Local patch

Lostock Park
This track's a relic of Old Hall Road which used to carry on to Trafford Hall back when Trafford Park was farms and parkland estate.

It was one of those mornings where you had the option of damp gloom or sunny showers and the one followed the other at hourly intervals. The spadgers set up camp in the back garden again, I'm going to have to start getting fresh supplies in on a weekly basis again. The usual pair of great tits were joined by a couple more birds and today's coal tit was a local female with an olive green wash to her back and the straw yellow starting to show on her flanks. I've mentioned before the non-linear nature of the pecking order out there, it was amusing to see three great tits waiting their turn in a rose bush while the coal tit was pecking house sparrows out of the way on the sunflower feeder by the washhouse.

I had half an hour's lunchtime wander round the park, which proved to be the most productive I've had here for months. It came as a relief to bump into a proper mixed tit flock bouncing its way through the cherry trees by the bowling green.

• Black-headed gull 1
• Blackbird 2
• Blue tit 4
• Carrion crow 3
• Chaffinch 1
• Common gull 1
• Goldfinch 2
• Great tit 5
• Long-tailed tit 10
• Magpie 9
• Mistle thrush 1
• Robin 2
• Starling 1
• Woodpigeon 1
• Wren 1