Flixton

Woodpigeons, Wellacre Country Park

The weather continued its gloomy streak. Ordinarily I'd have been tempted to get myself an old man's explorer ticket and have a wander round Leighton Moss but the trains were on strike today. Instead I had an afternoon's dawdle round Wellacre Country Park.

I got the 256 into Flixton and walked into Wellacre Wood. The paths were as muddy as you'd expect this time of year, you'd never think we'd had such a dry February. The wood was busy with great tits, goldfinches and robins. A flock of house sparrows made a racket in the brambles while a couple of parakeets screeched around the treetops. A great spotted woodpecker called from over near the school.

Back to business as usual 

All the while as I walked through the wood I could hear black-headed gulls calling overhead. As I got into the open and started navigating the particularly tricky path to Jack Lane a couple of dozen of them settled in one of the fields. There were dozens more over the sewage works, together with a few herring gulls. The field by the sewage works was almost full of woodpigeons, starlings and pied wagtails. Something caught my eye as one flock of wagtails rose and fell along the rise at the far end of the field. It took a good ten minutes for me to find the bird again and confirm it as my first white wagtail of the year, about a month earlier than I would usually find one anywhere. A grey wagtail passing overhead caused a moment's distraction. A buzzard called as it floated over the railway line, harassed by a couple of carrion crows.

Jack Lane 

The water was high in the nature reserve at Jack Lane but the path was pretty well passable. A pair of goldcrests fussed about in a hawthorn bush, the male spending most of his time displaying to his mate. It's not often you get to see the bright orange stripe in the middle of the crown of a male goldcrest, it's usually covered by butter yellow feathers, when you do it jumps out a mile. A couple of herons were hunting deep in the reedbed and I disturbed a pair of teal that had been lurking on a reed-covered pool by the path.

Drowned willows, Jack Lane 

Dutton's Pond was busy with anglers and only a couple of mallards bothered to emerge from the reeds by the island.

I had a quick wander round Fly Ash Hill. Great tits, blue tits and goldfinches bounced around the trees, robins, dunnocks and reed buntings sang from bushes and crows and parakeets called as they flew overhead. A pair of coal tits rummaged around the gorse bushes by the path and song thrushes and blackbirds did similar in the undergrowth.

Fly Ash Hill 

The river at Flixton Bridge was high and fast and left no space for any waterside birds to forage. I walked down to the bus stop and went into Urmston to get the weekly shop done.

River Mersey, Flixton Bridge