Mersey Valley

Banky Meadow

Yesterday was an excellent day for the trains. I looked at this morning's cancellations and decided not to spoil a good start to the week. I'd put the last of the fat balls out on the feeders and watched them being quickly demolished by the spadgers while a coal tit monopolised the suet block hanging in the rhododendron. I'll have to get some seed in. The sunflower seed is expensive, if it's stocked at all, so the birds will have to make do with peanut kibbles.

Over on the school playing field the usual couple of dozen black-headed gulls loafed or danced for worms in the company of a dozen or so each of jackdaws, rook and woodpigeon. Today's variation on a large gull theme was a herring gull and three lesser black-backs.

It was too nice a day to waste procrastinating about the jobs needing doing round the house and garden and not getting round to any of them so I went for a walk. I had no fixed idea where I was going and drifted into walking over to Cob Kiln Wood for a wander.

Cob Kiln Wood 

It was a still day and it was nice to be able to relax and let my hearing do most of the birdwatching. The past few nights have been quite cool and this has finally triggered some leaf fall, mostly from the ashes, poplars and rowans, which helped visibility a fair bit. The downside was that I was quite often reacting to the sounds of dead leaves falling from the canopy. Robins, wrens and great tits were quite vocal, goldfinches twitted about in the treetops and a pair of bullfinches squeaked mournfully in the clearing. One of the great tits did a very creditable impersonation of a willow tit, spoiling it by adding a chaffinch's "pink" to the end of the low churr. The blue tits, long-tailed tits and chaffinches were fairly quiet, confining themselves to occasional contact calls. There were a lot of blackbirds about, mostly making quiet inroads on the rowan berries. There were a few song thrushes about and unusually they were all dead silent even when I accidentally flushed a couple of them from the side of the path. I had a suspicion that not all the thrush-sized shapes in the rowans were blackbirds but it took a while to confirm there was a dozen redwings in there.

River Mersey

The Mersey was quiet save for a cormorant busily fishing under the weir by the Carrington Spur Road. I crossed over for a wander round Banky Meadow.

Cormorant, River Mersey

The path round Banky Meadow was reassuringly muddy. By the time we get to Christmas I'll be moaning about the mud, at the moment it's a welcome sign of recovery after the hot Summer. There were a few loosely held together mixed tit flocks moving through the trees, mostly blue tits and great tits with a few long-tailed tits. One of the flocks included a couple of goldcrests. Another included an unusually vocal treecreeper. I was struck by the absence of chiffchaffs, the first time this Autumn.

Walking down Banky Lane into Ashton on Mersey I disturbed a roadside buzzard. It silently flew off into the trees by the rugby pitch.

I'd somehow spent three hours pottering about in the Autumn sunshine so I called it a day and walked down for the 280 bus to Altrincham and thence home.