Stretford Meadows

Chiffchaff

After an atrocious morning we were gifted a sunny lull before the approaching storm. I couldn't say I felt like going for a walk but I was loathe to waste the weather so I had a wander over to Stretford Meadows to see if anything was about. What was mostly about was a strong early Autumn vibe and a lot of woodpigeons overhead. Everything seems a couple of weeks early: the thistles are largely gone over, the willowherbs are starting to go to seed, even the Michaelmas daisies are in flower. The Summer migrants don't seem to be on the move just yet but they're keeping a very low profile by and large.

Stretford Meadows 

The trees by Newcroft Road were busy with invisible blue tits and chiffchaffs. A blackbird flew by with a beakful of insects so the breeding season's not completely over. I'd walked about fifty yards onto the meadows when a prolonged bout of tutting told me there was a chiffchaff in the brambles. Eventually it gave up on trying to shame me into moving on and set about gleaning insects from the undersides of leaves, picking most of them off in flight.

Knapweed 

Spotting anything out on the open meadows that wasn't woodpigeons or magpies took luck more than skill. The goldfinches were ignoring the drifts of ripe thistledown for the insects in the hawthorns and oaks. I started to take it for granted that any pigeon-shaped object darting overhead was going to be a woodpigeon or pigeon and almost missed a collared dove and a handful of stock doves.

Red bartsia
Every year I see this in the rough grass and think: "I should know what that is," and every year I have to look it up.

Stretford Meadows 

A few jackdaws sounded like a crowd scene as they passed overhead. Lesser black-backs drifted by. Ring-necked parakeets screeched in the treetops over the applause for the cricket match. It was high Summer doldrums.

Carder bee 

I wandered aimlessly round the paths beyond the mound for an hour, finding yet more of the same, then called it quits. I was shattered even though it was only a short dawdle round (how quickly an old man gets out of condition!) so I walked into Stretford for the bus home. A couple of house martins hawking high over Milton Street reassured me that Summer wasn't over yet.

Wellacre Country Park

Large white

It had been a long week and I was dog-tired. It was another of those muggy grey days, this time after quite a cool night, but I needed some exercise. I decided to sleepwalk my way round Wellacre Country Park. So I got the 256 to Town's Gate and toddled down the path into Wellacre Wood.

As I walked down the path magpies and parakeets muttered in the treetops. A few woodpigeons rummaged about in the bushes and house sparrows could be heard in the brambles. As a nod to its being Summer even though it felt like early Autumn a couple of large whites fluttered about in the undergrowth. Just as I'd settled for this being one of those quiet walks a blackcap burst into song in the elder bush I was passing. A robin bobbed out of the hedgerow to see what the fuss was about.

Wellacre Wood 

The wood was eerily quiet, despite the sounds of the disco at The Boathouse half a mile away in Irlam. The participants must have had blood pouring out of their ears. It slowly became apparent that quiet though the wood was, it was far from deserted. The furtive rustlings up to the centre of the wood could have been the winds in the leaves. The mournful calls of a pair of bullfinches pulled me short. As I scanned the canopy for them I noticed a couple of great tits feeding up there. Then I found the bullfinches. I had my eye in now so I scanned the canopy around me, finding blue tits, a song thrush and blackbirds, including one that had moulted all but one of his tail feathers. And none of them made a sound.

Quite unlike the clatter of woodpigeons and the squeak of chiffchaffs in the hawthorns in the fields. Overhead there was a steady flow of woodpigeons flying back in from the mosses even though it was only mid-afternoon.

Wellacre Country Park 

Scanning the fields and looking over to Irlam Locks a distinct lack of any hirundines of any kind was glaringly conspicuous. The water treatment works seemed to have their due share of magpies and black-headed gulls.

More chiffchaffs squeaked in the trees of Jack Lane Nature Reserve but I was beggared if I could see them. Any more than the reeds warblers creaking in the depths of the reeds. A noise that might have been an irritated Cetti's warbler wasn't repeated so I'm still not sure. For all the gloomy weather lately there hasn't been a lot of rain and the pools were barely half full.

Jack Lane Nature Reserve 

A Southern hawker patrolling the path to Dutton's Pond was the only dragonfly of the day.

The mallards and coots quietly cruised round Dutton's Pond, the young mallards still yet to learn that it's bad etiquette to steal all the ground bait when it's flung out by the anglers.

Green Hill 

A robin sang in the trees at the base of Green Hill and titmice snuck about in the undergrowth. Up top, on the open ground peppered with oaks and hawthorns, chiffchaffs squeaked and a pair of bullfinches flitted about the taller trees. A few speckled woods and large whites had fluttered about the brambles in the shade at the bottom of the hill, up top the brambles were busy with gatekeepers. I followed a path through a stand of hawthorns, when I emerged I disturbed a buzzard which silently floated downhill towards the old dredging lagoons.

Acorn knopper galls

Walking down for the bus back I had a look at the river by Flixton Bridge, expecting nothing and finding a pair of dabchicks busily fishing by the bank.

I've been wondering if I've seen the last of the swifts for this year so it was nice to see one hawking over Eccles Library on my way home from some hospital visiting this evening.