Salford

Juvenile kestrel, Worsley opposite the RHS garden site

I've been looking at the gaps at my local birdwatching map lately. I haven't explored the area of farmland South of the Bridgewater Canal near Astley and Boothstown at all so I decided a fine, sunny Sunday afternoon would be a good time to make a start on it. The plan was to walk down the canal from Boothstown Marina to Worsley but the Sunday bus connections involved a long wait at the Trafford Centre, so plan B was to walk from Worsley to Boothstown but my bus was late so I missed the connection, so instead I walked from Monton to Worsley and thence to Boothstown.

I got off the bus at Monton Green and walked down Duke's Drive into Broadoak Park. It's a nice walk but being Sunday it was very busy with cyclists, few of whom believed in either pedestrianism or social distancing. The wooded sections of the walk hosted its share of robins, woodpigeons and blackbirds, a couple of mixed tit flocks moved through the undergrowth and jays were busy collecting acorns. Woodpigeons, jackdaws and magpies accompanied the cattle in the big field and a buzzard soared overhead. In the little wooded area at the end of the path, as it approaches Worsley Road, a dozen woodpigeons were feeding on fallen beech nuts and a great spotted woodpecker called from high up in the trees.

I joined the canal towpath at Worsley and carried on under the motorway bridges and on towards Boothstown. There's not much in the way of waterbirds on this stretch of the canal away from the marinas, the iron staining from the old coal workings makes the water an opaque orange, which makes for picturesque photographs but doesn't encourage water plants or fish.

There was a lot of shooting going on over the other side of Botany Bay Wood (I think there's a clay pigeon centre there), each shot brought dozens of woodpigeons over the canal. A tractor ploughing over a field of stubble on the other side of the canal by the new Royal Horticultural Society garden site attracted no birdlife whatsoever which surprised me considerably. Woodpigeons and jackdaws flew over the stubble fields South of the canal but the only bird I could see on the ground was a juvenile kestrel that had just had a wash in a large puddle.

Approaching Boothstown there was another mixed tit flock moving through the hedge margins, including a singing chiffchaff. A couple of jays collected acorns from the trees around the marina.

Oddly enough the highlight of the day was being chakked at by a mistle thrush as I walked past a pub garden on the way to the bus stop. I haven't seen or heard a mistle thrush all month, even the usual pair in the local park have been hiding away.