Wellacre Country Park

Moorhen and chick, Dutton's Pond

It was an uncertain sort of a day and as I had things to do I decided to stay local with a walk around Wellacre Country Park.

Wellacre Wood 

I got the 256 into Flixton and walked past Delamere School into Wellacre Wood. For all the rain over the past couple of nights the ground wasn't atrociously muddy underfoot and the puddles could be avoided. There was a hint of the quiet days to come with just a couple of blackbirds singing with a song thrush and a blackcap. A chiffchaff assayed half a phrase before deciding it couldn't be bothered. Wrens, robins, great tits and spadgers in deep cover told me to keep on moving as I passed them by. Once every so often I'd see one or other of them flitting between bushes. A mistle thrush high up in an ash tree rattled disapprovingly as I walked by. Even the magpies were being unusually coy.

Wellacre Country Park 

I emerged from the wood and found it had become one of those afternoons of low light and maximum glare and for a minute or two I stood blinking like an extra on Lawrence of Arabia while a wren sang in the hedgerow and a whitethroat sang in one of the hawthorns out in the field. Blue tits, house sparrows and blackbirds rummaged about the hedgerows as I walked over to Jack Lane. A few sand martins flew overhead, there was a steady traffic of woodpigeons and black-headed gulls called as they floated over to Irlam Locks. A chaffinch sang in the trees by the stables and a couple of swallows hawked over the paddock. I got my first mosquito bite of the season and narrowly avoided my first horsefly bite (I swear it was as large as a Shetland pony).

Jack Lane nature reserve 

Jack Lane nature reserve was noisy with magpies and chiffchaffs though both were tricky to find in the trees. I had even less luck with the wrens and blackcaps, a kestrel hovering over the reedbeds possibly being the cause. The reed warblers quietly ticked at each other as they rummaged about the bases of the reeds. An all-clear must have sounded as soon the three singing reed warblers were competing to be heard by reed buntings, chiffchaffs and song thrushes. No Cetti's warbler or water rail today.

Reed warbler, Jack Lane

I walked along the path by the embankment. Great tits silently rummaged about in the willows and a pair of bullfinches disappeared into the leaves. Song thrushes sang in the larger trees. I stopped to watch a family of long-tailed tits flit by and gave up trying to get a photo. By the time the twentieth youngster bounced past I suspected there was more than one family in the party, a suspicion that heightened as a couple of coal tits and a chaffinch tagged along. Approaching Dutton's Pond chiffchaffs and blackcaps sang in the trees and a flock of swifts hawked low over the field.

Last time I visited Dutton Pond there wasn't much about, even anglers. Today was a bit different. There were plenty of anglers and there were a couple of dozen mallards, mostly half-grown ducklings, a pair of Canada geese with six half-grown goslings and a couple of families of moorhens. It was far too cool for there to be any dragonflies about.

Ringlet, Green Hill

I had a walk up and round Green Hill, the chiffchaffs of the trees by the railway line giving way to the whitethroats of the hawthorns in the open. Great tits and blue tits bounced between hawthorn bushes and I was surprised to find a treecreeper working the trunk of a small hawthorn by the path. I was also surprised to find dead moles on the path at hundred yard intervals like macabre milestones. I hadn't expected to see any butterflies in this weather, a ringlet basking in the little sun it could get was a bonus.

An ex-mole, Green Hill

River Mersey, Flixton Bridge 

There wasn't anything on the river as I walked to Flixton Bridge for the bus back though a grey wagtail flew overhead and onto the fields on the other side.

Back home later, after the rain, the long-tailed tits were back at the fat feeders in the garden. I've had ring-necked parakeets fly over a couple of times, today was the first time one stopped to screech at the top of one of the sycamores. I have mixed feelings about that.

Goatsbeard