Mersey Valley

Song thrush, Chorlton Ees 

It was a hot day and I was still feeling knackered after the very long day yesterday. I don't know what it is but I find kicking my heels waiting an age for trains or buses more tiring than walking about. I thought it wise to wait until teatime before going for a walk. Come teatime it was still the high eighties Fahrenheit so any walk was going to have to be in the deep shade of some woodland. I headed into Chorlton for a walk through Ivy Green and Chorlton Ees. From there I could either go down to Sale Water Park, walk home through Stretford Ees and Stretford Meadows or get the bus home from Stretford town centre, depending on the whim and the weather.

Hawthorn Lane

I walked down Hawthorn Lane which was noisy with the songs of blackbirds, song thrushes and robins. They were joined by chiffchaffs and the raucous calls of ring-necked parakeets as I walked into Ivy Green.

Ivy Green 

I remembered, just in time, to smear grease around my nostrils as I got to the meadow. Carrion crows, magpies and woodpigeons kept to the shade of the trees in the margins. There weren't a lot of butterflies about but there was a variety: ringlets, meadow browns and large skippers supplementing the red admirals and large whites.

Large skipper 

A return to tree cover was a return to the songscape. For all that the birdsong was incessant it was extremely hard work finding the singers and the birds silently going about their business did so in deep cover. Nearly all the movement in the undergrowth turned out to be bees, large hoverflies or comma butterflies. I think I'm going to find the dog says an unproductive grind if I'm not careful.

Chorlton Ees 

Crossing over the brook into Chorlton Ees felt like a continuation of the Ivy Green experience at first though the woodpigeons were more readily visible in the mature trees. There were small birds about, I could hear the faint contact calls of young robins and wrens somewhere in the bushes. 

I followed the path along the brook; I usually head the other way towards Jackson's Boat but I decided that Sale Water Park was going to be way too busy for birdwatching today. Some of the youngsters of a family of long-tailed tits could be seen bouncing about the sun-drenched ivies in the corner of a clearing. Song thrushes chose low singing posts. A mixed flock of great tits and blue tits skittered and bounced their way through the tree canopy, the sudden sag of twigs telling me where one might be, once in a while I'd get to see one of the birds involved.

Chorlton Ees 

River Mersey

Where the brook meets the Mersey I broke out into open country and walked downstream along the river embankment. A mallard took her two half-grown ducklings upstream beside the far bank. Large whites and a banded demoiselle fluttered about the near bank. The songscapes of Ivy Green and Chorlton Ees echoed with the jackdaws and parakeets across the river in Sale Water Park and more blackbirds and song thrushes made their contributions from the hedgerows by Hawthorn Lane.

Stretford Ees

I spent a while watching the reeds buntings and goldfinches by the pool on Stretford Ees. There were a dozen or more young goldfinches in the flock twittering about in the willows. There were a couple of singing male buntings in the trees, I'm guessing that there are nests or youngsters in the flag irises by the way the females were coming and going. There were also plenty of damselflies zipping about the irises and elder bushes, mostly common blue damselflies though I found at least one female azure damselfly in the mix. I often wonder if I'm not missing some variable damselflies along the way, I've never knowingly seen any. And didn't today.

Common blue damselfly 

I decided against walking down into Stretford Meadows, it was early evening but felt like midday once I was out in the open. I'd had a good couple of hours' pottering about and struggling to see much of what I was hearing so I called it quits.

As I turned the corner of Barton Road on the way home I looked up to see a crowd of swifts high above the chimney tops. I've been seeing less than a handful at a time locally so watching fifteen of them was a rare treat.