Stretford

Peregrine, Wharfside

After a couple of days' not doing much except drink too much tea and pretend to do a bit of work in the garden I was struggling to be bothered today. For the third night running I saw in the dawn chorus. The blackbirds and robins sing with the dawn but the song thrush is a late riser and only starts singing at half six. As I started to doze off I thought I heard the cat crying in the garden, which would have been a good trick as she was fast asleep on my foot; it turned out to be a pair of lesser black-backs calling to each other as they passed high overhead. The spadgers were a bit quiet today, unless I was too dozy to pick them up. It's getting harder to see what's about in the garden: all the roses are in full leaf and the leaves on both the rowan and the sycamores on the embankment are at half furl. The spadgers and blue tits are very busy foraging for greenfly, some days I'll only see them when they've called into the feeders for a pit stop or they've come in close to debug the roses and boysenberries.

• Blackbird 2
• Blackcap 1
• Collared Dove 2
• Dunnock 1
• Great Tit 2
• House Sparrow 8
• Jackdaw 2
• Robin 1
• Song Thrush 1
• Woodpigeon 4
• Wren 1

Goldfinch, Barton Clough

I dragged myself out for a wander round the local patch, which was fairly quiet all round. There was just the one pair of blackcaps, feeding amongst the maple flowers by the path, and only the one chiffchaff singing from the back of Lostock Park. It might be a week or so early for whitethroats here but I don't hold much hope for there being more than a couple of pairs this year after someone cleared some of the bramble patches last Winter. On the other hand, goldfinch numbers were looking good, with at least five pairs kicking about.

Lesser black-backs, Salford Docks

I wandered down to Wharfside to see what was on Salford Docks. A couple of chiffchaffs sang at each other from the bushes opposite the Imperial War Museum. Out on the water there were just two black-headed gulls, a huge change from a few weeks ago, and a raft of a couple of dozen lesser black-backs with a couple of herring gulls. The usual herd of mute swans was playing to the gallery over in the Ontario Basin.

Peregrine, Wharfside

I was waiting for the bus home when a peregrine falcon flew over, circled and shot off to scare the pigeons at White City.

Peregrine, Wharfside