Mersey Valley

Kestrel, Urmston

I really couldn't be bothered today, I had a handful of possible birdwatching trips mapped out, it was a lovely late Autumn day and I really couldn't be bothered.

Stretford Meadows
This is the part of the Transpennine Trail

It got to lunchtime so I dragged myself out for a walk over to Stretford Meadows. Somebody had put pallets down over the beginning of the path at the Newcroft Road end but the path had defeated them. There's a limit to the amount of mud I want to play with this week so I stuck to the velodrome and walked round the edges. 

Buzzard, Stretford Meadows

The usual buzzard flew down from the electricity pylon by the motorway and was promptly chased back by the male kestrel. The kestrel returned back to its tree and was immediately pestered by a carrion crow that had come over to see what all the fuss was about. The kestrel stood a couple of minutes of this and flew off into the trees by the cricket pitch where it was joined by its mate.

Carrion crow and kestrel, Stretford Meadows

I crossed the motorway and walked along Ousel Brook into the Kickety Brook Nature reserve. Which was very quiet, even the titmice were bobbing round in ones and twos.

Robin, Kickety Brook

Kickety Brook Nature Reserve 

I got myself a cup of tea at the Riverside Café and watched the jackdaws and rooks making a racket around the treetops upriver. It was only mid-afternoon and they were preparing to roost. As were a couple of ring-necked parakeets.

River Mersey 

I walked downriver towards Cob Kiln Wood. A few mallards dabbled at the bottom of the bank and a grey wagtail skittered about in the vegetation flattened by the surges after the recent rains. A kestrel hovered over the river, gave up on it and sat in the tree above my head. We passed the time of day and I carried on.

Cob Kiln Wood 

Cob Kiln Wood was quiet by its lights. Blackbirds foraged in the hawthorn hedges for the last of the berries, a long-tailed tit family bounced around an elder bush and a mistle thrush sang from a tree by the motorway. Redwings and parakeets flew into the woods behind the pylons to roost and the usual pair of stock doves did a flying tour of the paddocks before going to roost in an old oak tree. As I left the wood and walked into Torbay Road it occurred to me that this was the first time in decades I've seen more stock doves than woodpigeons, at which point six woodpigeons clattered out of the tree I was passing.

Cob Kiln Wood