Chorlton

Magpie, Jackson's Boat

After yesterday's efforts I decided to have an afternoon's dawdle closer to home, getting the bus into Chorlton then walking down into Ivy Green and thence on to Chorlton Water Park.

Oak tree, Ivy Green 

I've been very conscious that I've not heard or seen any nuthatches or great spotted woodpeckers this month despite doing a few woodland walks so it came as a bit of a relief that the first bird I saw at Ivy Green was a nuthatch singing from the top of a tree. It was definitely autumnal and there was enough leaf fall to give me a fighting chance of spotting the wrens, robins and titmice in the undergrowth. The moorhen in deep cover in the brook was quite a different matter. The parakeets gave me trouble until they flew out over towards Turn Moss. Over in the treetops on the other side of the brook a small flock of redwings mingled with a charm of goldfinches before moving on deeper into Chorlton Ees.

Chorlton Ees 

The beeches and cherries were putting on a good show of Autumn colour in Chorlton Ees. Small flocks of chaffinches and goldfinches bounced around in the canopy, the goldfinches particularly favouring the cones at the top of a stand of spruces. A coal tit had to shout to get my attention while I was trying to pin down a surprisingly elusive great spotted woodpecker. The usual buzzard floated overhead with a pair of carrion crows flying interference.

Jackson's Boat 

Arriving at the riverbank I just managed to catch a male kestrel as it flew down river. Half a dozen mallards loafed by the water and the apple trees by the path were busy with magpies. I forget that magpies eat as much fruit as any blackbird. Half a dozen parakeets were screeching like banshees as they chased each other round Jackson's Boat. It was fairly quiet as I walked up the river, there were plenty of titmice and goldfinches in the hedgerows and mallards on the water but even the jays went about their business collecting and stashing acorns without a lot of fuss.

Barlow Tip 

On a whim I cut into Barlow Tip at the gap in the hedge near the golf course. Autumn and early Winter are the best times for this route, in the Summer it's too densely covered to see much and in late Winter and Spring it's atrociously muddy underfoot. Most of the paths around this end are the kind only known by kids and cats and may require limbo dancing skills at awkward points, nearly all of which involve a permanent mud bath. 

It was only Tuesday so I didn't get to meet the owner

More by luck that judgement I negotiated an easy sequence of paths taking me eventually to the main track used by the environmental inspectors when they're doing their methane testing. The titmice were in family flocks rather than mixed flocks, a flock of fifteen long-tailed tits drifting over a clearing was particularly conspicuous. A bullfinch was feeding in the rowans by the main track and a song thrush shot through the bracken as I passed the bamboo thicket.

Black-headed gulls, Chorlton Water Park

I could hear the black-headed gulls and coots as I walked down to Chorlton Water Park. There were plenty of both on the water together with a lot of mallards and a dozen or so tufted ducks. Mute swans and Canada geese were surprisingly thin in the ground and I could only see one great crested grebe. I was surprised not to see any gadwall. There was a phenomenal racket from the parakeets but most of them were feeding in the hawthorns by the river.

Ring-necked parakeet, Chorlton Water Park

I skirted the margins of Kenworthy Wood, a dozen kids on track bikes had rattled over the bridge as I was crossing it and spent the next twenty minutes making more noise than the parakeets. Mallards loafed on the river while a juvenile dabchick was busy feeding midstream by the bridge and a couple of redhead goosanders drifted down the river. More goldfinches and long-tailed tits bounced about in the trees and great tits called from the hawthorns.

Goosander, River Mersey by Kenworthy Woods

I walked upriver to Princess Parkway then headed off to Southern Cemetery for the bus home. For all that I'd only walked less than five miles it felt like a good afternoon's exercise and I'd managed to see forty-odd species of birds along the way.

Chorlton Water Park