Jumbles

Cormorant 

It was one of those days with awkwardly-scheduled errands so it was teatime before I got off for a walk and on a series of whims found myself getting off the train at Bromley Cross for a walk around Jumbles Country Park.

Bradshaw Brook 

I crossed over onto Grange Road then took a path through Ousel Nest Meadows towards Bradshaw Brook. The trees and bushes were thick with birdsong, robins, wrens, chiffchaffs and blackbirds mostly with great tits, blue tits and coal tits joining in every so often. 

Wood anemones 

I walked down to the brook to see if I might bump into a dipper or a wagtail but though the scenery looked right it wasn't my day for them.

Bradshaw Brook 

I wandered along the path by the brook and on to the bridge over the brook at the base of the dam holding Jumbles Reservoir. Goldfinches, chaffinches and greenfinches joined in the songscape and a couple of pheasants tried to get in the act, calling from deep cover. A couple of siskins were almost but not quite silent, I caught their contact calls as they passed through the conifers by the path.

Jumbles Reservoir 

I did a circuit of Jumbles Reservoir. A flock of Canada geese made the most noise, there were more mallards but they generally went about their business very quietly except a couple of times when the fire in the blood got too much for a couple of drakes. I found a moorhen, a great crested grebe and a few cormorants but oddly no coots or tufted ducks which I tend to think of as Pennine reservoir staples. A handful of black-headed gulls flew about, a couple of lesser black-backs and a herring gull loafed on the water and a pair of mute swans cruised about away from the crowds.

Canada geese and cormorants 

A raven was chased over the reservoir by a pair of angry carrion crows where it met a less than rapturous welcome from the very well occupied rookery at the end of Grange Road and carried on its way.

Jumbles Reservoir 

Jumbles Reservoir 

I completed the circuit and walked back down Grange Road, getting to the station with a minute to spare for the next train back to Manchester. I was exceptionally lucky with the connections at Salford Crescent and Oxford Road — exceptionally lucky — and the journey home from Bromley Cross took forty-eight minutes. It has been known for it to take that long for a connecting train at Salford Crescent so it was a bit nerve-wracking at times. Still, mustn't knock it: I'd had a very nice walk, there had been plenty about and I can offer nothing but praise for the trains. Which was nice.