A twilight walk

Stretford Meadows 

It was another bright, relatively mild day but I had errands to do so I settled for a twilight walk over Stretford Meadows.

As I left home the sparrows were getting a last feed in before bedtime. Both teams were in and out all day and there seems to be a lot of intermingling going on but it was the white-cheeked males who monopolised the fat blocks. The pair of blue tits stayed all day, too. The female still looks like she hasn't got over the mite infection she got during the breeding season, poor thing. At least I know none of my nest boxes were to blame, even the wasps and bumblebees didn't use them this year. The male coal tit that's been flitting about this week lingered for a while at breakfast so I got a good luck at him. My suspicions were correct, it is a continental bird. The clean, dark steel grey upperparts didn't have the green cast to the wings that the local birds have. I've not seen the usual local pair for a while, I hope they're okay.

The gulls left the school playing field just after lunchtime. Today it was just the usual black-headed gulls and a common gull.

Humphrey Park allotments 

As I walked past the allotments the last of the lesser black-backs headed off to roost. As did at least two parakeets. There were a dozen more parakeets screeching round Urmston Lane before heading to roost in the trees by the cricket pitch.

The spadgers were going to bed in the hedgerows by the garden centre and the magpies were having one last get together on the rooftops. Blackbirds and great tits shuffled about and wrens and robins sang territorial lullabies. 

I had a chat with a chap who said he'd seen the male kestrel in his usual tree, which is good as I was starting to worry about the lack of kestrels and buzzards here lately. He also said he'd bumped into a barn owl a few days ago, which was encouraging. It's a long time since I've seen an owl round here though a couple of times I've heard a tawny owl in the trees in the opposite corner of the meadows over by the school. The chap's spaniel was more interested in the pheasants calling in the trees and the guinea fowls calling in the stables.

Easy going

The ground underfoot was wet and muddy but not unusually so, I'd expected worse after the recent weather. 

Stretford Meadows 

I kept my eyes open for a barn owl but had no luck. Having said that the meadows were busier than they have been for ages. There was a constant background noise of magpies, dunnocks and blackbirds calling to each other as they settled down to roost. Three distant ,"blackbirds" flying up into an oak sapling before settling into one of the bramble patches didn't look right somehow, sure enough when I got close enough to hear them they were redwings. Hearing and seeing all this twilight roost activity confirmed my view of the vital importance of bramble patches to our birds. You don't get a dozen assorted thrushes roosting in an open patch of serried ranks of yard-high whips.

Sunset, Stretford Meadows 

Walking down from the rise

I dropped down from the rise after enjoying the last of the sunset and picked my way back onto Sandy Lane and thence home. The puddles and wet patches on the path down the rise made the navigation easy, they reflected the twilit sky like cats' eyes in the road.

It was the most productive walk I've had on the meadows for months even though I couldn't actually see most of the birds I was finding. 

Home time