Stretford

Carrion crow, Kickety Brook

It was a cool day that got progressively sunnier so I decided to go and have a short walk (to be honest, I just wanted to fill a gap in my local coverage and get and hour or so's exercise). Looking at it on the map when I got home I'd done slightly over five miles by accident.

A fairly quiet morning in the garden, even the great tits hadn't turned up by lunchtime. The song thrush is odd: it sings every morning at dawn, occasionally sings in the evening and is dead quiet all day. 

Two of the four buzzards soaring over Stretford Meadows

I'd not been on Stretford Meadows long before I concluded I'd dressed too warmly for what had become a mild, sunny afternoon and had to pack a layer in my camera bag. The trees were lively with great tits, blue tits and goldfinches and the brambles were lively with long-tailed tits. No sign of the usual pair of kestrels but four buzzards soared on the thermals overhead.

Lapwing, Bradley Lane

I crossed over the motorway and took the path down to Bradley Lane. The fields between the lane and the motorway were littered with woodpigeons and jackdaws but by far the most numerous — and most noisy — birds were the carrion crows. Upward of forty carrion crows demonstrated the limitations of the old saw that one crow is a crow and a dozen crows are rooks. The stubble fields between the lane and the river were a lot wetter, one was pretty much one big puddle filled with black-headed gulls and a handful of lapwings.

Kickety Brook and blackthorns

I walked up Chester Road and on the other side of the motorway I dropped down to the path along Kickety Brook to walk through to Stretford Ees. By now it had become pretty busy, particularly busy with cyclists riding two abreast. Consequently it was a lot quiet for wildlife. Stretford Ees was busy, too, this time with rather loud people who seemed to think their dogs were deaf. Much to my surprise a male siskin was taking a drink at the edge of the pool at the end of Kickety Brook.

Stretford Ees

I looked at the crocodiles of walkers along both banks of the river and decided to call it quits for the day, I'd had the intended walk after all.