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| Mandarin duck |
For some reason I was having a low energy day and couldn't be much bothered so I headed off to Etherow Country Park to take pictures of mandarin ducks on a gloomy afternoon. There were plenty of them about, the drakes rigged out in full breeding plumage, but they weren't keen on having their photos taken today.
There were a few dozen black-headed gulls on the lake with the Canada geese, mallards and mute swans, which I'm taking as a positive given how low their numbers have been generally. Coots looked thin on the ground but there were plenty of moorhens about and a dozen tufted ducks cruised aimlessly about the lake.
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| River Etherow |
The river was in full spate so I wrote off any chances of seeing a dipper about. And I was dead wrong, there were just enough large rocks poking up above the water by the bridge for one to feed from though it had a torrid time of it with the undertow between rocks and a couple of times I thought it was heading off to Marple before it bobbed back up again ten yards upstream.
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| Dipper |
A buzzard was calling from somewhere in Ernocroft Wood but I couldn't see it. The carrion crows, which are usually reliable for pinpointing buzzards, let me down today.
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| Keg Wood |
I had half hours' ramble round Keg Wood before my knee asked for time off for good behaviour. It was fairly quiet, all the titmice were bedding down for the night in the hedges round the cottage by the weir. Great spotted woodpeckers and jays objected to my passing by, wrens and robins sang ownership of Winter territories and flocks of woodpigeons and jackdaws flew overhead.
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| Keg Wood |
I was at the bus stop waiting for the 384 to Stockport when I noticed a couple of fieldfares flying overhead past the jackdaws going to roost in the trees behind Compstall.
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| Etherow Country Park |
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