Stretford and beyond

Dunnock, Stretford Meadows

The garden is still full of young small birds and they're going through the sunflower seeds like a plague of locusts. I suspect there's a family of wrens out there but I haven't bumped into them yet.

Over on the school playing field the gulls are back this week. They're nearly all adult lesser black-backs, at least a dozen at a time, with a couple of herring gulls and black-headed gulls tagging along. Today there were a couple of third calendar year lesser black-backs, the first subadults I've seen here for a few weeks. The crowd arrives late in the morning and disappear at lunchtime so it's easy to miss it.

I waited until teatime to go for today's stroll so as to miss the worst of the heat and the pollen. The combination of timing and liberally smeared vaseline around my nostrils meant I didn't start sneezing until I was nearly back home.

Stretford Meadows

Stretford Meadows was deceptively quiet when I arrived and I thought it was going to be another one magpie and a whitethroat effort but I turned out to be dead wrong. There was a garden warbler singing from the stables by the garden centre, a couple of blackcaps from the trees by the motorway and a chiffchaff from the willows by the path onto the meadows but none of them seemed to have their heart in it, just a few sporadic bursts. The same could be said of the whitethroats out on the open ground but there was about a dozen of them so the songscape felt a bit more sustained.

Northern (I think) marsh orchid, Stretford Meadows

The meadows were awash with marsh orchids, peppering the landscape with purple spikes, some of them as tall as my knee. I think they're Northern marsh orchids but there were a few smaller, paler specimens that may have been one of the other species, or hybrids, or just smaller, paler Northern marsh orchids.

The carrion crows have done well this year, with four youngsters making a racket as they flew over. No sign of the kestrels but the buzzard was about and being buzzed by jackdaws. Dunnocks skittered about in the bushes with the whitethroats.

Painted lady, Stretford Meadows

Five-spot burnet moth, Stretford Meadows

At last there was a profusion of butterflies. There were lots of ringlets, all newly-emerged with velvety black wings and all so fidgety and fast-moving they were impossible to photograph. There were also a few meadow browns, a couple of small tortoiseshells and two painted ladies were holding territories in patches of nettles by hawthorn bushes. There were also lots of burnet moths about, a mixed blessing because all though they're things of beauty they have no sense of direction and there's no guarantee that if you don't duck they won't fly into you. (No idea why I was identifying them as cinnabar moths, must be the heat getting to the brain.)

I'd got so into looking at the orchids and butterflies that I almost missed the pheasant calling by the cricket pitch. I didn't miss hearing a snatch of lesser whitethroat song from the depths of a clump of great willowherb but I was damned if I could see it.

I walked down along Kickety Brook towards Stretford Ees. Wrens and chiffchaffs sang in the trees by the path. Once I passed under Chester Road the trees got busier, with families of great tits and blue tits bustling about, chiffchaffs, blackcaps, song thrushes and woodpigeons singing, and the squeak of young robins in the undergrowth.

Spot the jay. I didn't until a family of willow tits pointed it out.
By Kickety Brook

Song thrush, by Kickety Brook

Willow tit, by Kickety Brook

At first I thought a loud burst of bad-tempered churring was one of the great tit families but it turned out to be a family of willow tits — a pair and at least one youngster — taking exception to a jay loitering deep undercover. Some great tits came along to see what the fuss was about and joined in with the barracking.

Butterburs, Stretford Ees

I walked through Stretford Ees along the path by the tramlines. A few ring-necked parakeets squawked and rattled in the trees and a couple of reed buntings sang in the tall grass.

Broad Ees Dole, the"teal pool"

There was a swimming competition going on at Sale Water Park so all the mute swans and Canada geese were clustered over by the pavilion out of the way with a couple of mallards and a great crested grebe. Most of the rest of the mallards were in deep cover under the willow roots on Broad Ees Dole together with a couple of herons and a handful of dabchicks. A couple of pairs of coots were on their second broods. Despite the swimmers approaching quite close by a reed warbler was singing in the tiny patch of reeds on the lake.

Great tit crowd scene, Sale Water Park

A couple of dozen great tits monopolised the feeders by the cafe despite the best intentions of a squirrel, a few ring-necked parakeets and a few passers-by who stopped too close to watch the fun.

The bridge at Jackson's Boat is still closed. I didn't fancy the walk back, nor yet walking down to Kenworthy Gardens to go over the bridge into Chorlton Water Park so I got the tram into Chorlton and made my way home from there. 

Marsh orchids, Stretford Meadows