Stretford

Stretford Meadows

No trains today and I didn't fancy sitting on a Bank Holiday Bus so I had a mid-afternoon wander round Stretford Meadows.

It was fairly quiet save for the couple of trail bikes. I was hoping to finally bump into my first lesser whitethroat of the year but had no luck. I half-heard a possible one in one of the regular brambles but it was drowned out by blackbirds, wrens and chiffchaffs and kept quiet during lulls in the proceedings so I'll have to wait a bit longer.

Plenty of blackcaps and chiffchaffs in the trees but the whitethroats were quieter than usual out in the open. I think at least four of the big hawthorn bushes have been spoken for by them.

The open spaces were quiet all round, just a few jackdaws and magpies. Even the wrens fossicking round in the nettles were quiet.

Early purple orchid

The first orchids were flowering in the rough, wet patches of grass near the paths. I think they were all early purple orchids, ranging in colour from dark mauve to deep purple.  I'll be a lot less confident with my identifications when the various spotted orchids get going. Quite a lot of lesser stitchwort about, too, a nice little flower that always reminds me of gypsy grass.

A buzzard floated over towards the river and a pair of ravens flew North for a change, heading towards Trafford Park. There weren't many woodpigeons kicking about: just a couple of flyovers and a pair watching the cricket.

Walking along the paths through the trees towards Kickety Brook was a bit busier. The blackbirds, wrens and chiffchaffs were pretty much constant, goldfinches twittered about in groups and there were occasional blasts from a couple of song thrushes. Bullfinches and robins were seen but not heard and family parties of great tits, blue tits and long-tailed tits were unusually self-effacing.

I negotiated the velodrome that was the path along Kickety Brook only as far as Chester Road. If that stretch was that bad I wasn't for carrying on onto the Mersey Valley.