Mersey Valley

Grey wagtail, Jackson's Boat

Either the cat let me sleep in or I was so tired after yesterday's weather that I slept through her jumping on my face demanding breakfast. Either way, I slept through and woke too late for today's plan to take advantage of the sunshine so I decided to stay local.

The spadgers were relatively thin on the ground in the back garden, I suspect I'd missed the early morning rush. It gave the titmice space and time to linger over the fat feeders before the starlings swarmed in. I thought I saw one of the dunnocks rummaging around under one of the blackcurrant bushes, to my astonishment it turned out to be a female siskin. I'll have to remember keep an eye out for siskins in the black alders planted by the roadside across the road. I'll also need to remember that the robin holding a territory by the railway station has tagged a willow warbler descent phrase onto the end of its song, I can see that tripping me up later this month.

I had a walk past the allotments, where the starlings have paired up and the robins are singing furiously at each other, and got the 23 bus to Southern Cemetery then walked down to Chorlton Water Park.

I hadn't even arrived at the car park when the first of today's many pairs of ring-necked parakeets came shrieking past at lamppost height. This became a constant frustration throughout my visit: the angle of the sun was just right to make the birds shine emerald green against a cobalt blue sky and the buggers weren't for being photographed.

Chorlton Water Park

Down on the lake the numbers of black-headed gull and mallards were well down on the Winter average, a sign of Spring. As were the pairs of great crested grebes and the Canada geese lurking furtively in the trees on the islands. The young swans haven't been chased off the lake yet by their parents. Walking round the lake I was struck by how many siskins and long-tailed tits there were feeding on the alder cones, and how few goldfinches there were around generally.

Great crested grebes

Tufted ducks

Siskin

Siskins

Barlow Tip wasn't the quagmire I feared it would be after yesterday's rains. It was busy with singing robins, wrens and song thrushes (and carrion crows, too, I tend to forget that's a song) and the trees were busy with titmice and siskins.

Jackson's Boat

Grey wagtail

The river was in full spate, keeping pairs of Canada geese and mallards close to the bank, but there was still enough exposed ground for the grey wagtails to feed on. A drake goosander flew downstream as I got to Jackson's Boat.

Barrow Brook, Sale Ees

The usual path I take along Barrow Brook through Sale Ees is closed off because a couple of trees were felled by the recent storms. Taking the alternative path past the model aeroplane field reminded me why I take my usual path, I wondered if the danger of quicksand might not be greater than the danger of tripping over birch trees. There was a lot of small bird activity going on around the brook, very little of which was visible from the path I was taking. A few robins and blue tits were obliging but the song thrushes, greenfinches and chaffinches were heard but not seen. A few pairs of mallards cruised along the brook and amongst the flooded trees. I kept hearing the whistle of teals but I couldn't see any.

Blackthorn

Canada geese

Out on Sale Water Park nearly all the mute swans, Canada geese and black-headed gulls were busy mugging a group of pensioners for food. A few rafts of lesser black-backs and tufted ducks floated about and there were upwards of a hundred coots dotted about. For once I couldn't see any gadwall and the only mallards were four white farmyard ducks dabbling in a corner.

Herring gull

A spent a while puzzling over a particularly snouty herring gull in the distance. Its head and beak had suggestions of Caspian gull overtones but the rest of its body and wings just said herring gull, so I concluded that it was just a particularly snouty herring gull.

Sale Water Park

I'd promised myself a cup of tea from the café but given the muddy state of my boots and trouser bottoms I decided a cup of hot Oxo was more appropriate. I spent a while watching the bird feeders. As usual there were plenty of great tits, blue tits and long-tailed tits, a couple of nuthatches bobbed in and out and every so often everything would scatter while a pair of magpies had a go at the bird table. There were five or six dunnocks about but they weren't interested in food. I lingered awhile in the hopes of a willow tit or two turning up but it wasn't to be. After a while I decided to call it a day. A chap came up to me and asked: "Do you think there might be any willow tits round here?" I told him to give it five minutes after I'd left and he'd probably get cracking views of some.