Flixton

Long-tailed tit, Fly Ash Hill

After yesterday's perambulations I decided on a gentle wander round Flixton this afternoon. I walked down Carrington Lane from the station and popped my head over the parapet of Flixton Bridge in the hopes of seeing a wagtail or perhaps a dabchick on the river. I certainly didn't expect to see a dipper! It's definitely a sign of how clean the river's become these days. I'm pretty sure it was a young bird given the pale fringes to so many of its dark feathers.

Dipper, River Mersey

I'd barely gotten to the entrance onto Fly Ash Hill when I bumped into the first mixed tit flock of the afternoon, a large family of long-tailed tits with six or seven blue tits skittering round the bushes by the makeshift car park.

There's been some tittivating of the place since my last visit. A new path has been drained and laid between here and the railway bridge, which is no bad thing but a bit disorienting. There's also been a bout of tree planting on the steep slope alongside the railway line. I'm probably on my own here but I don't altogether approve of this. If you're landscaping an area that's been ravaged by industry or a century of overgrazing then yes, plant away and the more the merrier. If it's an area that's already established as a natural habitat I don't see the point, given sixty years or so it'll become woodland on its own without anyone giving it the hurry-up.  I'm not convinced that a self-grown bramble patch that will naturally be succeeded by trees is any less carbon-friendly than strimming an area bare, bringing a load of nursery-grown wands on a truck and adding a machined wooden pole support and a manufactured cylinder of rabbit-proofing to each. And I do wish tree planting gangs didn't plant them in regularly-spaced serried rows like municipal garden bedding plants.

Anyway…

Fly Ash Hill

Squadrons of woodpigeons flew overhead, most heading towards the fields by the Ship Canal, a few heading back towards Carrington Road. Three buzzards wheeled overhead. One was a particularly noisy juvenile trying to induce a bit of aerial food-passing from the parent. Given that there was no food to pass the noise went on some time.

Gatekeepers, meadow browns and large whites fluttered round in the long grass and my first small blue of the year was sharing a bunch of ragwort flowers with a couple of honey bees. Good to see some dragonflies about. A few common darters flew low while a common hawker buzzed round at head height. I'll admit to having had to look up the female black-tailed skimmer that patrolled the hawthorn bushes. 

Another mixed tit flock, including great tits and a chiffchaff this time, fossicked around in the willows and poplars by the railway. While I was trying to keep track of them a male bullfinch silently crept into the tree by my side and started feeding on the buds on the twigs just over my head. 

Moorhen, Dutton's Pond

I passed under the railway and had a nosy round Dutton's Pond. It was fairly quiet, the mallards and coots loafing by the side and the moorhens managing not to squabble in the waterlilies. A few more common hawkers patrolled the fringes.

Dutton's Pond

I walked down the path by the railway to Jack's Lane. A mixed tit flock in the willows near Dutton's Pond included blue tits and great tits and a bird which sounded almost but not quite like a willow tit and which actually turned out to be another great tit. I actually found a real willow tit in willow scrub in a ditch at the bottom of the railway embankment. I wouldn't have spotted it had it not been disturbed by a party of great tits that bounced past.

Jack Lane local nature reserve

I walked through Jack Lane nature reserve by the reedbed path. Another buzzard rose from the reedbeds to a chorus of scolding reed warblers. They were as happy to see me there, too: every time I looked round I'd see one of them peering suspiciously at me through the reeds. I could hear a sedge warbler and a water rail but had no luck seeing either. I added a couple of brown hawkers to the day's dragonfly tally.

I carried on down Jack Lane and on to Irlam Road for the bus. I had a bit of shopping to do, the spadgers have cleaned me out completely.