Wellacre Country Park and Irlam

Great crested grebes, Irlam Locks

Another, bright Spring day with an edge to the wind and the colour saturation dialled right up beyond eleven. It was rankling a bit that I still hadn't seen any sand martins so I thought I'd check out the water treatment works by Irlam Locks but I thought I'd be sneaky about it and have a wander round Wellacre Country Park first so it didn't look like I was looking for sand martins.

Wellacre Wood 

I got the 256 to Town Gate and walked into Wellacre Wood along the path by the school. Robins, great tits and chiffchaffs sang in the trees and for the first time in ages there wasn't a parakeet squawking in the treetops by the school yard. The cow parsley, ground elder, ramsons and brambles under the trees in the wood glowed vivid emerald greens in the sun. My first speckled wood of the year sunbathed on a nettle patch. Blackbirds and a blackcap sang, magpies and woodpigeons clattered about and invisible long-tailed tits could be heard in the depths of holly bushes.

Wellacre Wood 

Taking the path between the fields clockwise to Dutton's Pond for a change I had to tiptoe round peacock butterflies and commas. A bunch of magpies fossicked about the field with horses, a flock of woodpigeons grazed the field without.

Mallard
It this type of light the abstract patterns on water fascinate me.

All the mallards on Dutton's Pond were drakes, the ducks being otherwise engaged under cover. A few moorhens puttered about. As usual they took little notice of the passersby or the anglers.

Mallard

I had a quick nosy round Green Hill. Chiffchaffs, robins, wrens, great tits and a blackcap sang in the trees at the base of the hill as orange tips fluttered round the undergrowth and woodpigeons clattered about the treetops. Out in open country chiffchaffs and great tits sang from the depths of hawthorn bushes while greenfinches sang from the trees. 

Green Hill

I walked back under the railway and headed for Jack Lane, scolded on my way by a long-tailed tit that had decided I was walking too close to its bramble patch. I'd spoken too soon about parakeets: one squawked by Dutton's Pond and landed over in the trees in the school grounds.

Jack Lane 

Jack Lane seemed very quiet: a couple of robins, a wren, a chiffchaff… I'd settled into scanning round for frogspawn and butterflies when there was the blood-curdling squeal of a water rail in the reeds immediately behind me. Three drake mallards circled overhead before landing and disappearing into the reeds, upsetting a coot and a moorhen in the process.

Jack Lane 

Walking up Jack Lane to Irlam Road the fields were full of woodpigeons, magpies and starlings and the hedgerows busy with spadgers. A flock of black-headed gulls circling over the water treatment works were making a racket so I headed thataway. As I approached the stables on the corner I noticed a few small shapes circling round, my first sand martins of the year. There was about a dozen of them feeding high over the water treatment works, most drifted off leaving just a couple to hawk over the stables and paddocks.

Black-headed gull

A dozen black-headed gulls made a row as they loafed on the canalside furniture. I often wonder why they don't nest here, I think it's because there's not enough space for a critical mass of nests, I could be wrong. Pairs of mallards and gadwalls cruised on the canal, herring gulls and lesser black-backs dozed on the lock and the pair of oystercatchers were still on their territory.

Crossing the lock I looked downstream and could see the silhouettes of mallards, cormorants and coots. A pair of grey wagtails skittered about on the bank by the outfall. A pair of courting great crested grebes slowly drifted upstream as they waggled their heads in unison and shadowed each other, breaking off every so often to get something to eat.

Great crested grebe 

Great crested grebes 

Great crested grebe 

Great crested grebe

Great crested grebes 

Great crested grebes 

I'd looked downstream for the usual mute swan, I should have looked upstream, it drifted up the bend by Towngate Farm. A pied wagtail fossicked about the lock works on the Irlam side.

River Irwell Old Course 

I walked down, crossed the road and concluded I didn't have the energy for a nosy round Irlam Community Woodlands despite the enticements of singing chiffchaffs, dunnocks and robins. I decided to walk down along the Irwell Old Course to Princes Park and get the 100 to the Trafford Centre.

Blackbird 

Coots, moorhens and mallards cruised around on the water. Three red-eared terrapins basked on tree roots. The songscape was saturated by small birds despite all the people walking by: goldfinches, chiffchaffs and woodpigeons sang in the big trees, great tits, robins, wrens and blackbirds seemed to be everywhere, a nuthatch sang from a garden, a coal tit sang by the brook. House sparrows struck poses amongst the white blossoms of blackthorns and wild cherries, always careful to have a mesh of twigs between them and the camera. A blackcap bubbled its song from an elder bush, a dunnock jangled from a hawthorn. The open bankside was littered with pink and white spikes of butterbur, the shrubs underplanted with daffodils and lesser celandines. There was a hint of Spring in the air.

Butterbur