Etherow Country Park

Mandarin ducks, Etherow Country Park

After yesterday's debacle I thought I'd go over to Etherow Country Park and take photos of mandarin ducks. (Though having reviewed yesterday's records I find I saw fifty-odd species of birds so it wasn't such a debacle as it felt like at the time.)

There were plenty of signs of Spring at home. The coal tits have gone very quiet and only appear for a couple of minutes at a time in the garden. I think they've found an old mouse nest under the railway station platform, I hope I'm wrong because this is a favourite haunt of prowling cats and foxes. The great tits, on the other hand, are being very noisy and the woodpigeons are finishing off the damage to the wooden fence panels caused by the recent storms. Across the road on the school playing field the numbers of gulls have been declining while the woodpigeons are on the increase. Today was the first day without a single gull on there at all. There was a similar pattern as I travelled over to Stockport with just odd stragglers of black-headed gulls and a definite increase in the number of lesser black-backs in the city centre. A second calendar year common gull loafing with a couple of lesser black-backs on a rooftop in Longsight was unexpected.

Over on Etherow Country Park the mandarins were feeling frisky with a lot of billing and cooing accompanied by little whistles and a lot of head bobbing. A few pairs were investigating potential nest sites up in the trees.

Mandarin ducks, Etherow Country Park

Mandarin ducks, Etherow Country Park

Mandarin ducks, Etherow Country Park

Drake mandarin, Etherow Country Park

Mandarin duck, Etherow Country Park

Drake mandarin, Etherow Country Park

There was still a few black-headed gulls about, just a couple of dozen and half of them young birds. 

Etherow Country Park

All of a sudden there are singing chiffchaffs. It's still early days yet so there were only a couple in Etherow Country Park and a handful in Keg Wood. They had plenty of competition from robins, wrens and thrushes and even the blue tits were joining in.

Singing blue tit, Etherow Country Park

A few of the coots and moorhens were starting to build nests by the waterside or were busy renovating last year's models with fresh sticks and bits of vegetation. The pair of grey wagtails on the river by the weir looked as if they were weighing up likely sites. Last year they nested near the canal overflow, which scored highly on inaccessibility to four-legged predators but ran the risk of getting flooded out a couple of times. No sign of dippers today, which was a shame.

Ernocroft Wood

I had a brief nosy in Ernocroft Wood. Robins and woodpigeons were most in evidence with pairs of blue tits flitting about the big larch trees.

Keg Wood

Keg Wood was busy with small birds though most were heard rather than seen. Blue tits and goldcrests were easy enough to see as they fed and sang in the branches just above head height. The goldfinches and siskins in the tops of the larches were more of a challenge. The coal tits, great tits and great spotted woodpeckers in the beeches made a lot of noise without giving many chances of seeing them. 

A buzzard circled low overhead before disappearing over the treetops towards Glossop Road.

Keg Wood, just approaching the brow of one of the rises. There's a steep incline just after that straight line going across from the left-hand bank.

I got to Sunny Corner and sat down for a few minutes to have a drink. The aches and pains in my joints as I walked the dips and rises in the path seem to be psychosomatic, literally the moment I reached any level ground they disappeared and they were a lot harder on the way into the wood than on the way back out. This is encouraging, we'll soon be into peak Spring migration and I'll need to put in a few circuits if I hope to see any passing pied flycatchers this year.

The walk back was a bit quieter though a pair of mistle thrushes made a point of making a damned good rattle as I passed by. I had a other look on the river just in case a dipper had come in, but no joy. No matter, it had been a nice couple of hours' walk and I felt a bit happier about the scheme of things than I did yesterday.

Etherow Country Park