Flixton

Gorse, Flixton

Another mild and mostly dry day today and a rather leisurely pattern of business in the garden. The spadgers were in and out all morning, never much more than a dozen at a time, and accompanied by the blackcap more often that not. I haven't seen the goldcrests or coal tits for a while, I hope they haven't succumbed to the weather or the local cats. As the cat I live with seems to have decided she's a house cat the local youngsters have started taking liberties so I think I'll buy some lion dung pellets to put them off a bit.

• Black-headed Gull 1 overhead
• Blackbird 1
• Blackcap 1
• Blue Tit 2
• House Sparrow 13
• Jackdaw 1
• Robin 1
• Starling 4
• Woodpigeon 1

There was a Spring vibe on the school playing field with a dozen woodpigeons, a couple of dozen jackdaws and thirty-odd black-headed gulls. Oddly, though, no rooks (in fact, I had a completely rookless day all told). The large gulls were a couple of lesser black-backs (an adult and. first-Winter) and four first-Winter herring gulls.

I decided to head off to Flixton for a walk, it's nearly always a lot less busy than the Stretford and Chorlton lengths of the Mersey Valley. I'd been talking to my sister on the 'phone and I said we seemed to be missing the cold wind they were getting over their way. I should have kept my mouth shout: as I passed Flixton Station and turned the bend on Carrington Road the wind picked up and for the next hour had a definite edge to it.

I had a short wander down Flixton Road to check out the fields on the other side of the river. They were still wet, with big pools of shallow water dotted about. I was hoping for waders but was rewarded by carrion crows, woodpigeons and magpies.

Flixton

Crossing back over I walked down to the end of Carrington Road and onto the open ground south of the railway line (I think this is the area called "Fly Ash Hill" by local birders). A loose mixed tit flock — a pair of great tits and a couple of pairs each of blue and long-tailed tits — bounced round the trees by Carrington Road and a few robins sang from the undergrowth. Out in the open ground there was just a few magpies and half a dozen mallard flew over. Looking over the lagoons the floods had flattened the reeds enough to open up the view and I could actually see the open water. A moorhen disappeared into the reeds, a few black-headed gulls flew overhead towards the water treatment works and a willow tree had a dozen magpies chattering about in it. I walked down the hill and joined the muddy track by the railway. Blue tits, great tits and goldfinches flitted round the drowned willows and a willow tit scolded from the top of a bramble patch.

Dutton's Pond was entirely clear of ice. A couple of Canada geese and a coot loafed in the middle of the pond and half a dozen moorhens were getting frisky in the mild weather. Eight mallards made up the total of waterbirds.

The path between Dutton's Pond and Jack Lane

As I left Dutton's Pond a drake goosander flew overhead towards the river. There were just a couple of magpies and carrion crows in the fields by the railway line. I was secretly amused to watch the antics of a couple of walkers in full gear as they negotiated a huge puddle halfway down the path. I was shown up a chump myself when it was my turn: the floods had washed the path away completely and in parts I was shin-deep in water. Still, it got the mud off my boots. As I was sloshing my way along a terrier trotted past somehow barely getting its feet wet. I will never know how it did that.

I walked around Jack Lane nature reserve. If the good paths were that bad I wasn't taking the path through the reedbeds. A jay upset the blue tits in the willows and a couple of dozen redwings flew out of the trees and straight back in again, churring all the way. No joy finding any reed buntings, they've become this year's bogey bird for some reason.

Down Jack Lane to Town's Gate then down the road to Irlam Locks. Fifty or sixty starlings joined a couple of dozen each of black-headed gulls and magpies on the water treatment works. Three young mute swans, nearly completely moulted into their whites, fed on the Ship Canal. Approaching the locks there was a group of half a dozen tufties — five drakes and a duck — and a lone great crested grebe. A couple of dozen mallard, a few pigeons and forty or so black-headed gulls loafed on the locks themselves.

I struck lucky on the way back, I was nearly home when it started raining.