Urban birdwatching: a canal walk

Herring gulls and yellow-legged gull, Salford Quays 

It was a teenage armpit of a day but I felt I needed to get some exercise after crashing into a full-night's sleep yesterday and only just waking up in time for the start of the one day match between England and the West Indies. I'd had so many plans for the day, too. I'd decided not to try and be ambitious today and in the end I decided to see what warblers were about on the waste ground prime development land behind the scrap metal merchants in Cornbrook. In the past I've struck lucky and found a couple of lesser whitethroats.

Bridgewater Canal by Hulme Hall Road 

I got the 255 to Chester Road and walked up to the tram station. Sadly, all the paths into the waste land were securely locked out. Ah well. So I walked down to Hulme Hall Road and dropped down onto the Bridgewater Canal towpath at the bridge 

Harlequin ladybird

A pair of Canada geese lounged at the canalside and a moorhen fussed about. A couple of large whites fluttered by. I think all the ladybirds making inroads on the aphids on the brambles were harlequins. Pigeons fluttered about the rooftops and bridges. Here and there amongst the grasses, hawkweeds, ox-eyed daisies and purple toadflax poking through the paving there were spikes of Southern marsh orchids. Blackbirds and wrens sang constantly from unlikely bits of industrial architecture as I walked along.

Southern marsh orchid

Tram bridge (closest) and railway bridge.
The tramline goes all points South and West of Castlefield, the rail is the Manchester to Liverpool line.

I carried on, under the bridges and out onto the stretch opposite the no man's land of this end of Pomona Strand. A couple of common spotted orchids poked through the canalside together with a few that looked enough like neither to probably be hybrids. Goldfinches and a chaffinch joined the blackbirds and wrens. A song thrush sang from the corner of the wrecker's yard. A whitethroat sang from an elder bush perched on the opposite bank. I stopped and watched a holly blue moving through the bushes — they've been surprisingly thin on the ground in my garden this year — and a chiffchaff told me to move on. So I did.

By Pomona Strand 

Pomona Lock with the tramway going over the bridge

The stretch along Pomona was relatively quiet, the blackbirds and wrens giving way to the occasional goldfinch and a willow warbler, of all things, singing by Pomona Lock.

Pomona

I switched canals at Pomona, walking round to the path by the Ship Canal. The walking became more comfortable as a breeze blew up the canal. Upstream there was nothing on the river save a black-headed gull flying about the canalside. Downstream looked considerably busier.

Herring gulls

A pair of mallards dabbled by as I approached the beach by Clipper Quay upstream of Gnome Island. Mute swans, Canada geese and pigeons littered the beach, a few herring gulls and black-headed gulls loafed with them and a grey heron hunted the shallows behind. The canal architecture was decorated with loafing gulls, mostly subadult herring gulls bleaching in the sun with a few young lesser black-backs. A handful of lesser black-backs bathed by the beach.

Canada geese, heron, mute swan and black-headed gull

There was a constant to-ing and fro-ing of large gulls. One passing overhead made me look twice. And a third time when it settled. Grey back… were they really yellow legs? It confounded me by almost immediately joining the lesser black-backs for a wash. I hadn't been convinced by the leg colour (or rather I hadn't been convinced by my identification of it) and now couldn't see them. After a few minutes it gave its wings a good old stretch and I wondered how I hadn't just ticked it off as a yellow-legged gull.

Yellow-legged gull and lesser black-backs 

Lesser black-backs and yellow-legged gull 

Lesser black-backs and yellow-legged gull 
The largely black primary flight feathers and that big white mirror near the end are features to look out for with a YLG.

It's odd, at the time I didn't think that this bird had the bulk and bill of a typical YLG but in the photos they're all there: the big, padded out chest; the long wings and the deep bill with the hook at the end. And the yellow legs, which at least I did notice.

The Lowry and MediaCityUK 

The loafing large gulls on the canalside were mostly herring gulls, the loafing large gulls on the open water of the quays were mostly lesser black-backs. A few of the pairs of Canada geese had goslings in tow. There was a bit of a commotion in the South Bay but I thought nothing of it until I saw a great black-back carrying a gosling into the middle of the water. The gosling tried to make a getaway when the gull landed, it would have been doomed anyway as herring gulls and lesser black-backs crowded in on the off-chance. They disappeared when it became clear the great black-back had the spoils, made all the surer by holding the gosling underwater and drowning it.

Great black-back and Canada gosling
(Cropped photo, it was well out in the water.)

Excitement over I carried on to the Imperial War Museum, getting a few photos of water a sand martin had passed by along the way. I passed the singing chiffchaffs in the tree and walked down to the bottom of Wharfside Way for the 250 to the Trafford Centre. It had turned out to be a more successful walk than I'd anticipated.