Etherow Country Park

Mandarin ducks

It was a scorchio sort of day and when the thermometer crept up to the high seventies mid-morning I decided against the planned bit of hill walking (it won't be doing it tomorrow either). I set out to Etherow Country Park to redress the balance after the fiasco the other week.

I thought it would be relatively quiet due to the start of the school year but I was dead wrong. Either Stockport has a different start day or there are even more schools falling to bits than I thought. Either way the kids and the parents were no problem at all.

Etherow Country Park 

The first couple of dozen black-headed gulls of Winter congregated with the pigeons, mallards and Canada geese by the car park. 

Wren

The small birds were mostly quiet, a few robins darted about but the blackbirds, house sparrows and goldfinches were positively furtive. Unlike the wrens, which bounced around the vegetation by the path with no regard for people or passing dogs but took great exception to a magpie lurking in one of the oak trees. It wasn't until I got to the beech woods that any great tits and blue tits made themselves known.

Mandarin duck

The drake mandarins were still in eclipse though a couple were starting to sport the long white eyebrows and bangs of breeding plumage. All the mallards were out of eclipse but it was too warm for the drakes to be doing anything very much except doze in the shadows of the bank.

River Etherow 

Not only were there no dippers or grey wagtails on the river the usual white goose wasn't on its station either.

Speckled wood

I wandered into Keg Wood, wondering whether it was a good idea in this weather. The shade was very welcome but the steep dips and rises were knackering. Nuthatches and great spotted woodpeckers called from the tree canopy while coal tits, goldcrests and robins flitted about in the undergrowth. A chiffchaff was the only warbler of the day.

Etherow Country Park 

I had another look at the river on the way back and had no more joy than last time.

It often occurs to me that away from Keg Pool I never see any dragonflies round here so it was good to see a brown hawker patrolling the millpond end of the canal.

It wasn't yet teatime when I got the 384 into Stockport and I toyed with the idea of moving on elsewhere then realised I really was quite hot and weary.