Boggart Hole Clough

Boggart Hole Clough 

I'd been for lunch with a friend in Rochdale, where the only birds on the river were the Canada geese and two white farm geese and where the peregrines still haven't returned to the Town Hall clock tower after the building work. It was pouring down so I decided not to have a toddle round Hollingworth Lake and got on the 17 back to Manchester.

Canada geese on the River Roch, Rochdale town centre 

As we passed through Middleton and into Blackley the weather cleared so, on a whim, I got off the bus just after Charlestown Road by the entrance to Boggart Hole Clough. I've been past it on buses hundreds of times but never stopped and had a look, pretty much like most of the open spaces in Northern Manchester. So it was time I did.

Boggart Hole Clough 

The Rochdale Road end is a wooded area centred on a small and narrow ravine cut by Boggart Hole Brook, dropping down into open parkland with wooded slopes. The song thrushes, nuthatches and great spotted woodpeckers were seen but not heard, the wrens and blackbirds more accomodating. Woodpigeons, magpies and carrions crows foraged on an old crown green bowling pitch. A singing blackcap and a coal tit were hard work to find, oddly the coal tit was the only titmouse I bumped into until I was over the other side of the park and the blackcap the only warbler of the visit.

I've no idea what was going on with the bark on this sycamore by the brook. The trunk and branches had odd bulges here and there as well.

There was a bit of light rain, heaviest whenever the sun shone, but pleasant enough to walk in as it seemed to cut the oppressive humidity of the day. I spent an hour wandering round to get a rough feel of the place. The birdwatching was typical of urban parkland this time of year. Pairs of bullfinches and greenfinches called as they flew overhead between wooded banks. I finally bumped into families of blue tit and great tit as I got near to the lake.

The lake at Boggart Hole Clough 

The lake was very quiet, I hope not as a consequence of avian flu. A couple Canada geese at one end and a moorhen at the other aside all else was families of coots and not much over a dozen of them.

I had a bit more of a wander without adding anything to my tally then walked up to Charleston Road for the bus back to Manchester.

It turned out to be a nice walk and it's reminded me that I should have a look round some of the other areas in the Irk Valley.