Home and away

Tufted ducks, Chorlton Water Park

A redwing joined the blackbirds in the rowan tree this lunchtime, another harbinger of Winter. Every Autumn I'm struck by an ID feature I always under appreciate: the clean, white underparts. Song thrushes are rusty, mistle thrushes have a cold, lemon yellow wash and both have spots well down the abdomen but redwings are clean white from breast to tail.

Barton Clough

Had a wander round my local patch just after lunchtime and phenomenally quiet it was, too:

• Black-headed Gull 3 overhead
• Blackbird 3
• Carrion Crow 2
• Chiffchaff 1
• Dunnock 1
• Feral Pigeon 18 overhead
• Goldfinch 1
• Great Tit 1
• Lesser Black-backed Gull 2 overhead
• Magpie 7
• Woodpigeon 4
• Wren 2

So I bobbed over to Chorlton Water Park for a wander to see if I had any more luck before the scheduled rainfall. There were plenty of birds on the lake: many dozens of coots, mallards and black-headed gulls, plenty of tufted ducks, gadwall and Canada geese, a family of mute swans and singles of cormorant and heron. Overhead there was a lot of toing and froing as woodpigeons, carrion crows and ring-necked parakeets had a last wheel round before going to roost.

For a change I walked down the river towards Kenworthy Woods in the sporadic rain. The river was still in spate and moving too fast for much else other than a couple of mallards. A grey wagtail flew by and carried on down towards the bridge where there was a bit more exposed ground by the banks. A couple of rowan trees at the edge of the wood were thick with blackbirds, song thrushes and magpies, together with the second of today's redwings. Half a dozen parakeets screamed around the hawthorns then moved in to the depths of the wood to roost.

River Mersey and Kenworthy Woods

I got to the bridge where Princess Parkway crosses and decided to call it quits. I walked down to Southern Cemetery and got the bus home.