Etherow Country Park

Mandarin duck and duckling

A bright and sunny dawn gave way to a very wet mid-morning but I had the fidgets and decided to get out before I did something daft like shaving my head or, more probably, shaving the cat's head. I got the train into town and the first train out I could use with my monthly travel card was the one to Rose Hill Marple, so off I went. I hadn't brought bins or camera because the weather was so grim, I was planning on a bit of looking out of the window birdwatching from trains or buses. I could get the 383 from the station into Compstall, have a look for mandarin ducks in the rain at Etherow Country Park and then get a bus into Stockport and drift off elsewhere was as close to a plan as I'd managed by the time I got off the train.

By the time I got off the bus at Compstall the rain had abated. It was still around but OK for walking in. The Canada geese, mallards, jackdaws and pigeons on the boating lake were clustered by the visitor centre being fed by damp children. There was just the one mute swan, a young cob, the rest succumbed to bird flu last year.

Etherow Country Park 

The walk through Etherow Country Park was fairly quiet. Mallards and mandarins dozed under the willows on the bank of the canal. A couple of mallards had a couple of ducklings each, a few mandarins had one or two each. The ducklings were at that tiny, reckless stage where they're so busy chasing midges they don't keep an eye on where their mothers are and when they all got mixed up it was surprisingly difficult to work out which was mallard and which mandarin. When the mandarin ducklings got excited I could see the crests on the tops of their heads. Oddly, none of the Canada geese had goslings and I didn't see any coots.

Blackbirds, robins, wrens and a chiffchaff sang in the trees, goldfinches and house sparrows flitted about, blue tits and great tits rummaged in the undergrowth and dunnocks chased each other about the brambles.

Mallards and mandarins 

A crowd of mallards and mandarins were mugging little children for food on the old mill pool at the top of the canal. The drake mandarins were already looking bedraggled as they were losing the long plumes of their breeding finery and starting to hint at eclipse plumage. The drake mallards on the other hand looked ready for anything. 

River Etherow 

The grey wagtails were nesting on the river, a new site away from the traditional one near the waterfall created by the canal overflow. I couldn't see any sign of dippers. Given the rush of water on the weir I wouldn't think they've been nesting under there this year.

Keg Wood 

I hadn't intended going for a walk in Keg Wood but seeing as I hadn't intended any of this walk it seemed to go with the flow. I've rather turned the paths here into a bogey so that I'm almost afraid to go far for fear of the impact of the dips and rises on my knees. Bloody-mindedness overtook pain and caution and I had a good walk round, I was fine by the time I got to the cottage by the orchard and by the time I was on the end stretch and back onto the road back to the visitor centre I'd got a lot of the movement back into joints that had stiffened up in the cool, damp Bank Holiday weather. 

Keg Wood 

Blackbirds, robins and garden warblers dominated the soundscape. Here and there there'd be a singing blackcap, chiffchaff or song thrush. A goldcrest sang from the scrub in the hollow of the first deep dip. The blue tits, great tits and chaffinches were hard to find though their contact calls were everywhere. There was the lingering smell of garlic and bluebells though their flowering had passed over and all but the densest patches of beechwood was carpeted with the young growth of Himalayan balsam. I was sad to have missed the star of Bethlehem flowers though I did find one, rather tatty, remnant poking through a patch of bistort. A few large whites fluttering about were a bit of a relief, it's been lousy weather for butterflies and damselflies.

Roe deer, Keg Wood 

Looking through the trees on the approach to Sunny Corner I could see a roe deer grazing at the edge of the meadow. I knew they're about here because I occasionally see their hoofprints but it's the first time I've seen one.

By Sunny Corner 

I had a sit down at the bus shelter affair to catch my breath and say well done to my knees. A couple of blue tits and a nuthatch took this as a signal that they were going to get fed, the nuthatch being particularly persistent about the matter, coming back every so often to check I hadn't changed my mind. Had I anything on me I would have done, I'll have to remember next time. Blackbirds and a song thrush sang, a pheasant and a great spotted woodpecker called from the other side of the wood. A pair of blue tits had made a nest in a hole in a tree trunk immediately below a nest box which was confusing when I first noticed them visiting it.

The blackbirds and song thrush had taken a breather which is how I was able to notice a pied flycatcher singing from somewhere nearby. I was in luck and it flew into the canopy of a nearby tree to feed, gleaning insects from the leaves as it bounced about. I'm always surprised by how tiny they are, they're not a lot bigger than a coal tit and if anything look even smaller because of their compact shape.

Keg Wood 

Buoyed up by that encounter I wandered back. The walk back round is easier because most of the steep stretches work in your favour. A couple of buzzards made a racket as they soared overhead and drifted into Ernocroft Wood.

Moorhen 

It was a quiet walk back to the visitor centre. I'm often amused by small dogs carrying huge sticks about with their owners. It seems moorhens have similar ambitions, one was swimming down the canal with a piece of willow branch twice its length dragging behind it.

Etherow Country Park 

The journey home was blissfully uneventful. It's the first time I've changed buses at the new Stockport Interchange, it's a lot better than the old bus station and infinitely better than the interim arrangements that had been made during the construction.

I got home in time for the sun to come out, which is par for the course these days.