Etherow Country Park

Mandarin duck

After yesterday's blue funk and overnight rain I thought I'd go and take some photos of mandarin ducks to try and get my mojo back.

Canada geese, Etherow Country Park 

I got the 384 from Stockport bus station, got off at Compstall and walked over to the car park by the lake. Dozens of black-headed gulls and pigeons lurked around the car park hoping for scraps while Canada geese and mallards mugged passers-by for bread and bird seed. There was only the pair of mute swans on the lake, I hope they've chased off the cygnets rather than their succumbing to the bird flu.

Mandarin duck, Etherow Country Park

There weren't many female mandarins about, all of them paired up. On the other hand there were more than a dozen single drakes hanging about under the trees at the weir end of the canal. I'd got the impression that last year's ducklings were mostly males, it looks like I was right. A squadron of unattached drake mallards, mostly first-Winters cruised about too.

The white goose on her rock by the weir, Etherow Country Park

No luck again with dippers on the river and the only grey wagtail was a flyover upstream of the weir. The white goose was back at her usual station now the river was back to normal levels and she was kept company by a couple of pairs of mandarins.

Keg Wood 

I had half an hour's wander around Keg Wood. Song thrushes, robins, nuthatches and coal tits sang, cormorants sat in trees by the river and blue tits carried moss to their nest hole. I took advantage of the new seat that's appeared at the bottom of the steep dip by the little beck to see what would pass by. Blue tits and great tits formed a small flock with a treecreeper tagging along with them. Blackbirds and woodpigeons clattered about the ivy-covered trees after the last of the berries and a couple of stock doves called from the trees up the hill behind me.

Keg Wood 

There were plenty more titmice with a lot of long-tailed tits on the feeders in the garden by the weir as I walked back and I bumped into a pair of goldcrests in a tree by the bridge over the canal. As I reached the lake the sun finally cut through the gloom for a few minutes before descending back into the clouds behind the hills. It hadn't been a bad couple of hours' walk.

Etherow Country Park