Etherow Country Park

Mandarin duck, Etherow Country Park

It's been a blustery sort of day which meant that despite my filling all the feeders yesterday I was still only seeing half a dozen spadgers making sorties out of the bushes for mealworms. It might have been the same half dozen all the time or a couple of dozen taking turns for all I could tell. 

It's good to finally get raven onto my garden list. Two flew low overhead as I was taking stuff out to the compost bin. They were flying from Trafford Park over towards the Mersey Valley. A third one trailed after them a couple of minutes later.

There was a wintery feel to the gulls on the school playing field with a handful of common gulls joining the usual couple of dozen black-headed gulls. Today's large gulls were four herring gulls: two adults, a second-Winter and a first-Winter.

Beeches, Etherow Country Park

Seeing as how it was a blustery day with the sun going in and out every five minutes and with more cloud cover rolling in I decided to bob over to Etherow Country Park to take photos of mandarin ducks.

Mandarin duck, Etherow Country Park

It was predictably busy when I arrived but not silly so. A kingfisher shooting down the little canal from the trees by the garden centre came as a nice surprise. A bunch of siskins feeding in the alders with the goldfinches were more predictable but still nice to see. The mandarin ducks were out in force. The first-Winter drakes are virtually indistinguishable from the adults now.

Ernocroft Wood

The wind had died down, which allowed a buzzard to slowly glide over Ernocroft Wood and off towards the Glossop road. The wood provided a splendid backdrop as the larches which make up the bulk of the wood have turned gold for Autumn.

Heron, Etherow Country Park

Unsurprisingly, the river was very high, which didn't stop a heron and a grey wagtail feeding in the shallows amongst the rocks. No dipper today though 

River Etherow

A mixed tit flock greeted me at the entrance to Keg Wood. Oddly enough there were no long-tailed tits among them. A couple of treecreepers and a nuthatch made up the numbers while a couple of coal tits came down to make sure I wasn't a troublemaker. There weren't many chaffinches but I've noticed it looks like a bad year for beech mast. I hope there's enough about to keep some bramblings round over Winter.

Keg Wood

I didn't travel far into Keg Wood, my knee was feeling the damp, so I took the high level path back towards the visitor centre. More blue tits and great tits and a flock of jackdaws flew over towards wherever they're roosting beyond the hill. A pair of squirrels scampered round in the leaf litter collecting acorns.

Etherow Country Park

The usual pair of Muscovy ducks were amongst the mallards and coots on the little canal. I often wonder what happens to their youngsters, they grow to full size then on the next visit its back to two again.

I waited for the 384 to Stockport and changed for the bus home in the twilight.