Chorlton

Coot in aggressive posture, Chorlton Water Park

It had been a damp morning so I decided I'd take advantage of the weather and go and have a walk over to Chorlton Water Park.

The garden had been full of birdsong all morning. I've come to the conclusion the blackcap's planning on stopping, he's certainly putting a lot of energy into setting his stall out.

• Blackbird 2
• Blackcap 1
• Blue Tit 1
• Collared Dove 1
• Goldfinch 1
• Great Tit 2
• House Sparrow 10
• Robin 2
• Starling 5
• Woodpigeon 3

It was back to business as usual on the school playing field, though oddly rookless again. Not for the first time it struck me that I don't know where the nearest rookery is. There are odd single nests here and there, including one about a hundred yards down the railway line, but I don't know where the main action is.

I'd walked past the station when I bumped into a goldcrest singing in one of the trees by the road. Magpies were flying round with sticks and woodpigeons were swooping round in display flights. Definitely a touch of Spring in the air. The pigeons in Stretford town centre were back up to numbers, though not on their favourite roof. The pigeons in Chorlton town centre, on the other hand, sat on their favoured rooftop in a long, regularly spaced line along the skyline.

Chorlton Water Park

It had become a sunny afternoon by the time I got to Chorlton Water Park and I was beginning to think I'd made a dreadful mistake and would hit the crowds again. I needn't have worried, it wasn't busy at all, just like any pre-lockdown weekday in fact.

Pochard, Chorlton Water Park

A pair of nuthatches were feeding on the bird table in the car park, a couple of dozen house sparrows bounced around in the hedges and a song thrush sang from one of the trees by the houses. Walking down to the lake two or three pairs of blue tits were busy feeding in the birch trees. Most of the usual suspects were out on the lake but there were fewer mallards and tufties than usual, no gadwalls at all, and the only gulls were black-headed. I managed to add pochard to the year list, a drake preening by the island at the Eastern end of the lake with a pair of goldeneye. The Canada geese were gathering on the island at the Barlow Tip end of the lake but I don't think they were settling down for nesting yet. 

Mute swan, Chorlton Water Park

Ring-necked parakeet, Chorlton Water Park

There were a lot of blue tits in the alders and birch trees along the path, mostly paired up with occasional singletons calling loudly to attract attention, but not as loudly as the coal tit on the golf course boundary. Loudest of the lot was a ring-necked parakeet feeding on hawthorn buds at head height at the corner of the lake.

Barlow Tip

More Spring action on Barlow Tip, with blackcap, song thrush, goldcrest and chaffinch all in song. It all went quiet as a kestrel flew overhead and over the river to Sale Golf Course. Almost the moment it had gone three dunnocks started singing from the tops of gorse bushes on either side of the path.

I walked along the river towards Jackson's Boat. It had become a lovely Spring afternoon and the paths were getting busier. The hedgerows were full of birds, including two family parties of long-tailed tits, but the only birds on the river were grey wagtails: a pair at the usual place near the little sluice and a first-Winter, probably female, near the tram bridge. Frustratingly, I thought I caught a snatch of reed bunting song from the golf course but I couldn't see where the bird was and it didn't resume singing. A buzzard lazily floated by on the thermals and eventually disappeared over the golf course. It was only when I was nearing the tram bridge that a pair of mallards came in to land on the water.

I toyed with the idea of nipping over and having a traipse round Sale Water Park but looking at the throngs going over the bridge at Jackson's Boat I thought better of it, calling it quits and walking through Hardy Farm into Chorlton and thence home. It was good to see a few singing greenfinches in the scrub on Hardy Farm.