Etherow Country Park

Siskin, Etherow Country Park

I was woken up by the song thrush banging out a tune from the railway embankment. It continued singing for two hours then the blackcap took over for a couple of hours. 

I'm resisting the temptation to hurl around on days out to try and catch up on the year list before we're put back into lockdown. I didn't want to waste a fine day so I bobbed over to Etherow Country Park for a wander.

Mandarin duck, Keg Wood

I was a bit surprised to see a couple of dozen black-headed gulls on the lake, I'd have expected most of them to have moved on to the breeding grounds by now. Canada geese, coots and mallards were nesting and the mandarin ducks were lurking in pairs in dark corners. Or up trees, I tend to forget that mandarin ducks spend a lot of time in trees.

Mandarin duck, Etherow Country Park

Walking down towards the weir I was struck by how many blue tits and chiffchaffs there were about and how few finches, I only saw one chaffinch along this stretch and no goldfinches. A pair of buzzards rose from the trees over the river in Ernocroft Wood and circled and soared their way over the hillsides.

Buzzard, Ernocroft Wood

A passer-by asked me if I'd seen the dipper. "I see it here every day," he told me. "I've had no luck today," I admitted. "No, I've not seen it today," he answered. A pair of grey wagtails fussing around the rubbish at the base of the weir was a consolation prize.

Keg Wood

There was a lot of birdsong along the early stretch of the path into Keg Wood, mostly wrens, chiffchaffs and nuthatches. Blue tits and robins flitted about the trees by the path and woodpigeons clattered about in the treetops. A pair of blackcaps came down and gorged themselves on holly berries, keeping well undercover the while. I spotted a pair of stock doves, it's a constant source of wonder to me that the most gentle looking of our pictures has the most aggressive-sounding song.

 

Wood anemones, Keg Wood

It was only when I got to Sunny Corner that I started to see and hear any chaffinches. I decided to carry on past there and complete the loop past Keg Pool, despite the protestations of my knees, they've been having an easy time if it lately. I regretted it almost immediately: I'd forgotten the short, steep rise as the path takes an Immelmann turn to come at the pool out of the sun. It's worth the effort, though, it's a very pretty stretch of woodland edge when the celandines and wood anemones are in flower and the bluebells are waiting in the wings.

Keg Pool

It was relatively quiet on Keg Pool, just single pairs of Canada geese, mallards and mute swans, a couple of coots' nests on the go and a dabchick hinnying in the reeds. Three mandarin ducks swam by the water's edge: a rather disinterested duck and two suitors, one of whom seemed convinced he was one of a pair. Lots of head-bobbing was going on and instead of their usual wheezy whistle the drakes' calls were somewhere between a cat sneezing and the sound that an almost empty bottle of washing-up liquid makes when you squeeze it. Every so often I'd spot other drakes standing on branches halfway up big trees on sentry go.

Keg Wood, looking towards Keg Pool from the orchard

I passed Keg Pool and my suspicions that I must have taken the wrong path because it was easier going than I remembered were confirmed when I found myself in the orchard. The first and only goldfinches of the visit were chasing each other through the hawthorn bushes. It was an easy walk back to Etherow Country Park, the new road surface does make a difference.

Mallard ducklings having none of their mother's nonsense about flying up the weir

The usual blue tits and great tits were on the feeders in the little garden by the weir, together with a rather smart male siskin, the first I've seen here.

I had another look for dippers on the weir and the river with no luck. A female mallard was trying to persuade her ducklings to fly up the weir with her. As they were only days old, and as each step of the weir is about a yard high, and as the weir is more than twenty four high, the ducklings were having none of it.

River Etherow