Cutacre

Herring gulls

It wasn't the most promising of days but I needed the walk. A female garganey flitting between Swan Lake and a wet field the other side of the railway at Cutacre was an opportunity to keep the year list ticking over so I got the 132 to Tyldseley and headed up Cumbermere Lane in the drizzle.

Cumbermere Lane

The hedgerows were busy with blue tits, great tits, chaffinches and long-tailed tits, every farmstead had its house sparrows, goldcrests sang in the hawthorns, robins, song thrushes and blackbirds sang in the trees. There were hundreds of woodpigeons grazing the fields and dozens, if not hundreds, more in the woodlands beyond. A cloud of them scattered out of the way as a very noisy buzzard flew in and settled in their tree.

House sparrow

Along Cumbermere Lane

The damp fields were very damp indeed, magpies and carrion crows paddling in some of them, one by the railway line hosting half a dozen lapwings and an oystercatcher. I couldn't find any ducks of any kind. A shower of rain made me fear the worst as I headed for open country but there were a lot of breaks in the cloud being blown in by the wind.

Engine Lane 

Swan Lake 

The rain stopped as I crossed the cobbled bridge over the railway and onto Cutacre Country Park. I'd been hearing Canada geese for ages, it turned out there were only a dozen of them on Swan Lake but they were being very noisy. They were very heavily outnumbered by gulls, mostly herring gulls with a few lesser black-backs, the black-headed gulls tended to pass by rather than settle with the big lads. A couple of mute swans grazed on the bank with some Canada geese and mallards, a few more mallards pottered about on the lake with coots and moorhens. Behind the island I could see three tufted ducks drifting and diving by the far bank. I was surprised not to see or hear any teal and I couldn't see any sign of a garganey. 

Herring gulls and lesser black-backs

Herring gulls and lesser black-backs

Herring gulls and lesser black-backs

I sat down for five minutes and scanned the lake (it isn't very big and there's not much cover) but still had no luck so I set off down the path, stopping every few yards for another look round just in case the change of angle would help me. The only small ducks I could see were the tufties. So I admitted defeat and walked on. I found out later that the garganey had been reported on the lake about the time I turned onto Engine Lane on the other side of the railway line. I'd either looked at it and not seen it, it had moved in in the intervening ten minutes or it had tucked itself well into the bank on the far side of the island. It's not my first dip of the year and absolutely won't be the last, it would get boring if building a year list was like stocktaking a locked storeroom.

Cutacre Country Park

On the other side of the path there were more moorhens than pied wagtails sharing a field with the horses. A couple of skylarks sang from the open heathland. Even though it had stopped raining it was a bit bleak for a walk through Logistics North for the bus back to the Trafford Centre so I took the path that loops round and down back into Engine Lane and thence into Atherton. 

Cutacre Country Park 

Reed buntings, robins, dunnocks and wrens sang in the hedgerows in the open. The hedgerows along Engine Lane were  were busy with coal tits, dunnocks and robins and blackbirds flung leaf litter about with gay abandon.

It was a short walk to the bus stops. I'd just missed the 528 to Bolton so got the 528 to Leigh and got the 126 back home from there, catching a bit of a hail storm while I was waiting. As we arrived at the Trafford Centre it was obvious I'd missed a much heavier hail storm back home.