Chorlton

Ring-necked parakeets
Hardy Farm

Had an afternoon stroll from Hardy Farm down to Chorlton Water Park on a very grey but remarkably mild November day.

I was amused to find the ring-necked parakeets aren't just interested in nesting in telegraph poles, two of them were investigating a security camera mast by the tram lines. Hardy Farm was business as usual otherwise: magpies, jackdaws and carrion crows flitting about, goldfinches on the last of the Michaelmas daisies and a dozen common gulls on the football pitch.

The river was running high and fast so the mallards either kept to the sides or swam sideways across the stream. They were joined near Jackson's Boat by a couple of moorhens, the water was too high for the grey wagtails to be around their usual foraging places. A tit flock foraged in the hawthorns along the path, judging by the to-ing and fro-ing I suspect there were a lot more over on the golf course.

I spent quarter of an hour looking round Barlow Tip, keeping to the metalled path and not seeing anything that wasn't a blackbird, magpie or robin. The paths into the trees were too wet and muddy (even by my standards) to be inviting.

Arriving at Chorlton Water Park I had a chat with a lady who'd been birdwatching on the lake. She'd found a drake wigeon (I bumped into it later) and was pleased about the gadwalls she'd seen. She told me there were some goldeneye on Platt Fields, there'll be more on the local lakes when the weather turns.

There were a couple of hundred black-headed gulls out on the water with a handful of common gulls. Plenty of Canada geese, mallards and coot, a dozen gadwall, a few great crested grebes and, of course, the drake wigeon. A couple of young herons dozed on the islands. I spent a while scanning a flock of fifty-odd goldfinches feeding high up on ash keys in the hopes of finding a siskin or two but it wasn't to be today.

Chorlton Water Park