Etherow Country Park

Dipper and grey wagtail, Etherow Country Park

I'd planned on having a wander round Etherow Country Park this weekend then I remembered it was the bank holiday so it would be a good idea to get a visit in today to avoid the annual music festival. I had a couple of things that needed procrastinating about first so it was getting on for teatime before I arrived.

The post-breeding flocks of black-headed gulls are outnumbering the ducks and geese on the lake now. The drakes are coming out eclipse, most of the mallards were largely grey with varying amounts of bottle green mottling on their heads, the mandarins adopting startling ginger wigs and comedy eyebrows (I was going to say they looked like George Robey but I'd be showing my age) with eye-catching electric blue flight feathers destined to be hidden by lots of exotic feathering.

Female mandarin duck, Etherow Country Park

Drake mandarin moulting out of eclipse plumage, Etherow Country Park

Juvenile drake mandarins, Etherow Country Park

I was surprised to see a grey wagtail feeding in the rill by the garden centre. It didn't seem any too bothered by passersby. A family of young coots less than a week old was unexpected, too.

Weir, Etherow Country Park
The big hole halfway up on the right-hand side is where the dippers used to nest before the roof caved in

Up at the weir a white farmyard goose loafed by the bridge in the company of half a dozen mandarins. I looked in vain for any dippers but there were plenty of grey wagtails about.

Juvenile grey wagtail, Etherow Country Park

A common hawker patrolled the garden by the toilets, the only dragonfly of the day.

It was a decidedly muggy day making for uncomfortable walking. So I decided on a stroll through Keg Wood. The going seemed hard work, explained when I checked the weather and found it was 70°F with 85% humidity. For a long while it seemed like the only bird life was going to be the two young herons perched in one of the trees by the river. Eventually I started bumping into young robins, all of them showing flecks of orange in their speckled breasts, and hearing adult robins singing a warning to them to go and find their own territories before they moult fully into adult plumage. A few wrens muttered, a couple of nuthatches sang, chiffchaffs called and great tits made unlikely noises in ivy-covered oak trees.

Keg Wood 

At Sunny Corner I tried and failed to find the buzzard I could hear calling overhead. Ten minutes' sit down in the shelter for a drinks break usually ends up with a few titmice and other small birds flitting about in the trees but today there was nothing whatsoever.

Keg Wood

Keg Wood

I wandered back, bumping into more robins, wrens and great tits along the way. I was reminded of the people who do detailed bird population surveys in deep jungle environments and I had to take my hat off to them.

As I left Keg Wood I glanced up and noticed a crow flying overhead. It wheeled round, spread its tail and croaked to make sure I realised it was a raven.

I had one more look down the river from the weir and was found a dipper surveying the rapids while a couple of grey wagtails foraged amongst the rocks.

Dipper and grey wagtail, Etherow Country Park

Dipper, Etherow Country Park

I carried on down the path along the canal to the car park, tiptoeing my way around dozing mallards and Canada geese and trying not to upset the mandarins loafing by the edges. There were plenty of moorhens about but I was surprised to find one halfway up a tree.

Moorhen, Etherow Country Park

Mulard (mallard x muscovy duck), Etherow Country Park

The last puzzle of the day were half a dozen rather pretty beige ducks with very long tails, rather bigger than the mallards but definitely not any wild species. It took me a while to identify them as "mulards," a cross between a Muscovy duck and a mallard. It was only then I realised I hadn't seen the usual Muscovy ducks at all today.