Flixton

Jack Lane

It was a mild and occasionally sunny day so the spadgers took to a more leisurely approach to the bird feeders. I dare say there might have been the same number out there as yesterday but the most I saw at any time was fourteen.

Over on the school playing field the black-headed gulls arrived mob-handed and stayed there all morning. Today's selection of herring gulls was a reminder they're passing visitors rather than Winter residents.

• Black-headed Gull 73
• Blackbird 1
• Common Gull 6
• Feral Pigeon 1
• Herring Gull 3, including: one 3rd-Winter, two 1st-Winter
• Jackdaw 9
• Lesser Black-backed Gull 4 including: two 1st-Winter, one adult, one possible 3rd-Winter
• Magpie 3
• Rook 6
• Starling 10
• Woodpigeon 8

The main paths were the worse for wear…

I bobbed over to Flixton for a wander round Wellacre Country Park. I got the 256 over to Delamere School and walked down the path into the wood. The main paths through Wellacre Wood were the worse for wear after the recent weather so as far as possible I stuck to the paths known only to cats and kids, easy to trace at the moment due to their being the only dry tracts.

Wellacre Wood
(Planting nursery trees in serried ranks isn't a new phenomenon)

There was a small mixed tit flock — great tits, blue tits and chaffinches — and a lot of blackbirds about in the undergrowth. One of the bramble patches was heaving with house sparrows, blackbirds and robins. A small flock of redwings fed on the field by the school in the company of forty-something starlings. Over on the approach to Jack Lane the field by the horse paddocks was full of woodpigeons and pied wagtails again.

Jack Lane

I took a chance and took the path that goes through the Jack Lane reedbed. Much to my surprise it was the dried underfoot I'd been since I got off the bus. A few woodpigeons and blackbirds clattered about after the last of the hawthorn berries, goldfinches twittered about in the alders and a pair of goldcrests foraged in the drowned willows by the path. I was rather hoping for a Winter chiffchaff but my luck wasn't in today.

Jack Lane

Dutton's Pond had the usual selection of woodpigeons, mallards and moorhens. A mixed flock of long-tailed tits and spadgers bounced around in the bushes by the path behind the houses.

Under the railway and onto Fly Ash Hill where I bumped into more robins and blackbirds, more magpies and woodpigeons clattered about in the treetops and a jay quietly came in for an early roost.

River Mersey at Flixton Bridge

The Mersey was running high at Flixton Bridge, we'd had a flood warning last week. I looked in vain for anything foraging on the high banks though there were plenty of woodpigeons in the trees.

Along Flixton Road

I walked down Flixton Road into Carrington, getting the 247 into Altrincham to see what was about on the moss and the farmland as the sun set. Carrion crows, woodpigeons flying in to roost and a few pheasants strutting about in damp fields.