Gorton

Dabchick, Lower Gorton Reservoir 

Well… the snow came, as promised, and very nearly got a couple of millimetres thick where it drifted on the garden fence. With the snow, and both feeding stations getting a refill, came the birds. Sixteen spadgers sat in the boysenberries waiting their turns to barge each other off the fat feeder, the robin jumping in for a feed while they were squabbling. A burst of red in the rowan tree that wasn't the robin turned out to be the first male bullfinch of Winter.

Given the weather warnings and associated uncertainty of travel I didn't make any plans for today. Ironically all our local trains ran and ran roughly on time today, the first time since August. I bobbed over to the Trafford Centre and played bus station bingo which is how I ended up getting the 150 to Gorton.

I've had Debdale Park and the Gorton Reservoirs in my sights for a while, I've kept going by on the way back in from Tameside, it was time I paid a visit.

Debdale Park 

Next time I visit (because I will) I'll go into town and get the 7, 201, 202 or 205 and get off outside Debdale Park. The traipse down Hyde Road from the 150 bus stop's a pain. Debdale Park's one of those ones that at first just look and feel like a strip of landscaping running alongside the road until you turn down a path through the trees and suddenly it's enormous. Greater Manchester's full of them: big green patches on the map with a little bit of the green meeting a main road.

Lower Gorton Reservoir 

The path through the trees I walked down brought me alongside Lower Gorton Reservoir. The reservoir was screened by trees along this stretch of path. Peeking through I could see black-headed gulls, coots, tufted ducks, mallards and a couple of great crested grebes but could only hear and not see Canada geese. Walking along there were lots of magpies and blackbirds about and a couple of robins bobbed about by the path but there were hardly any other small birds. Perhaps they were put off by the incessant calling of ring-necked parakeets.

Dabchicks, Lower Gorton Reservoir 

I followed this path round and came to the one that goes across the wall dividing the upper and lower reservoirs. I hadn't walked far before I got to the reservoirs, each separated from the path by a fence and low hedge. There's a slope down to Lower Gorton Reservoir, I walked down and scanned round, adding a couple of juvenile dabchicks to the tally. The drake mallards were busy head bobbing and whistling at the ladies.

Upper Gorton Reservoir 

Upper Gorton Reservoir 

Back on the path I had a scan over the upper reservoir. This was significantly quieter, just a few coots and a couple of mallards. The banks are a bit more thickly wooded than the lower reservoir. It was still only mid-afternoon but the woodpigeons were clattering in to roost.

Lower Gorton Reservoir 

The low sun started its dress rehearsals for what promised to be a nice sunset and the air started getting cooler by the minute. I took the time to enjoy the scenery then carried on up the path into Abbey Hey. I stopped almost immediately and watched a bullfinch feeding on bramble pips by the path. I noted a few paths round the reservoir worth exploring another day.

Bullfinch, Gorton Reservoirs 

Bullfinch, Gorton Reservoirs 

I looked at the options for getting home. The nearest bus stops were for the number 7 going between Ashton-under-Lyne and Stockport, the buses going either way pass around here and I'd just missed them both. I was heading for the buses along Ashton Old Road when i came to the intersection with the Fallowfield Loop. This is the footpath between Fairfield, near the station, and Fallowfield, ending near Platt Fields, another of ye olde railway lines of England. I decided to walk down to Fairfield Station and wait then ten minutes for the train to Piccadilly. Thence I could get over to Oxford Road for the train home.

Fallowfield Loop, Fairfield 

The light faded as I walked down to Fairfield. Magpies chattered in the trees, three parakeets made a racket as they flew to roost, and the last lesser black-backs left the school yard. Blackbirds, robins and wrens fossicked in the hedgerows and a great spotted woodpecker called from the trees just beyond.

Magpies and blackbirds were working the twilight shift at Fairfield Station as I waited for the train. Unfortunately, this is a station that you walk down into, it wasn't until the train got to Ashburys that I could see the remains of what evidently had been a very picturesque sunset.