Mersey Valley

Juvenile ring-necked parakeet, Jackson's Boat 

It had been another bad night's sleep and I couldn't blame the cat though she was responsible for the early morning alarm call. I have half a memory of starting to tell her about my dream where the Blue Peter polar bear fell off the Formica kitchen cabinets, live on television, when she jumped off the bed and ran downstairs like the proverbial just in case whatever I had was catching.

It was a bright, sunny day and what to do with it? I had too many available options, which all too often leaves me dithering about til teatime then wondering what happened. I surveyed the remnants of the feeders after yesterday's all-day titfest, had my dinner and put my boots on for a walk to who knows where. Which ended up being a meandering walk about Stretford Meadows and the Mersey Valley.

Stretford Meadows 

I walked down Newcroft Road onto Stretford Meadows, the usual crowd of house sparrows in the hedgerow being notably absent. Great tits and wrens muttered in the undergrowth and chiffchaffs squeaked in the trees. Out on the open meadow more chiffchaffs called from hawthorn bushes or in stands of hogweed and great willowherbs. A flock of a dozen or so goldfinches skittered about the birch scrub near the entrance, ones and twos of them flew about the saplings out in the open. There was a constant traffic of woodpigeons overhead, nearly always in ones or twos, the flock of five heading towards Stretford being very atypical. A buzzard was calling from somewhere in the trees on Urmston Lane but like the wrens it was heard but couldn't be seen.

Stretford Meadows looking towards Stretford 

There were plenty of butterflies about today, a few large whites and speckled woods amongst the trees and a lot of meadow browns on the open meadow and all of them being very busy. My list of birds I wasn't seeing or hearing today was considerably longer than the list of ones I was and it came as a bit of a relief to hear a couple of greenfinches fly overhead as I started dropping down from the top of the mound.

Stretford Meadows 

I took a very meandering route around the meadows taking advantage of many of the paths being unusually dry. Lots more meadow browns, a few more chiffchaffs and goldfinches, a few magpies, not a peep from any whitethroats in what had been their singing territories.

I walked round and onto the velodrome. All today's cyclists rang their bells to warn of their approach and said thanks as I moved to one side out of their way. I think it should be recorded when people behave nicely. As I walked under the electricity pylons a raven started croaking overhead, it took me an embarrassingly long time to look straight up to where the raven was sat on a pylon looking down at me. It cronked a couple of times and flew off over the meadows.

Bridgewater Canal Aquaduct
Kickety Brook's somewhere in all that Himalayan balsam.

The walk along Kickety Brook towards Stretford Meadows would have been dead quiet had it not been for the magpies and a couple of great tits. It wasn't a lot more lively walking through Stretford Ees to the river. I'd become so used to the squeaks of chiffchaffs that I almost missed a willow warbler calling in the trees by the wet meadow.

Mallard, Broad Ees Dole 

Sale Water Park was busy with people and water skiers. It was also busy with brown hawkers chasing each other round the reed margins. While I was busy making a Horlicks of photographing any of them a reed warbler silently flitted from one set of reeds to another. The great crested grebe with the damaged wing has finished moulting and still has a damaged wing so it's not just a few feathers out of joint.

Teal Pool

The mallards on the Teal Pool at Broad Ees Dole had noticed all the people and congregated by the path, just in case of goodies. There were a few more mallards by the hide together with a heron and a handful of coots.

Eclipse drake mallard, Broad Ees Dole 

I walked beside the lake to the café. All the mute swans, mallards and Canada geese were over by the visitor centre keeping out of the way of watersports enthusiasts and hoping for a just reward. Common blue damselflies zipped around the tall grass, a few more brown hawkers patrolled the banks and a common hawker shot over my shoulder as I walked.

Common blue damselflies, Sale Water Park 

It was quiet at the café, just a few great tits and blue tits slipping in to the feeders whenever the magpies' backs were turned. Parakeets and magpies made a racket in the trees by Barrow Brook and robins performed vocal exercises in the undergrowth. Family parties of parakeets fed on hawthorn berries by the path by Jackson's Boat, some of them literally within arm's reach, the youngsters have no fear.

Ring-necked parakeet, Jackson's Boat 

Chorlton Ees 

Crossing the river I wandered into Chorlton Ees where parakeets made most of the noise and woodpigeons clattered about in the treetops. Chiffchaffs squeaked, a nuthatch called, great tits and robins stole by like feathery ghosts. Ivy Green was similar, with the addition of a mixed tit flock by Chorlton Brook bouncing about a young ash tree and getting in the way of the comma butterflies chasing each other round the undergrowth.

I carried on through to Turn Moss and got to the bus stop opposite Longford Park just as the 25 arrived. It would have been rude not to.