Mersey Valley

Blackbird, Chorlton Ees

I resisted the temptation to spend a nice Autumn day drinking far too much tea and headed off for a walk around the Mersey Valley. I'd noticed that for some reason I haven't seen any nuthatches or great spotted woodpeckers this month so I thought a long wander round Ivy Green and Chorlton Ees was in order.

Walking past the playing fields on Turn Moss I noticed that although all the noise was coming from a couple of black-headed gulls all the rest of the gulls, a couple of dozen of them, were common gulls. Round these parts common gulls tend to prefer at least a couple of acres of open space to feed on so there's only a handful of playing fields where I'll see them in flocks.

Hawthorn Lane

The carrion crows were singing noisily in the trees at the Turn Moss end of Hawthorn Lane. Elsewhere it was the ring-necked parakeets and robins making the noise while wrens, dunnocks and even magpies quietly went about their business.

Chorlton Ees 

I crossed Chorlton Brook into Chorlton Ees where a parakeet shrieked from the hawthorn bush by the river and robins fossicked by the side of the path. Blackbirds fussed about in the undergrowth, the hawthorns and rowans having been stripped bare. There were still plenty of berries on some of the spindle trees. 

Spindle berries 

I kept hearing a great spotted woodpecker but it took an age to find it deep in a larch tree. It took even longer to find the first mixed tit flock, by one of the newly restored woodland pools. I noticed the goldcrests in the elderberry bushes first, then a couple of treecreepers flitting between tree trunks. The great tits were feeding in the leaf litter, flitting up onto low branches to have a look round every so often before dropping back down. All the while I'd been hearing long-tailed tits but not seeing them. Then I looked up. A couple of dozen of them were feeding high up in the canopy of the ash trees.

Chorlton Ees 

Oddly enough there weren't any blue tits in that flock. I thought the same was true of the next flock I bumped into. The great tits and long-tailed tits were working the hawthorns along the path with a single goldcrest. It wasn't until I got to the end of the path that I could see the half a dozen blue tits working the line of brambles between the hawthorn bushes and the hay meadow.

I joined the path by the river, which was running fast and high. Mallards hugged the banks while herons and cormorants flew by without landing. Half a dozen parakeets screeched out of Chorlton Ees and over to Jackson's Boat.

Grey wagtail, Jackson's Boat

Jackson's Boat 

A grey wagtail flitted about the riverbank by the bridge at Jackson's Boat. Woodpigeons and magpies foraged on the tops of the banks and more mallards dabbled by the margins. A flock of magpies and a carrion crow in the trees on the Chorlton side of the river tried to outshout the parakeets in the trees by the pub on the Sale side.

Robin, Sale Ees

A mistle thrush silently shadowed me out of its territory at Jackson's Boat as I walked into Sale Ees. Blackbirds, dunnocks and robins foraged in the undergrowth by the path and a small flock of siskins flitted about the treetops. The constant noise of magpies and parakeets stopped its being a very quiet walk.

Ring-necked parakeet, Sale Water Park

I decided not to walk round the lake at Sale Water Park, preferring to get a cup of tea and sit and watch the bird feeders to see if a nuthatch would turn up. The feeders were being dominated by parakeets with great tits and blue tits flitting in every so often when the parakeets had been spooked by passersby. Occasionally a great tit or a coal tit would dash in and grab a sunflower seed from a feeder when the parakeets were busy on the fat feeders. At one point everything disappeared and all was quiet as a female sparrowhawk shot through the trees. The second she had passed the parakeets started screeching a roll call and the titmice dived into the feeders while they were busy.

Jackdaw roost, Hardy Farm

I walked back to Jackson's Boat, crossed the river and walked through Hardy Farm as the sun started to set. The noise of the magpies, crows and parakeets going to roost was overwhelmed by the sound of more than a hundred and fifty jackdaws settling down for the night.

Hardy Farm