Chelford

Dunnock, The Mosses

I've rather neglected Cheshire lately so I thought I'd have a wander round the quarry pools of Chelford and had a very nice Spring day to do it in.

Holmes Chapel Road 

I got the train down to Chelford and walked down Knutsford Road to the roundabout, the fields by the road busy with jackdaws and carrion crows and the hedgerows noisy with great tits and robins. The hedgerows down Holmes Chapel Road were even noisier, with blackbirds, chiffchaffs, dunnocks, wrens and a nuthatch joining in the singing while blue tits and coal tits called as they bounced about the trees by the brooks. In the open parkland the jackdaws outnumbered the sheep five to one and there were quite a lot of sheep.

Lapwing Lane 

Blue tits, chiffchaffs and great tits came over to check what I was up to as a looked through the trees at the bottom of Lapwings Lane to see what, if anything, was on this end of the pool in Acre Nook Quarry. A few coots and tufted ducks and a mallard, probably two, were tiny silhouettes against the glare on the water.

The songscape was pretty constant as I walked down Lapwing Lane, the chaffinches and greenfinches in the roadside trees called and twittered but didn't sing.

Cormorant, Acre Nook Quarry 

It's harder these days to get a good view over Acre Nook Quarry from Lapwing Lane and when the hedgerow that's been planted has grown it'll be well-nigh impossible. I was very much fighting the light as I scanned round, anything fairly near on the water was a silhouette, anything further away was very distant indeed. Coots, mallards and tufted ducks there were, a couple of great crested grebes were easier to identify by their bulldog growls than their silhouettes, a couple of cormorants sat on rocks, a couple of tiny bobbing corks that suddenly disappeared underwater were dabchicks. For a moment I thought I'd found a little gull amongst a dozen black-headed gulls but the bird swivelled round and showed I'd been played by a trick of perspective. There'd been a couple of little gulls here over the weekend but they'd apparently moved on.

Over on the far bank I could fairly easily pick out the Canada geese grazing on the slope in the glare of the sun but almost missed the half a dozen pink-footed geese dozing in the shadows at the water's edge.

Comma, The Mosses

I walked back a bit and took the path through The Mosses, the light bouncing off the tree trunks all the way. The lunchtime chorus was intense and was joined by the sounds of loudly hinneying dabchicks carrying over from Lapwing Hall Lake. The songbirds were surprisingly difficult to spot despite the lack of leaf cover, with the exception of the chiffchaffs if you could see them they weren't singing. The mixed tit flocks had gone their separate ways, the blue tits keeping to the tall trees and hedgerows, the coal tits to the big trees and the great tits lurking in the undergrowth. Every so often I'd bump into a pair of long-tailed tits, nearly always deep amongst the blossoms of blackthorn bushes, I guess the insects attracted by the flowers are easy pickings.

The Mosses

Lapwing Hall Lake 

Lapwing Hall Lake when I got there was like a mill pond with the merest shimmer caused by a very light breeze. I was hearing wigeons and gadwalls and seeing tufted ducks and goldeneyes. The goldeneyes had gone past the frantic head-bobbing stages of courtship. Way over the other side of the lake the light caught the salmon pink of a drake goosander and the white cheeks of half a dozen Canada geese. 

I followed the path round the lake. The hedgerows between the path and Congleton Lane were busy with wrens, robins and titmice. Reed buntings flitted between hawthorn bushes, sensitive to that fraction of a second when the camera had them in focus then coming over to have a look when I put the camera back in the bag. A manic peacock butterfly chased after bumblebees. Overhead a constant passage of calling jackdaws paid not one bit of notice of the buzzard soaring just above them. The goosander flew low overhead and seemed to be heading for Mere Farm Quarry. I wondered if I had the legs to add that to the walk.

By Lapwing Hall Lake 

Lapwing Hall Lake 

Turning the corner the lake came into view again and I could see the distant couple of dozen wigeons on the water and the pair of gadwalls weaving their way through the coots, there was also the bonus of a pair of shovelers dabbling near the bank.

The walk back was a slightly quieter edition of the walk in, a little less song and a lot more small birds looking for their dinners. I'd been disappointed not to see any tree sparrows about — this is getting to be a worrying constant — and the only house sparrows were in a hedge three quarters of the way down the lane. A consolation was my first yellowhammer of the year singing from the other side of the parkland on Holmes Chapel Road.

Lapwing Lane 

I didn't have the legs for the walk up to Mere Farm Quarry. I had a sit down on the bench opposite the garage and caught the 88 bus to Altrincham and thence got home, the 88 bus being the more reliable leg of the journey.