Davyhulme

Davyhulme Millennium Nature Reserve 

It was a bright, windy day after a wild and woolly night, with another storm front on the way, so I thought I'd take my aches and pains for a walk while I could. I headed over to the Davyhulme Millennium Nature Reserve to see if the first-Winter scaup that was on the Ship Canal over the weekend was still about. Rather than mess about I got the 256 to Woodsend Circle and walked down to Eddisbury Avenue and down into the reserve.

Davyhulme Millennium Nature Reserve 

The small birds were keeping under cover. House sparrows, goldfinches and blue tits muttered in the hedgerows and blackbirds rummaged round the sides of the paths. Even the goldcrests were feeding on the ground.

First sight of the canal through the trees found a couple of teal and the first of the dozens of gadwall I'd be bumping into today. A little further on three dabchicks bobbed about on with more gadwall and a bit further on five great crested grebes — four first-Winters and an adult — cruised the waves.

I bumped into a couple of birdwatchers who confirmed the scaup was still about. It had been reported on the stretch of canal by the picnic tables, today it had moved on into the little dock by Barton Lock where it had joined a flock of tufted ducks. The bad news being that that dock's thickly fringed with trees so getting a view can be tricky. But not impossible.

I got there and found dozens of gadwalls and coots, handfuls of teal, a heron, a raft of black-headed gulls with a couple of herring gulls, a common gull and a lesser black-back, no tufties. I walked down to Barton Dock where there was a better view of the gulls and a couple of cormorants.

Barton Dock 

I strolled back and tried the dock again, having better luck this time as the raft of a couple of dozen tufties had drifted out into the middle of the dock. I looked for the scaup, finding another couple of dabchicks in the crowd and gadwalls floated in and out. It took a good ten minutes to find the scaup. I could give a lot of excuses like there were trees in the way and the scaup tended to dive long and deep but the plain fact was that it was at the front of the crowd and I just wasn't seeing it. It came as a relief when I finally spotted it.

I walked back down the path by the ponds. Goldfinches and house sparrows muttered in the depths of the dogwoods by the big pool, chaffinches and bullfinches flitted about the willows. A mixed tit flock — mostly great tits and blue tits with a couple of long-tailed tits — bounced through the bushes and into the willows. I was very conscious that treecreeper still isn't on the year list but every bird I spotted limbering quietly up and down the tree trunks turned out to be a great tit.

Davyhulme Millennium Nature Reserve 

Coming out of this reserve is always disconcerting because the way out leads to a mini-roundabout with five turn-offs all of which are labelled Eddisbury Avenue. Ignore the signs and walk straight ahead.

I was traveling light as the camera kit is hors de combat. I've been thinking over the weekend: I'm not Peter Pan and perhaps some of the everyday aches and pains won't be being helped by my lugging a lot of heavy kit about for three or four hours at a time. I thought that perhaps it's time to get a bridge camera rather than carrying on with a DSLR and a big lens. Feeling the difference in weight on today's walk decided me: the aches from Thursday's spill made themselves felt, I'd have been knackered with the usual load. So that's me for a new camera.