Irlam

Common tern, Irlam Locks

It was an almost cloudy morning. The blackcap in the back garden has gone quiet, which I hope means he's busy. The spadgers are certainly busy with an indeterminate number of small mouths needing to be fed in the bushes. Perhaps not so small, judging by the character sitting in the boysenberries yesterday.

I didn't feel up to a walk across the mosses so I played bus stop bingo and got the 100 into Irlam, getting off at Princes Road for to start a walk through the Irlam Community Wood from the East for a change.

Irlam Community Wood 

I'd walked through the housing estate and past the play area and was just joining the path into the wood when two blackcaps leapt out of the brambles and played merry hell with me, taking turns to fly into the bush by my ear to scold me. I quickly took the hint, I had no wish to stop the youngsters getting their grub.

Juvenile long-tailed tit

Blackcaps, blackbirds and chiffchaffs sang in the trees, robins and wrens bustled about and sang in bushes, blue tits and great tits were occasional chance encounters. A family of long-tailed tits bounced through the willows and the bandit-masked youngsters gave me the opportunity for a lot of photos of quivering twigs a long-tailed tit had just hopped from. Speckled woods sunned themselves on the sides of the path, large whites fluttered about in the open glades. A female broad-bodied chaser zipped about then settled on a dead stem for a breather.

Broad-bodied chaser 

The red-eared terrapins were basking on their log on the Irwell Old Course. The only birds to be seen on the water were a pair of coots. Robins, blackbirds and a chiffchaff sang in the trees by the Boat House.

Cormorants
These are both of the nominated carbo subspecies with the acute angle to the yellow tape.

I crossed the road and walked along the path between Cadishead Way and the Manchester Ship Canal. Robins sang in the trees and speckled woods fluttered about the roadside. A pair of mute swans cruised the canal, half a dozen mallards drifted listlessly. More mallards loafed on the lockside with cormorants and black-headed gulls. There was no sign of the usual oystercatchers or herons. There was a little egret though.

Little egret, shopping trolleys for scale

The pigeons and pied wagtails were more active; a grey wagtail on the lock as I walked over was positively skittish, flying between the locks and the water treatment works and never settling. Swallows and sand martins swooped low over the canal and into the lock basins. Downstream of the locks a great crested grebe drifted midwater and a couple of cormorants were busy fishing.

Irlam Locks, the Manchester to Liverpool line goes over yonder bridge

The water treatment works was busy with a few dozen black-headed gulls and a couple of dozen magpies. The oystercatchers weren't here, either. I almost missed the swifts, they were feeding high over the filtration pans. Sand martins swooped about lower down but I stood firm and didn't try to get their photos. I felt obliged to try and get the photo of the very noisy tern flying about the canal. It was only when it landed on the lock I noticed there was one already sat there 

Mallards and common terns

The spadgers along Irlam Road were many and busy. The starlings still had young to feed in the eaves of houses. Two pairs of woodpigeons had a singing and aggressive bumping about competition on the rooftops by the bus stop as I waited to go home.