Wellacre Country Park

Juvenile blackcap

It had been a cool, damp night and a cool, damp morning and the joints asked if I was really going out in that and I had to admit that I wasn't. Things had calmed down mid-afternoon so I bobbed over to Wellacre Country Park to get a bit of exercise.

Wellacre Wood 

I got off the bus at the school and walked down into Wellacre Wood. Blackbirds, wrens and robins sang incessantly; woodpigeons, magpies and carrion crows clattered about; goldfinches twittered in treetops and a pair of parakeets made noises in a corner of the school yard. Swifts flew high overhead riding the rain fronts.

I emerged from the wood and walked past the fields to Jack Lane. Swallows swooped low over the fields and a crowd of them whizzed about the stables. Over by Irlam Locks the swallows were joined by a flock of sand martins and a crowd of starlings billowed their way between the houses and the water treatment works. Black-headed gulls flew around the locks and lesser black-backs passed high overhead towards the river. I decided not to make the detour round to the locks to see what was on the canal, I'd only be tempted not to traipse all the way back and I'd use the weather as an excuse just to get the bus home.

Walking into Jack Lane Nature Reserve 

So I headed for Jack Lane Nature Reserve instead.

Juvenile long-tailed tit

I'd barely passed by the gate when I was surrounded by a family of long-tailed tits bouncing round the young oak trees by the path. I stayed still and they came and had a look at me before going back about their business. A family of blue tits did similar, the youngsters fresh out of the nest and still making a bad fist of keeping their balance on the branches as they begged for food. The family of great tits couldn't be bothered with me and just passed by.

Jack Lane Nature Reserve 

Two reed warblers sang in the reedbeds, a couple more bustled about and it sounded like there was a nestful of youngsters ready to go out into the world. Chiffchaffs, robins, blackbirds and reed buntings sang. A moorhen called to chicks in the depths, a water rail waited for a lull in the songscape to utter a blood-curdling squeal.

Walking down to Dutton's Pond 

The walk down to Dutton's Pond was fairly quiet, only the chiffchaffs, blackbirds and wrens bothering to sing. I bumped into a birdwatcher who I know has told me his name at least once, he'd managed to get some photos of a bunch of young whitethroats sitting together on Green Hill. It occurred to me to wonder why there weren't any whitethroats on the fields on this side of the railway line and I concluded that the grazing and the magpies would be too much for them. I see them quite often in settings heavily grazed by sheep but the distributed pellets of sheep droppings don't support the crowds of large insects a pile of horse manure will so the magpies are a lot fewer and far between.

Not even nice weather for ducks

I got to Dutton's Pond and it poured down. Everything except the mallards took to cover, the half-grown ducklings sulked in the water lilies.

Juvenile blackcaps

I'd barely passed under the railway bridge when I bumped into the first of many great tit families on Green Hill. A few steps further and there was another, and a blue tit family. Chiffchaffs, blackbirds and robins sang as I walked through the trees and a pair of blackcaps had three hungry mouths demanding food.

Juvenile blackcap

Green Hill 

There were more great tits and blue tits in the hawthorns out in the open. I bumped into the family of whitethroats. They were uncomfortably close to the path, having flown out of a hawthorn to have a look at a large dog. One of their parents was waiting for me to pass so it could do something with a beakful of large green caterpillars so I didn't linger. There were three or four singing whitethroats in the stretch of path I walked along. It wasn't the weather for doing much exploring. Sand martins, swallows and swifts hawked high overhead. There was a steady traffic of woodpigeons, jackdaws and lesser black-backs, each heading their own way. A kestrel hovered high over hillside, seeming to have the most luck near the gorse thickets.

Despite the weather there was nothing on the river except a woodpigeon having a drink. I walked over to Flixton Station and got the train home. The joints in my legs said: "Told you so."