Etherow Country Park

Mandarin duckling

There's an embarrassment of soft fruit in the back garden at the moment. I've managed to have some of the boysenberries and raspberries (no idea where the raspberries came from) and I've picked some of the blackcurrants and goosegogs. It would have been nice to have seen any of the cherries. This morning a juvenile blackcap was helping itself to the boysenberries by the living room window, disappearing into cover whenever a camera was produced.

It poured down all morning. Late lunchtime it abated, leaving behind a sweaty and cloudy sort of a day like a badly ventilated launderette. I decided to go and take photos of mandarin ducks in eclipse plumage, a challenge as they're considerably shyer in moult and as likely to be up trees as on riverbanks.

I got off the 383 at Compstall and walked up to the car park. Amorous pigeons canoodled behind car wheels, Canada geese and mallards mugged for scraps, black-headed gulls squabbled and a coot picked a fight with the mute swan because it had drifted too close to its youngster.

Canada gosling

Some of the Canada goslings were in that transition where the true feathers were replacing the down.

Canada gosling

Canada geese 

I walked up the canal. Chiffchaffs and goldfinches sang, flocks of pigeons haunted anyone who sat down and Canada geese crowded the islands and banks. I had a fleeting glimpse of an eclipse drake mandarin as it steamed down the canal into cover.

River Etherow

The paths have been reopened and, I must admit, there is an improvement. The river is easier to see now the trees have been thinned and opened and the paths are much better. The canalside flora has responded to the extra sunlight, a medley of umbellifers, campions and buttercups with an understory of betonies and vetches. A few large whites fluttered about amidst the bumblebees.

Walking between the canal (left) and the river

Mallards 

The opening up of the view to the river didn't coincide with my seeing any grey wagtails or dippers. No matter, it was still a good walk. The weather had got to the mallards, they were all asleep and I couldn't blame them.

Approaching the weir

I got to the mill pond. The scary bouncy wooden bridge over the overflow was still the scary wooden bridge over the overflow, there are some eternal verities. A crowd of mandarin ducks steamed out of the trees and headed my way.

Drake mandarin in eclipse plumage

Drake mandarin

Mandarin duck 

Drake mandarin
The reduced amount of red on his bill suggests he's a First-Summer bird.

Mandarin duck 

We'll forget that bit about them being shy and difficult to find this time of year.

A mallard and her two near full-grown ducklings slept under the bridge by the weir. Downstream a male grey wagtail fossicked about the rocks in the rapids. Meadow browns and ringlets joined the large whites fluttering about the roadside.

Keg Wood 

It was energy-sapping weather and I didn't feel like the walk round Keg Wood. I felt I shouldn't just ignore it so I compromised by going a hundred yards in and standing still to see what I could hear and what would be passing by. Robins and wrens tutted as I passed. Chiffchaffs, blackbirds and a robin sang. A family of great tits passed by. Goldfinches, a chaffinch and blackcaps broke into song. I'd been hearing but not seeing blue tits, they broke out of cover and bounced through the hawthorns by the lane.

I turned and walked back whence I came. I had another look at the weir and the river in the hopes of seeing a dipper and couldn't find the wagtail either. It's been an age since I last saw dippers here. I walked back, crossed the scary bouncy bridge and had one last look back. Damn me, there was a dipper. It was an adult bird, distant and very fidgety and spending most of its time underwater but there it was. Which was nice.

Sleeping mallard

I walked further down. Rather than crossing the bridge and walking back down the road I carried on down the causeway which was littered with sleeping ducks. Most of which were mandarins.

Mandarins

Drake mandarin

Mandarin duckling 

Mandarin

The stream of colloquial Anglo-Saxon was a teenage angler discovering a mandarin duck stealing his ground bait. They're shy like that.

The lily pond by the start of the causeway