Mersey Valley

Heron, Broad Ees Dole

The morning's jobs being done and dusted, I had a cup of tea and set off for a walk, I've been being a bit lazy this week and my knees have been letting me know about it.

Despite its being a mild day for January there was a crowd of gulls on the school playing field: forty-odd black-headed gulls, a few common gulls and a mixed bunch of herring gulls of various ages.

Stretford Meadows

I walked past the allotments and over to Stretford Meadows. It had become a nice early March lunchtime and the hawthorn hedge at the end of Newcroft Road was full of long-tailed tits and great tits. The open meadows were relatively quiet, just a few magpies and reed buntings and the female kestrel, but the trees around the fringes were heaving with birds. There seemed to be a mixed tit flock every twenty yards and plenty of blackbirds, robins and dunnocks. A small charm of goldfinches in the trees by St. Matthews School included a few siskins, there was a noisy flock of siskins a little further down the path. I almost missed the small flock of redwings in the treetops, I only noticed them because I was trying to find where a great spotted woodpecker was calling from.

Stretford Meadows

There was more of the same as I walked along Kickety Brook to Stretford Ees, with the added attraction of a flock of six bullfinches that flew into one of the big hawthorns by the path.

Stretford Ees was very quiet. It's obviously far too mild for stonechats to be Wintering down these parts.

Mallards, Sale Water Park

I carried on over to Sale Water Park where a herd of mute swans was loafing and dozing in the company of a few dozen black-headed gulls and some common gulls. Mallards, coots and a couple of pairs of gadwall fed by the reeds near the path.

Broad Ees Dole

The water was high on Broad Ees Dole. A dozen mallards make noises at passing dogs from the Teal Pool (there was just the one teal on the pool today, over in the reeds in the far side). The island on the main pool was mostly underwater, just enough dry land for a magpie to pick at the bones of a dead gull. A few coots and moorhens picked about on the water and a dabchick hinneyed from somewhere. And just the one heron today. I was just about to leave the hide when a kingfisher shot down the sluice and off into the trees.

There was a couple of cormorants with the crowd of Canada geese and mallards by the boathouse and a few herring gulls with the black-headed gulls. Further on, a raft of a couple of dozen tufted ducks was peppered with coots and gadwalls.

Ring-necked parakeet, Sale Water Park

I got a drink from the café and sat on the bench to see what was coming to the feeders, hoping for a willow tit or two. A couple of ring-necked parakeets had taken residence, jockeying for ownership of the bird table with a couple of squirrels so there'd probably be no chance of a willow tit today. It was interesting to watch the interplay between the parakeets and the squirrels: the parakeets would make a racket as they muscled in, they'd start feeding then they'd fly off in a panic as one of the squirrels leapt and landed with a thud on the bird table roof. This gave the crowd of great tits and blue tits the opportunity to jump in and at the sunflower feeders and fat balls until they'd be scattered by the returning parakeets. 

Bird feeding station, with parakeets, Sale Water Park

I was particularly surprised by just how effectively the long-tailed tits got their fair share: their usual strategy of pretending you're not there ruthlessly deployed by a dozen long-tailed tits can barge a ring-necked parakeet off a fat feeder. I watched them do the trick three times, each time surprised by how well it worked.

I noticed it had started raining, which explained why my cup of Oxo didn't seem to be getting any lower. I gave it another ten minutes then decided I wasn't going to add willow tit to the year list today. I wandered off through Sale Ees to Jackson's Boat where the parakeets were noisily preparing for roost and my first grey wagtail of the year was feeding by the river.

Hardy Farm

The first hundred or so of the jackdaws were coming into roost as I walked over Hardy Farm and a fair racket they were making of it.