Irlam

Cormorant, Irlam Locks

It was a scorchio day and it had been such a warm night I didn't get to sleep until past five am and overslept as a consequence. The blackbird started singing just after half three and by quarter past four the wren, the blackcap, a woodpigeon and a carrion crow had joined in the chorus.

I'd missed the trains for plans A to E and, frankly, was too tired and hot to even think of a stroll locally. I decided it was prudent to wait until teatime when there'd be a hint of shade and the promise of a cooling breeze.

I won't bore the reader with a chronicle of the sequence of indecisions that led me to be sitting on the 67 going into Irlam. I got off at Ferry Road and wandered into Irlam Community Woodland.

River Orwell old course

Chiffchaffs, blackbirds and wrens sang in the trees and bushes. A family of coots pottered about the ox-bow lake by The Boathouse, the remnant of the old course of the Irwell. A grey wagtail and a robin fussed about the anglers' landings.

I crossed Cadishead Way and walked along the Ship Canal to the locks. A couple of dozen sand martins hawked low over the canal, pigeons and black-headed gulls loafed on the locks, cormorants dried their wings as they sat on lampposts and a heron lurked by the lock gates.

Manchester Ship Canal, looking downstream from the locks

Looking downstream as I crossed the locks a mute swan was cruising up from the bridges with a couple of Canada geese and a mallard had eight half-sized ducklings dabbling with her by the bank. A few lesser black-backs few high over, a handful of black-headed gulls fussed about the locks.

Walking down Irlam Road there didn't seem to be a lot on the water treatment works. All the sand martins were over the canal and the gulls didn't seem to want to know. A few woodpigeons and magpies rummaged about in the fields with small flocks of starlings and a few swallows. Blackbirds and blackcaps sang in the hedgerows and house sparrows chirped from their depths.

I'd had a bit of a potter about, didn't feel like a walk round Wellacre Country Park and was feeling generally lethargic so I carried on down Irlam Road and got the bus home. Pottering about is allowed.