Merseyside bumper bundle

Greylag geese and goslings, Lunt Meadows

Northern had a mare of a day with its trains today, which sort of turned to my advantage at the start of my day out. The intention had been to get the twenty-past ten train into Manchester, get an old man's explorer ticket then go over to Merseyside for a wander round Crosby Marina and Seaforth Nature Reserve to look for passing wagtails and perhaps then go over to Lunt Meadows for a nosy round before coming home. As it was, the train to Liverpool from Humphrey Park was running fifty-five minutes late so I got that and arrived at Waterloo about forty minutes earlier than planned, which I took as a good omen.

A medley of herring gulls of different ages, Crosby Marine Lake

The bank holiday fun fair had been set up by the boating lake by Crosby Marine Lake. Aside from pinching a lot of space it didn't seem to bother the birds much, I expect they're so used to this area being busy with people a tent with a band playing a medley of Marty Wilde hits doesn't faze them any. It being a bank holiday weekend the weather was grey and cool, with the wind having an edge to it.

Nearly all the gulls on the boating lake were subadult herring gulls, the adults being busy elsewhere. A handful of lesser black-backs and black-headed gulls flew over. Most of the ducks and geese were elsewhere, too, with just a dozen mallards and a few Canada geese and tufted ducks. The usual herd of mute swans were all down at the shallow end by the dunes demanding food with menaces from passersby, leaving plenty of space for the pair of black swans to swan about looking elegant.

Out on the lake most of the buoys and rafts had herring gulls sat on them. A couple of common terns sat on one of the buoys in mid-water with a reassuringly dark arctic tern which made the identification pretty straightforward. More common terns flew overhead with a few maybe arctic terns ("commic terns") and pairs of Sandwich terns.

Small flocks of house sparrows and linnets commuted to and fro between clumps of sea buckthorn while skylarks tried, and mostly failed, to make themselves heard over the band.

It was high tide and the sand largely populated by children and dogs so there were only a few carrion crows and pigeons on the beach. Sandwich terns and common terns went out on fishing sorties and a couple of swallows flew in from Birkenhead.

Linnet, Seaforth Nature Reserve

Looking through the fence at Seaforth Nature Reserve there were more spadgers and linnets in the sea buckthorns here, accompanied by greenfinches and reed buntings. A hundred or more common terns were making a racket accompanied by rather a lot of black-headed gulls while a couple of hundred oystercatchers roosted on the banks and islands of the main pool.

I scanned the rabbit-trimmed grass for wagtails with not a lot of luck, just the one male pied wagtail. I've already got yellow wagtails on my year list but can always stand to see more of them; I'll have to try my luck elsewhere for white wagtails. Fifty or so shelducks were roosting on the grass so I had to take care not to upset them as I walked along the fence.

There were a few wheatears on the grass, nearly all of them females. A large wheatear on the dune by the marine lake had the long-legged, long-winged and very upright look of a Greenland wheatear, with the broad black tail band of that subspecies.

Greenland wheatear, Crosby Marine Lake

Greenland wheatear, Crosby Marine Lake

Sandwich terns, Crosby Marine Lake

A quick wander round the tiny bit of wet woodland by the sailing club added two surprises to the day's tally: a singing Cetti's warbler and a great spotted woodpecker. Chiffchaffs, willow warblers and whitethroats were expected treats.

I checked the bus timetables. I'd just missed the 133 that would take me to Lunt and the 47 that would take me to the bottom of Long Lane for a walk up to Lunt so I got a 53 to Great Crosby and picked up the 133 there.

Getting off the bus at Lunt I walked through Roughley's Wood which was full of the songs of blackcaps, chiffchaffs, willow warblers and song thrushes. A Cetti's warbler sang from the rank vegetation in one of the ditches. Coming out into the open by Lunt Meadows there were more whitethroats and something else coming from the tall grasses in one of the fields. It took five minutes before its song coincided with a lull in the songs of the other warblers and a song thrush. As usual I tried in vain to see the bird but at least I'd heard my first grasshopper warbler of the year.

Lunt Meadows

It's not often I want to heave a brick at small children in nature reserves, they're usually better-behaved than some of the grown-ups, if a bit enthusiastic. Today was an exception with a family that had obviously been taught to self-actualise as they may accompanied by a group of adults who would have been drawn by Posy Simmonds on a day when she had a particularly vicious headache. It took a long while before I'd managed to hang back enough for them to be a good distance ahead of me on the path.

Despite them the greylags, black-headed gulls and mallards by the hides and screens kept their cool and carried on with their business and even the feeding lapwings didn't go off on one. Many of the black-headed gulls were nesting and some of the greylags had goslings with them.

A typical view of a singing reed warbler, Lunt Meadows

A sedge warbler singing in a ditch was easy to identify by song alone even before it showed itself and I could easily tell it apart from the reed warblers I started to hear singing further along the path. It's an odd thing: if I hear a sedge warbler first I can tell the songs apart easily, if I hear a reed warbler first I struggle to do so. It's not something I can explain, it may be an infirmity of age.

A dozen or so avocets were setting out their stalls for nesting on the smaller pool away from the main body of nesting black-headed gulls.

I'd just missed the 133 buses heading either way to Kirkby or Waterloo so I walked down Long Lane to get the 47 to Crossens. I'd had a couple of good short walks with very productive birdwatching but it was still barely teatime and I needed a bit of exercise so a stroll along the bund behind Crossens Inner Marsh to Marshside Road was an attractive proposition.

As I started down Marine Drive it started raining. Luckily it was only light and fitful but it added to the gloom of the day and I wondered if I was doing the right thing. Stubbornness prevailed and I joined the path onto the bund, apologising to a couple of pairs of mallard I disturbed in the process.

Crossens Inner Marsh looked very quiet without the Winter crowds of wigeon, teal and waders. There were still a few pairs of teal about and half a dozen black-tailed godwits squabbled by one of the pools but the marsh was largely given over to pairs of Canada geese and lapwings and a group of a couple of dozen black-headed gulls loafing by the pool near the water treatment works. A few avocets and redshanks fed on the small pools and half a dozen ruffs rummaged about in the mud. Three pink-footed geese grazed on a patch of grass, a flock of a couple of hundred flew over the Outer Marsh.

Avocet, Crossens Inner Marsh

Although there weren't many ruffs they were all males and no two looked alike. The first one I encountered was a very striking white bird.

Ruff, Crossens Inner Marsh
A high-status white male

Ruff, Crossens Inner Marsh
A ginger and black male well into getting his ruff

Ruff with black-headed gull, Crossens Inner Marsh
A black male still waiting for his ruff.

Both ringed plovers and little ringed plovers were on the marsh but nowhere near each other to make for snap identification. It's hard to get a sense of scale in an open landscape like this so I couldn't rely on the size difference alone. The ringed plover's having a white wing bar in flight is a comfort when you're still not sure of a distant bird.

Greylags and Canada geese littered the grass on Marshside with oystercatchers and lapwings being remarkably inconspicuous in comparison. There were a few redshanks about, with black-tailed godwits and avocets feeding in the pools. Starlings, spadgers and linnets fed on the marsh near the bund and a steady flow of swallows and house martins fed overhead.

It being teatime I had a long wait ahead of me for the next bus from the bottom of Marshside Road so I wandered down to Sandgrounders to try my luck. The black-winged stilt, broad-billed sandpiper and curlew sandpiper of last week had been and gone but you never know what might have come in. The answer seemed to be: not much new. The black-headed gulls were on their nests and the usual gadwall, teal and shovelers were dabbling about. A few sand martins fed low over the water. I was just reminding myself that I'd have felt this was actually a pretty good haul if I'd come here first when I noticed my first common sandpiper of the year bobbing its way along the bank.

I got the 44 back into Southport and didn't have long to wait for the Manchester train. We startled a roe deer just outside Bescar Lane and it skipped across the field in an ungainly fashion. A couple of hares glowered at the train from the field by the water treatment works at Parbold. The train was cancelled at Wigan Wallgate. Luckily, I noticed there was a train to Victoria in ten minutes' time from Wigan Northwestern so I rushed over for that, the alternative being to wait half an hour at Wallgate for one to Victoria. I'd hoped that one going straight to Oxford Road from Northwestern might be available but it was cancelled. As it was, I struck dead lucky as the train to Victoria before the one I'd noticed was running late so I caught that. But couldn't change at Salford Crescent for the train to Deansgate because that was cancelled and the next one forty minutes later would have me waiting fifty minutes for my train home. So I got to Victoria and eventually got the bus home, arriving to find a cat sitting on the hall mat in full What Time Do You Call This.

But I didn't care: it had been a damned good day's birdwatching.

Mosses

Whimbrel, Little Woolden Moss

The weather being grey and cool, but dry, I decided on a wander across Chat Moss as a corrective to the temptation to go barging around chasing rare Spring passage migrants. I got the 100 bus from the Trafford Centre to the stop on Merlin Road and walked along Cutnook Lane over the motorway and onto Chat Moss.

I always think the horse paddocks by the motorway should be good for wagtails and swallows but they never are. At least today there were small flocks of woodpigeons and starlings so it wasn't a completely barren scan round.

The chiffchaffs and blackcaps in the trees by the motorway gave way to willow warblers and whitethroats in the birch scrub beyond the fishery. I decided to follow the path North past Twelve Yards Road and have a bit of an explore. This whole area was heaving with willow warblers, which came as a relief because over the past few years I seem to have been hearing fewer and fewer of them. Song thrushes, wrens and robins added to the soundscape with a few blackbirds and blackcaps providing punctuation marks.

Willow warbler, Chat Moss

Birch scrub screened most of the small pools. A few pairs of mallards, coots and black-headed gulls loafed about but didn't look to be nesting. Turning the corner onto a path running parallel to Twelve Yards Road I found a little path taking me to the side of a pool where, as well as mallards and black-headed gulls, a couple of pairs of lapwings were holding a territory and teal, redshanks and a heron fed in the shallows.

The scrub opened up a bit from here and there were equal numbers of singing whitethroats, blackcaps and willow warblers, the blackcaps favouring dense clumps of birch saplings and the whitethroats the brambles and nettles in between. A flock of swallows flying in at head height heralded a cloud of midges and Saint Whatsit's flies.

Whitethroat, Chat Moss

I eventually rejoined Twelve Yards Road, the fields being busy with woodpigeons and stock doves with pairs of lapwings either being remarkably inconspicuous or noisily conspicuous depending on how close any carrion crows or rooks passed by. Remarkably, given how it's only a few weeks since they flocked here in their hundreds, there were only two singing chaffinches.

I had a chat with a birdwatcher who was cycling over to Little Woolden Moss. He said he'd managed to see a hobby and half a dozen whimbrel yesterday. We both agreed that given how cool and grey it was today there wasn't much likelihood of any dragonflies being about to tempt any hobbies. I didn't hold out a lot of hope for whimbrel either: just like little gulls, common terns and ring ouzels I seem to be a day early or late for these when I've visited anywhere this Spring. Still, half a dozen's pretty good going and it's nice to know they're about.

Marsh harrier passing by, Little Woolden Moss

I bumped into him a bit later on the reserve. We'd neither of us seen much besides Canada geese, mallards, lapwings and swallows out on the water. Weight-for-weight there were more willow warblers than that singing in the trees. He'd decided to sit still in the hopes that the local marsh harrier would put in an appearance, he'd had stonking views of it earlier in the week. I wished him luck and left him to it so's not to put the jinx on him. I had a bit of a wander then sat down where the old hide used to be for a drink. A scan round found a few black-headed gulls and linnets. A movement over to the edge of the reserve caught my eye but at first I assumed it was one of the model aeroplanes I could hear buzzing round over there. It got closer and I realised it was the marsh harrier. It slowly flew the length of the path over that side and disappeared over the trees towards Moss Road. I hope that chap managed to see it.

Hare's tail cotton grass, Little Woolden Moss

I walked back and then took the path to Mosslands Farm in the hope of seeing a yellow wagtail about there. A chap who'd been fossicking about with a wheelbarrow and dibber let onto me and we had a chat. Turns out he had three trays of white-beaked sedge seedlings that he was planting out in the floating sphagnum moss. It's a very rare plant and one I've not knowingly seen before so I was a bit taken aback to see a wheelbarrow load of it. I'll know to keep an eye out for it in future. We both took a minute to admire the sea of hare's tail cotton grass that's making parts of the reserve look like a snowscape at the moment.

Hare's tail cotton grass, Little Woolden Moss

Walking down the path to the farm I kept a close eye on the barley field in the hopes I might be lucky with wagtails, having seen none at all on the reserve, not even one of the local pied wagtails. Skylarks rose and sang and pairs of lapwings made sure nothing was looking anywhere near where their chicks might be. Then I noticed a brown shape in the middle of the field. So I got me a whimbrel after all.

Whimbrel, Little Woolden Moss

Whimbrel, Little Woolden Moss

Standing by the bridge over the drain by the field I had one last scan round on the reserve. I'd just resolved a "What on earth's that over there?" into a mudlarking reed bunting when a flash of yellow caught the corner of my eye. I had to shift around a bit to see where it had got to but eventually I found the bird and my first yellow wagtail of the year was a male Channel wagtail (one parent a yellow wagtail, one a blue-headed wagtail). It didn't look like the one I've seen here before, it seemed to have a bit more yellow about its throat. It disappeared behind a bund and while I was trying to find it again I found a straightforward female yellow wagtail.

Brown hare, Little Woolden Moss

I walked along the path through the barley fields. It was too cold for butterflies but they'll soon be littering this area in their hundreds. I spotted another brown shape in the next field along, this time a brown hare.

The walk through the farm found me a pied wagtail with a beak full of insects on one of the barns and a couple of curlews a few fields away near the railway line. A pair of grey wagtails collecting food for their young on Glaze Brook completed the set for today.

Glaze Brook

A small flock of sand martins fed low over one of the sheep fields by the brook, confirming that whatever today's weather had to say for itself Spring was on the way. I had ten minutes to wait for the 19 bus to Leigh which gave me ten minutes for the 126 back to the Trafford Centre.

Martin Mere

Mediterranean gulls, Martin Mere

It was all go at Humphrey Park Station this morning. The usual crowd of spadgers were about, one family chattering at the bottom of the steamroller's garden, the other under the Warrington-bound platform. A greenfinch sang from one of the sycamores, the first I've heard here for years, and a goldcrest sang just above my head as I waited for the train. The blackcap, which I could see was a blackcap, threw me a bit by chucking in a few scratchy variables in the manner of a garden warbler before going back to its "proper" song.

For all that the magpies at Trafford Park Station built so many nests I don't think any of them are occupied. The pair of Canada geese that had been nesting by the canal under the platform at Pomona look to have abandoned it, I'm not surprised as there's a lot of disturbance there. The pair that had nested on the canal next to the bottom of Deansgate have three goslings in tow despite the disturbance.

Chiffchaff, New Lane

I got the train to New Lane, changing at Wigan, for a lunchtime stroll down to Martin Mere. The birdwatching from the train was very quiet, a combination of Winter flocks splitting up and most of the trackside trees being in enough leaf to get in the way, so it was particularly nice to see a pair of grey partridges just outside Hoscar Station.

By New Lane Station

I got off at New Lane and walked down the path alongside the railway. There were a lot of fidgeting and rustling in the hawthorn hedges, most of which was house sparrows. A couple of chiffchaffs showed well, not unduly bothered by my being around, and whitethroats sang from the tops of the apple trees on the other side of the track, a legacy of the time when it was easy to throw your apple cores out of the train window.

Whitethroat, New Lane

It was too warm to linger by the water treatment works, just long enough to confirm the hirundines were house martins, there were three oystercatchers on the filtration beds and all the high-flying gulls catching midges were black-headed gulls. Moving on quickly through the midge clouds a call told me I was wrong and I was just able to catch the Mediterranean gull before it flew out of sight. As I approached the railway crossing I noticed that the flock of stock doves in the field was down to two dozen birds, which is still pretty impressive.

There had been a lot of butterflies along the path, mostly orange tips and green-veined whites taking advantage of the oilseed rape in the set-aside and the abandoned field of cabbages. There were even more as I joined the path around Martin Mere's reedbed walk, with the whites being joined by dozens of speckled woods and peacocks the length of the hawthorn hedgerows.

Orange tip, Martin Mere

Marsh harrier, Martin Mere

Green-veined whites, Martin Mere

A pair of marsh harriers sky-danced over the reedbeds. It's a funny thing: I generally get better views of the harriers from outside the reserve than inside.

We're full into the warbler season. For most of the length of the path I had reed warblers singing from the reeds to my left and willow warblers from the trees to my right, with chiffchaffs, blackcaps, whitethroats and a couple of Cetti's warblers providing a bit of variety. I've definitely lost my ear for sedge warblers this past couple of years, the sites where I could reliably get my ear in without any interference from reed warblers have either been tree-planted or strimmed bare. Thus it was I almost missed one singing in a ditch until it struck a couple of blackbird notes then went haring off into some shrill improvisation before returning to its scratchy rolling reel.

Black-headed gulls, Martin Mere

At Martin Mere I went straight to the Discovery Hide and looked out over the mere. Nearly every island and raft was covered in nesting black-headed gulls. Most nests were evenly spaced out just beyond pecking distance but prime spots were more densely packed and a lot more fractious.

The Winter wildfowl had mostly moved on, no whoopers or pintails, just two pink-feet over on the far bank and one wigeon: a corpse on the bank. There were a few gadwalls and mallards by the hide, half a dozen shovelers by the far bank and most of the geese were greylags, some with goslings. The only waders I could see were a few lapwings chasing crows over the fields, a couple of oystercatchers and half a dozen avocets feeding with the shovelers.

Avocet, Martin Mere

Avocets, Martin Mere

There were much closer views of avocets from the Hale Hide.

I walked down to the Kingfisher Hide. The tawny owls in the nestbox by the path have three young but you wouldn't know there was anybody in there as you passed by. It was very quiet at the hide, not even anything on the feeders. (I didn't see any tree sparrows anywhere on the reserve today.)

The Ron Barker Hide

It was nap time at the Ron Barker Hide. The shovelers, teal and avocets were distant dozing objects. Black-headed gulls and moorhens fed and bickered closer to the hide. A male marsh harrier made a cameo appearance and was ignored by everything bar a couple of reed buntings.

On the way back I saw the tawny owl for the first time in a couple of years. Or, rather, part of the owl. The scrunched-up sleeping eye of what I presume was the male bird, the rest of it being hidden deep in the ivy on one of the trees at the corner of the path.

There had been reports of three garganeys on the mere today so I went back to the Discovery Hide for another look. No sign of any garganeys but there was a pair of Mediterranean gulls preening on the spit in front of the hide, almost too close for my lens to focus on.

Mediterranean gulls, Martin Mere

After a much-needed cup of tea in the company of swallows returning to their nests I walked down to Burscough Bridge for the train home. The swallows had returned to the barn at the corner of Curlew Lane and twittered from the telephone wires. Flocks of goldfinches fed on roadside dandelions and hares skittered around in the barley fields. I bumped into the only tree sparrow of the day on the corner of Crabtree Lane and there was just one singing corn bunting at the stables. 

The view from Red Cat Lane

A pair of buzzards rose and soared overhead as I approached town, buzzards had been a notable omission from the day's tally.

Elton Reservoir

Whinchat, Withins Reservoir

There had been a passage of little gulls over the weekend, with half a dozen of them on Elton Reservoir yesterday which I assumed was a guarantee they wouldn't be there today: this time of year little gulls on passage are definitely passing by. I wasn't wrong but I still had a very productive walk round.

I'd got the train to Bolton then the 471 to Bury, getting off at the Methodist church for a change and walking down Kingston Close to the greenway to Bury. I walked down a little and followed the path that runs alongside the little brook that empties into the reservoir by the car park. The bushes were full of singing chiffchaffs, great tits and wrens while robins, blue tits and spadgers quietly fed in the undergrowth.

Elton Reservoir

The water's still low on the reservoir and the paths are bone dry and concrete hard. There were perhaps three dozen black-headed gulls out on the water, trying hard to sound like more. Most of them were in a raft by the sailing club. Further out there were half a dozen each of herring gulls and lesser black-backs, dotted about in ones and twos. A couple of dozen mallards were all in pairs, as were a similar number of Canada geese, but there was just the one tufted duck to be seen and just half a dozen coot. A dozen swallows fed low over mid-water, the clouds of midges being visible from the shore.

Willow warbler, Elton Reservoir

The gulley, reduced almost to a shallow drain, was thick with warblers. Half a dozen willow warblers sang from the willows, appropriately enough, a couple of chiffchaffs and blackcaps sang from the depths of hawthorns and a couple of whitethroats sang from the hawthorn hedge beside the field to the North. Blue tits, great tits, wrens and robins made up the numbers with a few blackbirds and a couple of singing reed buntings.

By the gulley at Elton Reservoir

A couple of great crested grebes cruised around the mouth of the creek but didn't appear to be a pair.

By Elton Reservoir, adding to my portfolio of "There was a warbler there a moment ago" photos

A pair of little ringed plovers beachcombed along the wader point with a couple of pied wagtails. It was lovely to see them close enough to be able to tell the pair of plovers apart, the female having a browner, nearly broken, ring across her breast.

Female little ringed plover, Elton Reservoir

Male little ringed plover, Elton Reservoir

Pied wagtail, Elton Reservoir

There was a lot of grass strimming going on on the South shore of the reservoir so I carried on walking round and joined the path to Withins Reservoir. I stopped awhile to scan the fields here, this time of year there's a good chance of finding a wheatear or two. There were blackbirds, jackdaws and lapwings and a pair of robins the male of which flew down every so often to offer its mate a bit of food, but no wheatears.

There was, however, a rather nice whinchat smack in the middle of the "wheatear" field on the corner.

Whinchat, Withins Reservoir

Whinchat, Withins Reservoir

There's not a lot of cover about here unless you're three foot tall and look like a fencepost so I was cautious about getting a photo. I needn't have worried, it spotted me and came over to have a look. For many birds humans are just another big clumsy animal that disturbs insects as they tramp about.

There wasn't much on Withins Reservoir save a couple of Canada geese and a pair of great crested grebes.

Pond by the path to Starling Way

I walked back and past the stables, which were already noisy with swallows, and walked up the footpath up to the new housing estate on Starling Way for the bus into Bury and a circuitous route home.

Etherow Country Park

Mandarin, Etherow Country Park

I'd had a long lie-in — not because I was still feeling the aches from Thursday's tramping, I'd managed to manoeuvre the cat into letting me have half the bed and I wanted to savour the advantage — so I decided to do a couple of errands then go over to Etherow Country Park mid-afternoon to say hello to the mandarin ducks and see how Keg Wood was for warblers.

It was a bright, windy day and whenever the sun went behind a cloud it felt like the temperature dropped ten degrees. I'd timed my arrival well: the car park was half-empty and the visitor centre cafe was crammed so the paths were fairly quiet.

Unpaired drake mandarins were scattered all about the park, a couple even joining the mallards and geese by the visitor centre. I saw half a dozen pairs throughout the entire visit, mostly flying about the higher reaches of the little canal and a pair on the river. The rest of the females were obviously busy. I know there are a hell of a lot of trees in the woods but I still marvel that there are enough holes big enough for so many mandarin duck nests.

A couple of pairs of mallards had small ducklings. I was struck by how few nesting coots there are this year, possibly because the storms removed a lot of cover and washed out a lot of the large debris that serves as nest platforms.

A couple of chiffchaffs and blackcaps sang down near the visitor centre, another chiffchaff and a willow warbler sang near the weir.

I looked in vain for dippers on the river. The roof has caved in on their old nest site on the weir. The stone roof had cracked and started leaking last year, it's now split in two and knocked the surrounding stones out in the process. They'll have found somewhere a lot less observable. 

Mandarin, Etherow Country Park

I'm trying to do more photos of birds sitting within their landscape, helped quite a bit by so many of them choosing to keep their distance.

Jay, Keg Wood

I had a very brief nosy in Ernocroft Wood where robins, blackbirds and a blackcap sang and carrion crows and woodpigeons clattered about the treetops.

The entrance to Keg Wood was noisy with robins, blackbirds and chiffchaffs. It got quieter further in though there were still plenty of birds about, mostly too busy foraging for hungry mouths to make a lot of noise about it. Nuthatches, goldfinches and jays were kicking about, the jays being unusually conspicuous but silent. This time of year jays are usually invisible screams in the greenery.

Keg Wood

Most of the warblers were chiffchaffs, half a dozen blackcaps battled it out in the hawthorns on the way to the warden's lodge and a willow warbler sang by one of the clearings.

I stopped and had a sit down in the bus shelter effort at Sunny Corner for a drink. A couple of pairs of blue tits and great tits came down to see if I was putting anything out on the bird table and left in disgust when I didn't, not before making sure I felt guilty about my delinquency. I noticed there were more nest boxes about, including a triangular communal one that seemed designed for starlings.

Bluebells, Keg Wood

I walked baclk, enjoying the sight and smell of the bluebells. A few of the riverside trees had fallen where the storms had undermined the banks, opening up a view of the river as it snakes round Keg Pool.

Mandarins, Etherow Country Park

I had another scan of the river by the weir and found a pair of mandarins and a grey wagtail. Hope springs eternal, though, so I kept looking all the way back down to the visitor centre.

River Etherow

Etherow Country Park, Ernocroft Wood on  the right. The river's down the steep bank between the path and the wood.