Flixton

Robin, Fly Ash Hill

I thought I'd ease myself into the week with a local toddle within a bus ride away, the wisdom of which became apparent when I saw the local train into Manchester hd been cancelled. So I had an early lunch and got the 256 for an afternoon's dawdle round Wellacre Country Park.

Wellacre Wood was as deceptively quiet as my back garden (where something has eaten a pound of suet pellets in a day and a half). I eventually started finding the starlings feasting on blackberries and the spadgers rummaging about in the brambles for greenfly. The long-tailed tits and blue tits were shadows in the undergrowth, the great spotted woodpecker a call in the treetops and the robins and wrens just bad-tempered scoldings from deep in the ivies. A great tit took pity and came out in the open long enough for me not to be just not quick enough to get its photo.

The butterflies considerably outnumbered the birds. Most were large whites and gatekeepers, a few commas fed on blackberries and a common blue flitted by the bramble patch. Speckled woods flitted about within the wood, appropriately enough.

Wellacre Country Park 

Out on the fields it was dead quiet: a couple of magpies fossicked around in a far corner. There was a constant stream of woodpigeons flying to and fro overhead. A few spadgers called from the hedgerows on Jack Lane and a couple of swallows flew by.

Jack Lane 

Jack Lane nature reserve was quietly busy: I knew there were birds about by the occasional calls or the sight of some unidentifiable something disappearing behind leaves. A reed warbler sang deep in the reedbed while a couple of sedge warblers sang by the path. A reed bunting practised it's song, making a bit of a start then burbling into subsong.

The small dark object that silently hopped into the reeds may have been anything. While I was trying to find it I spotted a couple of brown hawkers laying eggs in the small pool. It's not often I see brown hawkers slow down enough to see properly. Usually I just see a panatella cigar whizzing past before zigzagging its way across the landscape. Today I got the chance to be reminded that they have green markings on the thorax.

Brown hawker, Jack Lane

Dutton's Pond was full of mallards today, a couple of dozen of them all told. The young moorhens are all full grown now but still pretty noisy.

I walked under the railway through to Fly Ash Hill. Blue tits, chiffchaffs and robins flitted about in the bit of woodland by the houses. There was a great spotted woodpecker in there somewhere but I couldn't see it. The open ground was very quiet of birds, just a few woodpigeons flying overhead. There were lots of meadow browns and peacocks feeding on the knapweeds by the path.

There was nothing on the river by Flixton Bridge. One of the crack willows had split and half the tree had fallen into the river. I rather hoped something might have been perched in there but no luck.

I decided to call it quits, it had been a decent couple of hours' birdwatching and with Arriva buses still being on strike there was no point in setting out for a stroll across Carrington Moss (I'd end up having to carry on walking over to Altrincham to get the tram back to Stretford).