Urmston

Urmston Meadows 

It was one of those grey days where the sun pokes out every so often to get your hopes up and retreats into the clouds before you could feel the benefit of it. I didn't feel like doing an awful lot so I had a wander round Urmston Meadows then walked down the river to Cob Kiln Wood.

From Church Road I walked down Southgate and joined the path that runs beside Riverside Drive. The hedgerows by the field were busy with small birds: robins and great tits sang, blue tits and long-tailed tits bounced through the trees and a mixed flock of goldfinches and chaffinches twittered and squeaked in a stand of blackthorn bushes. A few blackbirds rummaged about by the paths and three redwings kept an eye on me as I walked through to the path across the meadows.

I wondered what on earth it was running about in this tree. Eventually the squirrel ran out into the open and started eating its coconut.

Urmston Meadows is very roughly rectangular. I walked round three of the sides then took the cut through to Urmston Cemetery. The trees were busy with robins, titmice and greenfinches, the pasture in the middle was busy with woodpigeons, carrion crows and magpies. A couple of mallards dabbled in a muddy corner by the stream on the far side.

Urmston Meadows 

I crossed over Old Eeas Brook and walked along the muddy path to the river. Ordinarily I'd only do this at the height of a Summer drought but it's been a surprisingly dry few weeks so I thought I'd try my luck. 

Immediately you cross the river you have a choice of taking the path leading down to Urmston beach — a shingle bed on the bend of the river — or the one heading upstream to Cob Kiln Wood. In between the paths and the river here is a deep hollow, a relict oxbow, and some thick willow scrub. 

There be starlings in there somewhere 

Although it was still only mid-afternoon the starlings had called it a day and gone to roost. From the sound of it there were scores, if not hundreds, of them and I could only see a couple of them as they flew in and disappeared into the scrub. There were dozens of redwings, too, but they very obligingly flitted about in the treetops. Every so often they'd be disturbed by a couple of ring-necked parakeets that kept flying through. A couple of mallards lurked in the roots of a drowned willow in the hollow and there was at least one teal hiding in the edge of the willow scrub.

Old Eeas Brook 

The walk was navigable, there are a couple of places where you need both hands free to hold onto branches as you climb over tree roots by muddy holes. It's not a walk to do in the rain.

River Mersey 

Three moorhens didn't like the look of me as I reached the river and quickly flew upstream of the shingle bend. The bank on the opposite side here used to be riddled with sand martin nests but time, erosion and flood damage have rounded out the slope and made it unsuitable for them.

Cob Kiln Wood provided the opportunity to compare and contrast the songs of blackbird, mistle thrush and song thrush as they sang from different sides of the electricity pylon clearing. I found it harder working out which was which hearing the three of them at the same time. The long-tailed tits and blue tits in the hedgerows were all paired up, as were the parakeets screeching round the stables.

Cob Kiln Wood 

I walked by Old Eeas Brook, crossed the bridge and headed off home surprised that it hadn't rained yet.