Bridgewater Canal

Juvenile heron, Worsley

I shelved all of today's plans because I didn't feel up to any of them. I needed some exercise, though, so I decided to do the walk down the Bridgewater Canal from Worsley to Boothstown I've been meaning to do all year. It's not so much a walk as a long potter.

I got the 33 bus into Worsley, it terminates at the old court house and it's just a hop and a step (well, a dozen irregular stone steps) down to the canal towpath and headed out of town. A crowd of pigeons lingered round the motorway bridges and a grey wagtail flew down the canal towards the court house.

This length of the canal is thin on waterbirds due to its being opaquely rust brown due to the iron from the coal workings that feed it. Nevertheless a juvenile heron was working the other bank, not with any notable success. There were plenty of woodland birds making furtive noises in the undergrowth — this stretch of the canal runs between Botany Bay Wood and RHS Worsley so there are plenty enough trees to go round. Of course, hearing them is one thing and seeing them another. The jays and magpies were easy enough, as were the flocks of woodpigeons in the elder bushes and hawthorns, the great tits, blue tits and chiffchaffs less so and it took me ages to find the great spotted woodpecker calling from an alder on the opposite bank. Woodpigeons and crows flew over Botany Bay Wood and a buzzard soared low over the treetops and headed towards Winton.

Bridgewater Canal, Worsley 

Bridgewater Canal, Boothstown 

The canal starts to clear on the approach to the Bridgewater Marina in Boothstown, with occasional bits of water weed and the even more occasional moorhen. There was a definite autumnal touch to the weather despite the small tortoiseshell fluttering between the barges. The first eel I've seen in ages that wasn't in some bird's beak broke the water near the bank then snaked off into muddy depths. Another buzzard soared low somewhere over near the scout camp South of the canal.

I decided to carry on and see how far I'd get. More jays, woodpigeons and magpies flew to and fro between the trees, a few dozen jackdaws noisily foraged in a stubble field and a steady trickle of black-headed gulls flew down the canal. 

I'd just passed the bridge for Vicar's Hall Lane when I bumped into a sizeable mixed tit flock in the hedgerow, mostly long-tailed tits and blue tits with a couple of noisy great tits and chiffchaffs fossicking round in the background.

Whitehead Hall Meadow 

Approaching Astley I decided I wasn't going to be carrying much further, let alone getting into Leigh. I'd only walked four miles but it felt further, possibly because I'd started out feeling tired. I took the opportunity to have a wander round Whitehead Hall Meadow, a small nature reserve in Lower Green. It's an old coal spoil tip that was levelled out and left to go wild so there is a mixture of woodland and meadow with a pond — sadly, mostly dry after the hot Summer — in the middle. There's a nice half hour's half walk to be had here, probably longer in Spring when there's fewer leaves and more songsters, and also more chance of catching sight of a willow tit or two. Walking into Lower Green I noticed a crowd of red admirals gamely feeding on the last remaining flowers on a buddleia.

Whitehead Hall Meadow 

I decided to call it quits when I got into Higher Green (my knees had taken objection to the steep humpback bridge over the canal) and got the 129 back into Boothstown and thence home. I'll have to make a point of doing the walk from Higher Green to Leigh some other day so that I've joined the two ends together (the Bridgewater Canal becomes the Leeds and Liverpool Canal at St Helens Road in the town centre). The birdwatching along the canal's steady if unspectacular, though you never know your luck if you keep looking, and the walking's good.

Fly agaric, Whitehead Hall Meadow