sense of this a buzzard quietly left the copse behind the school and made off towards Trafford Park, one of the carrion crows from the park joining it to escort it out on its way.

As I was leaving the park a ring-necked parakeet flow overhead towards the Trafford Centre. It's only a matter of time before they're local fixtures.