Park life

Common tern, Blackleach Country Park

It was a grey and muggy sort of a day and I wanted an easy Monday of it today so I got the train to Bolton and the 37 bus to Blackleach Country Park for a lunchtime potter about.

Common tern, Blackleach Country Park

Common terns, Blackleach Country Park

Coot chick, Blackleach Country Park

Common tern, Blackleach Country Park

I started with a stroll round the lake. Half a dozen common terns were making themselves known, noisily flying and chasing each other about. It looks like the Canada geese had been using the raft for nesting but the space is vacant for the terns now.

Spring was in the air: coots and geese had youngsters in tow, the mute swans and great crested grebes were nesting, and warblers were singing in the trees, chiffchaffs in the distant trees and blackcaps and a garden warbler by the lakeside. A male grey wagtail struck various poses as it hawked for flies from a couple of sticks by the reedbed.

Grey wagtail, Blackleach Country Park

Grey wagtail, Blackleach Country Park

Nesting mute swan, Blackleach Country Park

Nesting great crested grebes and coot chick, Blackleach Country Park

I'd taken a look at the sand martin nest boxes to see if they were in use but they didn't seem to be. A couple of dozen swallows hawked low over the water but no martins. I was over on the other side of the lake when a mixed crowd of hirundines flew in, blown in with some darker clouds. A few house martins flew about at treetop height while more swallows and a couple of sand martins flew low. While I was watching these half a dozen swifts flew in, not my first of the year as I'd seen a couple flying overhead as the train was going through Trafford Park this morning.

Blackleach Country Park

Usually I walk round the lake then take a turn round the woods then get the bus from Worseley Road. I thought today I'd take a different tack. I considered taking the greenway down to Linnyshaw but the industrial noises from thataway were tremendous, I might have sworn there was a demolition derby going on over there. Instead I took the path over the motorway and along the scruffy footpath into Kearsley.

There was a 22 due when I reached Springfield Road so I waited for that and nipped over to Clifton Country Park.

Oddly there were more birds about in the trees by the railway on Clifton House Road than in the park, including a singing goldcrest.

Clifton Country Park

I had a stroll by the lake which had the usual suspects on the water: black-headed gulls, mute swans, mallards, coots, tufties and Canada geese and a single great crested grebe. A few blackcaps sang in the trees by the waterside and a couple each of song thrushes and wrens belted out tunes in the background.

Part of the way round I dropped down to the path that runs by the river. I scanned the banks as I walked along, expecting more wagtails, hoping for a dipper and finding more black-headed gulls, mallards and a heron.

When I got to the bridge I crossed the river and took the path that runs along the river between the water treatment works and Ringley. 

Black-headed gull, River Ribble, Ringley

Gadwall, River Ribble, Ringley

There were more black-headed gulls feeding on the river with a few mallards. The only wagtail on the river was a male pied wagtail on the shingle bank by the sharp bend. A little further on a couple of redhead goosanders loafed with gulls and mallards. I'd been struck by the absence of gadwalls on the lake, a handful of them were scattered along the river.

Once I'd got into Ringley I walked down for the bus into Farnworth and got the 22 back to the Trafford Centre just as it finally started raining.