Local patch

Wren, Lostock Park 

The blackbird was practising ready for the dawn chorus when I finally dozed off so the plans for the day didn't really figure. I placated the spadgers and squirrels with a bag of assorted fruit and nuts though I had no sunflower seeds for the goldfinches and got a hard twittering at for my lack of effort. The kids occupied the school playing field all day, the usual dozen black-headed gulls making a point of loafing ten yards behind the goal, which was as prudent as it was insulting.

The hint of sunshine of the morning settled into a flat, grey afternoon. I settled on a dawdle round the local patch just to take the air. The woodpigeons were already settling in the trees. Most of the magpies were rattling together in pairs, blackbirds, robins and great tits sang and a family party of greenfinches chased each other round a hawthorn bush on the United Utilities land. Wrens and dunnocks skittered about in the ivy at the base of the trees, a goldcrest settled into the ivy on the trunk of a sycamore. 

Barton Clough 

Parties of gulls passed overhead, the black-headed gulls going to the pre-roost over by the Trafford Centre and the lesser black-backs heading towards Salford Quays.

• Black-headed gull 6 overhead
• Blackbird 8, 2 singing
• Blue tit 2
• Carrion crow 3
• Dunnock 1
• Goldcrest 1
• Goldfinch 3
• Great tit 6, 2 singing
• Greenfinch 5
• Lesser black-back 8 overhead 
• Magpie 10
• Robin 8, 6 singing
• Woodpigeon 19
• Wren 2, 1 singing

Bramble