Stretford Meadows

Goldfinch 

It was a morning for errands so I didn't have big plans for the birdwatching day. I might have slept through the opening passage of the dawn chorus as I only heard the bit where the collared dove and the wren were singing a duet. The blackbirds and the robin started singing (again?) mid-morning. Every time I looked out of the living room window there was a bustling about of blue tits and great tits. And by the sound of it the magpies weren't just using the nest in the tree across the road as a roost, at least one juvenile was shouting for its breakfast. Which might be bad news for the very noisy starlings nesting in next door's roof.

Each time I got home there were two dozen large gulls loafing on the school playing field. But not the same two dozen. Sometimes there'd be a couple more herring gulls than lesser black-backs, sometimes vice versa. By lunchtime it was nearly all lesser black-backs. There was always one adult lesser black-back in the same position every time and I began to wonder if it wasn't a decoy of some sort, like the stuffed crow on a roof I see when the bus passes through Moseley Common. It had shifted at teatime and flew off just after, which quashed any further macabre speculation.

The afternoon was mine own so I had a wander over Stretford Meadows. In part to see if any orchids were about, in part to see if the lesser whitethroat was still to be found. But mostly because I needed the exercise.

The spadgers fussed about in the hedgerows of Newcroft Road and wrens, blackcaps, blackbirds and chiffchaffs sang in the trees. For once I didn't have to go searching to see where a pheasant was calling from, there was one by the gate to the field by the garden centre.

Stretford Meadows 

I walked out into the open ground. It was a cool and grey and heavily cloudy afternoon. Carrion crows, woodpigeons and pigeons flew overhead in ones and twos and magpies rattled between trees. It felt like every third hawthorn had a whitethroat and any stand of trees held a whitethroat, a blackbird, a robin and some great tits. In truth there weren't quite that many, they moved about a lot. The chiffchaffs stayed in the wooded fringes, the goldfinches stayed on the tops. The reed buntings were seen but not heard. I didn't consciously see or hear any linnets but somehow had a sense they were about (this doesn't cut it for data recording purposes).

Northern marsh orchid 

Purple spikes of marsh orchids were peppered about liberally amongst the rank grasses, and especially in the emerging stands of great willowherbs. They were rarely in clumps, just the one or occasionally two spikes of flowers. Most were Southern marsh orchids, I found a couple of probably Northern marsh orchids. There were a lot that were variations on a theme of Southern marsh orchids and quite a few that had one or more of the other marsh orchids lurking somewhere in the family tree. Marsh orchids are quite variable to begin with a and hybridise like crazy given half a chance. The few common spotted orchids I identified by the heavy markings on the leaves, I couldn't be confident with the flowers alone. It came as a relief to find a rather bashed-about pyramidal orchid, the three-fingered cartoon glove-shaped lip to the flowers being reassuringly different to the others.

Common spotted orchid

Southern marsh orchid

The purples of the orchids were picked up by the purples of the tufted vetches twining through the grasses, contrasting with the bright yellows of the buttercups and horseshoe vetches. I spent a long while trying to get photos of the grass vetchlings, the tiny carmine-red pea flowers on long, wire-thin stems. It proved impossible, autofocus is not your friend when you're trying to take a picture of a tiny flower against a fussy foreground and background as it bobs about in the breeze and manual focus by mechanical jerks is even worse. There are times when I still miss being able to focus a lens by hand.

Walking away from the cricket pitch 

Heading for the rise

The rise of the heap

My strategy of looking for everything except the lesser whitethroat worked, it started singing from a hawthorn by the psth near the top of the rise. Actually, it was provoked by a magpie but the result was the same. To me the song of a lesser whitethroat has chaffinch tones to it, very different to the other warblers. The magpie moved on as I approached and the lesser whitethroat settled into singing uninterrupted by its sharp tick of an alarm call (like two pieces of flint being banged together). It sang from the depths of the hawthorn, a couple of times I saw its silhouette as if flitted across gaps in the leaf cover.

Goatsbeard

I dropped down to the Transpennine path, dodged a passing cycling club and had a look at the clouds. Prudence dictated that I didn't carry on down and walk into Stretford Ees and Sale Water Park. I headed into the woodland fringe to walk round to Sandy Lane. 

Heading for Sandy Lane

The rain seemed to provoke the birdsong: robins, blackcaps, blackbirds and chiffchaffs sang in the trees, a garden warbler fidgeted in an elderflower bush as it sang, wrens and dunnocks sang from the depths of the undergrowth. I hadn't realised I hadn't seen or heard any parakeets until I heard a couple in the trees on one of the back gardens.