Cob Kiln Wood

Reed bunting

It being a sunny Sunday without the cutting wind that's entertained us all week I decided to avoid the crowds and walked over to Cob Kiln Wood to get a bit of exercise.

The black-headed gulls are gone from the school playing field for the season, their places filled by grazing woodpigeons and gangs of jackdaws and magpies. Come lunchtime a few lesser black-backs and herring gulls will pop in for the playground bonanza, they don't linger at weekends. 

Holly blue

A holly blue flitting by the hedge at Humphrey Park Station was a first for the year. Blackbirds, robins, woodpigeons and goldfinches sang in roadside trees, a wren was giving it large in the allotments.

Cob Kiln Wood 

The entrance to the wood on Torbay Road was noisy with singing robins, great tits, chiffchaffs and blackbirds, the scolding of wrens and the twittering of goldfinches and greenfinches and this carried on for most of the walk. Woodpigeons clattered about in the treetops, magpies rattled, a couple of lesser black-backs made a racket as they passed overhead. There were more woodpigeons and magpies with the carrion crows in the fields and a pair of parakeets swooped around the margins of the wood. All the while I was walking round I was struck by how dry the paths were and the little reedy pond by the brook was bone dry. 

The pond was dry

I walked round to Cob Kiln Lane and went to have a look at the river to see what was about. A pair of buzzards were dancing round each other over the treetops of Banky Lane before drifting off over the meadows. Looking up the river from the bridge I couldn't see anything on the water which didn't surprise me much, there's a busy passage of walkers and frisky dogs along both banks when the weather's not up to much, on a day like today it's more like a procession. I had more luck downstream where there are no bankside paths: a redhead goosander was dozing on the shoals on the bend of the river a few hundred yards down and a couple of mallards drifted across a few yards beyond that. I decided not to join the procession down the bank and retraced my steps.

Looking down the Mersey

So I wandered back down Cob Kiln Lane and over the electricity pylons clearing. A song thrush and a coal tit had joined the blackbirds, robins and chiffchaffs singing in the trees. Long-tailed tits skulked about near bramble patches. I tried to find the pair of bullfinches wheezing mournfully in a hawthorn and had no luck but did spot a couple of reed buntings perched in the willows a little bit further along.

The bridge over Old Eeas Brook and on to Torbay Road 

It had been an undemanding potter about. As I approached the Torbay Road entrance I noticed a goldcrest darting about in the tree by the path. It was a nice note to end a walk on.