Cutacre

Goldfinch, Cumbermere Lane 

A series of whims and some bus station bingo had me getting off the 132 at Tyldesley Town Hall and walking up Common Lane towards Cutacre Country Park. It was another sunny day, the warmest of the year so far, and it seemed right for one of those walks that are accompanied by butterflies and warblers.

House sparrow, Cumbermere Lane 

As I walked up Common Lane onto Cumbermere Lane the trees and bushes were noisy with birdsong. Blackcaps, dunnocks and wrens sang from hidden places, robins jumped onto branches to pose as they sang, woodpigeons sang in their sleep in the treetops. House sparrows chattered and sang in the hedgerows by the farmland. A garbled symphony from a wayside copse included robin, blackcap, blackbird, wren and a garden warbler which was a devil to pick out from the crowd. Goldfinches and greenfinches twittered as they flew by. Swallows and long-tailed tits sat on telegraph wires and posed for the camera until they were in focus, spadgers and goldfinches were more obliging. There were hordes of butterflies and they were nearly all large whites and speckled woods with a few flutters-by by orange tips. I saw the only peacock butterfly of the day crossing the road in Tyldesley.

Cumbermere Lane 

A buzzard soared high over the wood then floated down over the railway and was squabbled at by gulls. The first of many whitethroats of the day sang from the field behind the cattery. Willow warblers sang from the trees by the railway.

I walked up Engine Road, let on to a chap and his very suspicious dog as I scanned around looking, and eventually finding, the lapwings nesting in the fields, and crossed the bridge into Cutacre.

Whitethroat, Cutacre Country Park 

Whitethroats, wrens, chiffchaffs and willow warblers sang in the trackside trees. They were almost drowned out by the calls of the gulls passing to and fro between Swan Lake and the fields on the other side of the tracks. Oddly, though most of the gulls passing to and fro were lesser black-backs the majority of the gulls settled at either end were herring gulls. And there were lots of them.

Herring gulls and lesser black-backs, Swan Lake 

Pairs of Canada geese grazed the banks, a couple of pairs each of mallards and gadwalls cruised about. Coots squabbled, dabchicks hinneyed, moorhens kept their heads down and got on with their feeding. It took ages to find the pair of tufted ducks and there was only the one mute swan. It was all the same but very different to the scene a few weeks back.

Herring gulls and lesser black-backs, Swan Lake 

I got talking to a couple of chaps who were out for a walk. They were regulars and told me about the stoats, owls and kingfishers they've seen over the years and asked about birds they'd seen which turned out to be grey wagtails and stonechats. The question "Have you seen much about?" terrified me as I don't know how to pitch the answer and I always seem a bit stand-offish while I'm trying to decide whether to decide whether or not the answer will make their eyes glaze over. At least this time of year I can always fall back on: "It's good to see the swallows back, isn't it?" as a placeholder.

While we were talking the swallows zipped across the meadow and the skylarks started singing. Walking on I watched a pair of skylarks chasing off an interloper that had dared to sing on their patch. A few linnets and reed buntings flew by and a party of goldfinches twittered all the way over to the trackside trees.

Walking down to Engine Road 

I took the path that swings North over the farm then swoops back down to join Engine Road. Wrens and whitethroats sang in the hawthorn bushes. A sedge warbler reeled, appropriately enough, from the sedges in the boggy field by the path and reed buntings sang from any bit of vegetation as took their fancy. A buzzard floated overhead, I wasn't convinced it was the same bird as I saw earlier but couldn't work out what was different about it. It might just have been it was closer and flying in direct flight.

Reed bunting

The walk down Engine Road into Atherton was accompanied by more robins, wrens, dunnocks and sedge warblers and lots more large whites and orange tips. A kestrel protested noisily from a telegraph pole after being barracked by carrion crows. It had been a very pleasant couple of hours' walk. I debated moving on to another site, realised I'd be hitting busy traffic in Leigh or Bolton if I did so, called it quits. Why spoil a good time?

Hawthorn