Mersey Valley

A murder of crows, Ivy Green

It was a grey day, jobs had been done and I wanted to walk out the twinges in the joints so I went for a late afternoon walk through Ivy Green and Chorlton Ees.

Hawthorn blossom

The chiffchaffs and blackcaps were singing with the robins and blackbirds in the trees as I walked down Hawthorn Lane. The titmice were busy flitting about and every so often a wren would bob up on a stick and disappear just as suddenly. A pair of parakeets were raucous as they flew about the treetops.

I walked into Ivy Green, the songscape in the trees being pretty much the same but the parakeets just a distant echo. Somewhere on the other side of the trees a great spotted woodpecker was busy drumming on a tree branch. Walking through the open meadow I could hear a few whitethroats but they were all singing from the depths of their hawthorn bushes. A murder of crows bounced about in the meadow. There were eight of them all told and though a couple of them had a brownish sheen to their wings I couldn't be sure that they were this year's youngsters, they looked a lot too sleek.

Chorlton Brook

There were more parakeets in the trees by Chorlton Brook but they were drowned out by a song thrush. I always have a look for any birds on the brook expecting, and usually finding, nothing. Today a pair of mallards were lurking at the bend away from the paths.

Chorlton Ees

The woods on Chorlton Ees were noisy with song thrushes, blackbirds and chiffchaffs with a supporting cast of robins, wrens and blackcaps. A pheasant called from the wet meadow and whitethroats  and greenfinches sang from the bushes. This time of year it's easy to just coast and tick off what you hear, it's already getting difficult to actually see the small birds and half the trees are still only in bud.

Water level measure by the sluice gates by Sale Ees

A drake mallard was the only bird on the Mersey at Jackson's Boat. I was struck by how low the river was running. It really has been a very dry Spring. The birdsong was incessant, the whitethroats, greenfinches, goldfinches and robins in the bushes on the Lancashire side of the river competing with the blackbirds, robins, chiffchaffs and song thrushes in the trees on the Cheshire side. There was so much noise I didn't realise the absence of the usual troop of parakeets.

Marsh marigolds, Barrow Brook

I crossed the river and walked down Barrow Brook, a nuthatch in the trees by the path and the whitethroats over on Sale Ees adding variety to the song. A bullfinch wheezed invisibly in a hawthorn smothered in blossom, a treecreeper squeaked as it ran up a tree trunk, blackcaps and dunnocks sang from elder bushes and woodpigeons and parakeets clattered about in the treetops. A drake mallard just about managed to get its feet wet in the brook.

Barrow Brook

I got to the end of the brook and made the biggest mistake of the day, the week in fact. I didn't feel I had the legs for the walk through Sale Water Park and back into Stretford, I was feeling the pull of the tweaked heel and didn't want to undo the good work the walk had done. The 248 bus stop in Sale Moor was quarter of an hour's walk away and the bus was due in twenty, I decided to go for that and, depending how late it was running, either get the train home from Flixton or the 25 home from the Trafford Centre.. I got to the bus stop with seven minutes to spare before it was due. Twenty-five minutes later I concluded it wasn't late, it wasn't coming so I walked down the road for the bus into Sale so I could walk over to Washway Road get a 263 bus back to Stretford. When that didn't come I set off walking for Stretford and ended up hobbling to a bus stop just in time to get the next bus as it miraculously arrived on time. In the end it took ten minutes longer to get back by bus than it had taken to walk. And next time I shall.