Stretford Meadows

Northern marsh orchid

It was a bright sunny day, the wind wasn't as strong and cold as it was yesterday so I decided I'd give the antihistamines a workout with a stroll round Stretford Meadows. With a bit of luck I might be able to add lesser whitethroat to the year list.

Stretford Meadows

There's been enough rain lately for there to be a bit of mud under the palettes at the Newcroft Road entrance but not enough to cause the palettes to wobble underfoot. Blackbirds, wrens and robins sang in the trees, a song thrush and a blackcap joined in and it all got fairly noisy especially once a family of great tits started fussing about in the brambles. There were enough insects about for a couple of swallows to be swooping round and a couple of swifts hawked overhead just above the treetops. I'd only taken two steps and was still trying to process all this when an emperor dragonfly zipped by and started hunting over the brambles. It chased bees but caught and ate blowflies.

I hadn't walked very far when the first chiffchaff of the day started singing from the willows by the Transpennine route. Family groups of magpies bounced about in the open ground while blackbirds, robins and goldfinches flitted between the hawthorns. It didn't take long to bump into the first singing whitethroat, there were at least half a dozen of them on the meadows today.

Early spotted orchid

Common twayblade

There were a lot of orchids about, poking through the grass and willowherbs or providing purple splashes in drifts of buttercups. The early purple orchids and early marsh orchids were nearly all gone over, the northern marsh orchids were in full bloom all over the shop wherever the soil had some moisture in it, which is virtually all of the Western half of the meadows. I also bumped into a patch of common twayblade, an orchid I've never noticed before. There was also a fine selection of vetches, vetchlings and the like though it's too early yet for the conspicuous purples of tufted vetch. I had to make do with lots of yellows and soft pinks and some with tiny dove grey flowers that shook too much in the wind to photograph.

Carrion crow

A family party of jackdaws chunnered as they bashed about in the trees by the cricket pitch and got the evil eye from a carrion crow they disturbed in the treetops. I walked through the trees at the Northeastern corner of the meadows, a pair of duelling blackcaps almost drowning out a garden warbler with their singing. It was nice to have the opportunity to do a direct comparison between the songs but it would have been easier with just the one blackcap.

Stretford Meadows

I emerged from the trees and went back whence I came on the open meadow taking a meandering figure of eight path across to try and take in as many bramble patches and stands of great willowherb as I could. There were plenty of whitethroats, dunnocks, wrens and reed buntings but I was having no luck finding any lesser whitethroats. A call from somewhere deep on the other side of a big bramble patch caught my ear but I'd no sooner noticed it than a song thrush flew into the tree by my shoulder and started singing. It is a truth universally acknowledged that any time you're trying to hear an unfamiliar bird call a song thrush will creep up on you and deafen you with its song until you go away. Like as not I'd heard a dunnock doing what dunnocks like to do this time of year.

Stretford Meadows

It had all been very nice but eventually the hay fever kicked in despite all the precautions so I called it quits and walked my impression of the bubbly snot monster back home.

Stretford Meadows