Local patch

Juvenile dunnock

I had a post-Test Match stroll round the local patch. Lostock Park had been busy on a sunny Sunday afternoon so there wasn't much about. I expected more of the same in the old cornfields and I turned out to be a bit wrong.

Large groups of black-headed gulls soared high overhead, some intent on picking off flying ants, most drifting over towards the water treatment works along the Ship Canal. Odd lesser black-backs drifted alongside the black-headed gulls.

Greenfinch

A couple of song thrushes had a competition to see who could be the loudest. The usual chiffchaffs sang continually. In contrast the blackbirds, blackcaps, whitethroats and wrens limited themselves to short, quiet bursts of song just to put the territorial markers down. The dunnocks and robins were literally silent.

Juvenile goldfinch

Family parties of goldfinches flitted between the bushes, a dozen of them settled for an early roost in the shrubs along the old freight rail line. A family of greenfinches joined them, noisily.

A family of blackcaps — a male, two young-looking juveniles and a possible female (it quickly ducked for cover) — picked off flying ants as they landed on the gravel of the railway bed.

The first dragonflies of the month, three brown hawkers, were quartering the stands of rosebay willowherb.

The tally after an hour's mooching around:

• Black-headed Gull 116
• Blackbird 10
• Blackcap 4
• Blue Tit 1
• Carrion Crow 1
• Chiffchaff 2
• Collared Dove 2
• Dunnock 3
• Feral Pigeon 27
• Goldfinch 30
• Greenfinch 5
• House Sparrow 7
• Lesser Black-backed Gull 8
• Magpie 8
• Robin 1
• Song Thrush 3
• Swift 3
• Whitethroat 3
• Woodpigeon 21
• Wren 1