Wellacre Country Park

Mallards, Dutton's Pond 

I thought I'd have a gentle Friday afternoon toddle round Wellacre Country Park.

Walking past the school into Wellacre Wood the trees and bushes were busy with birdsong. All the regulars — blackbirds, robins, wrens, chiffchaffs, blackcaps and woodpigeons — with the conspicuous absence of any great tits. They were invisible too, unlike the blue tits going silently about their business in the birch trees. May's barely started and there's more than enough cover for any small birds choosing to be furtive. In fact, there was plenty enough cover for a noisy pair of magpies to hide behind as well and a bullfinch was harder work than it should have been. A song thrush belted out a tune from the depths of an alder, God alone knows where the jay was though one got the impression the blackbirds had an idea. Speckled woods chased each other about the undergrowth, large whites and a common blue fluttered about the clearings and every other large tree trunk coincided with getting the eyeball from a big common drone fly hanging stationary inches from my nose. It wasn't the same fly each time, either, so they all must have had the mood on.

Wellacre Wood 

I emerged blinking into the sunlight and walked down to Jack Lane with musical accompaniment by the whitethroats singing in the hawthorn bushes on the horse grazing field. Scores of woodpigeons littered the big field by the lane. Dozens of magpies and starlings milled about. Half a dozen swallows swooped low over the grass. Way out yonder, above the canal at Irlam Locks, a dozen sand martins zipped about at treetop height.

Jack Lane 

Three reed warblers riffed and trilled in the nature reserve, all of them in the reeds bed by the path. Another tutted from the big reed bed on the other side. I stopped a while to listen and tried to work out how they divided the reedbed up amongst them. I couldn't see any obvious visual cues that might work as boundary marks so I don't know how it's done. Perhaps I'm thinking about it the wrong way. It was worth the time, though, as a large red damselfly settled on the reeds next to me to see what I was doing. (Some dragonflies seem actively inquisitive about humans, perhaps because we clumsily barge about disturbing small insects in the process.) I've not seen many red admirals about so far this year so the three chasing each other down the path was an event.

Chiffchaffs, blackcaps and whitethroats sang in the trees but my hopes that the Cetti's warbler might make an appearance were fruitless. A by-cracky-I-nearly-saw-it-this-time water rail was a consolation. It may have been a not-quite-seen, it was most definitely a heard.

Hoverfly, possibly a marmalade hoverfly, on red campion

In contrast the walk down the lane by the railway line was very quiet though the occasional rustlings and contact calls confirmed there were small birds about. It came as a relief when a blackcap started singing from the embankment and a chiffchaff joined in from the trees by the path.

A carrion crow giving a buzzard a hard time

High over Dutton's Pond a buzzard was harried by a carrion crow. The buzzard lingered, probably out of bloody-mindedness, circling on the thermals before suddenly lurching across the crow's bows and gliding slowly towards the river.

Dutton's Pond 

Dutton's Pond looked very quiet, just the three drake mallards and a Canada goose. I couldn't see any sign of the ducklings but I eventually found a couple of moorhens skulking in the shadows of one of the fishing piers. The lone black-headed gull made an appearance, did a circuit of the pool and then flew off to Irlam Locks to join its fellows.

Horse chestnut, Green Hill

Passing under the railway onto Green Hill the sparrows and blackcaps on one side of the tracks gave way to the sparrows, robins and blackcaps on the other. Wrens, blackbirds and song thrushes sang in the trees as I walked up the hill, when I reached open country they were succeeded by chiffchaffs, whitethroats and great tits.

Green Hill 

I walked round and down to the path to Carrington Road. Blue tits and great tits fidgeted in the gorse bushes, wrens fussed about in the bracken and the only chaffinch of the day was upset about something in one of the birch trees near the entrance. I couldn't see what was prompting the alarm call and I may have scared off whatever it was as the chaffinch shut up as I approached to pass and calmly watched me go by.

A quick look at the river found me a pair of mallards canoodling under the bridge. I made my excuses and got the bus home.