Wellacre Country Park

Coots

It was a nice day for a walk, clear sky and enough of a breeze to keep everything honest. Unfortunately I wasn't up to the planned trip out to Martin Mere and instead took the drastic step of slathering the leg between heel and mid-calf with an inch-thick layer of incredibly fiery rubbing ointment which stung like hell for two hours but seems to have loosened the tendon a lot. I don't know why I haven't done it before (yes I do: it stung like hell for two hours).

All of which is mere preamble to the admission that I was bone idle all day then went for a teatime walk round Wellacre Country Park.

Wellacre Country Park 

I got the train into Flixton and walked down Ambleside Road to Dutton's Pond for a change. I was expecting it to be dead quiet and I was dead wrong. Chiffchaffs, blackcaps, blackbirds and a song thrush were in full song. Families of great tits and long-tailed tits bounced about in the trees. Young chiffchaffs recklessly hung underneath the umbels of pathside hogweeds and only retreated into the bushes when the camera got them in focus. I wondered what the brown mound was on the path ahead, fearing the worst given the number of passing dogs and horses, and disturbed a sunbathing song thrush.

The crowd of mallards drifted aimlessly about Dutton's Pond. I was surprised to find a pair of coots with two youngsters, have they been hiding on this side of the island all the time? The moorhens chicks are now full grown and ashy grey. I looked for any dragonflies and found but the one common blue damselfly zipping round the irises.

Coots

Comma butterfly 

I walked on into Wellacre Wood backed by a songscape of chiffchaffs, blackbirds, wrens and blackcaps and the screeching of parakeets in the trees by the school field. The butterflies were busy. As well as the usual crowd of large whites there were plenty of speckled woods in the trees ready to chase any passing butterfly of whatever species out of their territories. Commas chased each other over thistle patches, meadow browns and gatekeepers flitted about in the long grass and red admirals sunned themselves on brambles.

Gatekeeper 

Red admiral 

Wellacre Wood 

The depths of the wood were noisier than usual, some of the woodpigeons and blackbirds sang in the treetops and great tits called to each other in the undergrowth.

Haymaking 

I looked in vain for any hirundines or swifts over the fields. Magpies and house sparrows accompanied the horses, carrion crows attended the hay making. Lesser black-backs drifted overhead towards the Mersey, black-headed gulls circled and squabbled over the water treatment works by Irlam Locks.

Jack Lane Nature Reserve 

Chiffchaffs and blackcaps sang in the trees in Jack Lane Nature Reserve. A song thrush and a couple of blackbirds sang from the railway embankment alongside. Magpies fossicked about in the hawthorns, to the disgust of the titmice flitting about them. I gave up on trying to find reed warblers and concentrated on finding any dragonflies. Not a sausage. Lots of bugs and beetles on the surface of the pools and plenty of midges and horseflies flying about but no dragonflies. I was scanning round the willows looking for them when I found a reed warbler bouncing about in the branches. It had a beak full of insects when it shot down into the reeds which surprised me as I forgot they have two broods, one in late Spring and one in midsummer. A second bird started singing from the reeds behind me as I moved on.

Twenty-two spot ladybird

The walk down by the railway to Dutton's Pond had more chiffchaffs, great tits, blackbirds, large whites and meadow browns. Woodpigeons bashed about in trees, carrion crows and magpies rummaged about in the fields. Two of the coots struck a pose on the pond so I could be sure I hadn't imagined them.

I decided not to take a pull up Green Hill and walked through to the river instead. The blue tits and great tits were very active and a family of long-tailed tits worked their way through the willows at the base of the hill.

Looking over the river at Flixton Bridge a kingfisher shot out from under the bridge and disappeared round the bend upstream of the garden centre. Which was nice.