Urmston Meadows

Bullfinch

A nice lunchtime surprise was a pair of bullfinches on the sunflower seed feeder. I don't usually get them in this time of year.

I've evidently been underestimating the local starling population: there were nearly forty adults feeding on the school playing field this morning.

It occurred to me today that it's been a very long time since I last had a walk round Urmston Meadows, twenty-odd years in fact, and there's no good reason as it's no longer a walk than down to Sale Water Park. So I toddled off down for an afternoon stroll. I'd hoped the weather would be putting people off but it cleared up a bit so there were plenty of families out for a walk, luckily not so many as to cause any upset once I'd gone along a bit.

River Mersey, Urmston Meadows

I walked down the lane past Urmston Cemetery then took the path over Old Eea Brook and down to the river. I was unreasonably surprised at how much all the trees have grown over the years and it took me a few minutes to get my bearings. There were good numbers of chaffinches and robins in the trees and a couple of chiffchaffs and a song thrush were singing lustily. A heron floated overhead and five ring-necked parakeets clamoured by over the ash trees.

Walking along a bit, away from the shingle point bar people were using as a play area, the landscape opened up a bit with a light scattering of young willows along the tops of the bank and a grassy area along the path. A couple of whitethroats were disputing a territory in the brambles on the opposite bank. A family of mallards — a pair with six ducklings — bobbed about in the meander just below the bank.

Here and there a willow bough fallen in the river acted as a filter, collecting sundry bits of detritus including an uncommon number of children's footballs. There was obviously more than that as a pair of grey wagtails and a pied wagtail were very busily rooting about in there. There were more pairs of both further along the river. It was sad to see so much Japanese knotweed about but most of it looked like it was struggling either with the weather or, judging by some of the leaves, someone's been sprinkling weedkiller about.

I got to the particularly tight meander that coincides with a dip in the path down to the river and saw my first swifts of the day, shortly followed by my first sand martins of the year (at last!), both hawking over the stretch of the river where a natural weir has formed.

Old Eea Brook

From here the path rises into a patch of woodland which I remembered as hawthorn scrub with ash and willow saplings that linnets used as singing posts. The linnets have moved on, replaced by wrens, robins and blackcaps. A couple of willow warblers sang, appropriately enough, from some willows and I eventually caught sight of and identified my first garden warbler of the year (does the bird have no identifying features? if yes, it's a garden warbler).

I soon got to the lane that runs from the cemetery round to Southgate, I needed to be back by teatime so I decided not to go down that way, instead going back to the cemetery then up the path past the stables and thence into Urmston.

There were plenty of swallows hawking over the paddocks and the hedgerows held blue tits, blackcaps and robins. As I passed the little brook where the path branches I disturbed a great spotted woodpecker.

From Urmston I went home via the allotments on Humphrey Lane and small noisy flocks of house sparrows and goldfinches.