Etherow Country Park

Mandarin duck

I'd had one of those night's sleep where the sound of arrival of the bin men is the cue to finally doze off, which put the kibosh on the day's plans. I decided to bob over to Etherow Country Park for a look at the mandarin ducks and to see if I'd have any more luck with dippers than I have had lately. I got the train into town, the idea being to get the train to Marple and walk through Brabyns Park over to Etherow Country Park. The idea being. That train got cancelled a few minutes after it was due to leave, waiting until the train to Rose Hill Marple on the next platform had left so that anyone wanting to go to Romiley or Marple were out of luck. So I got the train to Stockport and the 383 to Compstall Village and walked into Etherow Country Park about ten minutes earlier than if I'd waited for the next Marple train.

Etherow Country Park, by the car park

The lake by the car park was busy with waterfowl. The usual gangs of coots, mallards and Canada geese were there but there were also more mute swans than I've seen here in ages and the tufted ducks were back. I could only see one of the usual pair of farmyard geese, the Canada x greylag hybrid goose was still about and there were moorhens everywhere. Add to that about fifty black-headed gulls and the usual crowds of pigeons and jackdaws and it was quite lively.

Etherow Country Park 

Walking down to the weir I kept bumping into robins and dunnocks in the pathside vegetation. Goldfinches twittered in the tops of alders, long-tailed tits bounced through hawthorns and mixed tit flocks — great tits, blue tits and coal tits — skittered about the beech woods. For some reason the long-tailed tits stayed in their family groups and didn't mix with the others.

It was a while before I saw my first mandarins of the day, a pair lurking with mallards under the bank of the canal. The crowds turned out to be on the mill pond at the head of the canal.

River Etherow 
The waterfall is the overflow from the canal

The river was very high and running fast. I looked for dippers or wagtails because you never know your luck but it was a fool's errand, there were hardly any rocks above water. A pair of mistle thrushes sat at the top of a bare tree by the weir.

Mistle thrush

Jelly ear fungus

Keg Wood 

Looking over towards Ludworth Moor

I hadn't been walking long in Keg Wood before my legs told me we weren't doing this. Up to then I'd only been seeing robins and woodpigeons in the wood. As I stood and debated whether or not to force myself on with the walk a mixed tit flock flew over to see what I was up to and to tell me to beggar off. The vanguard was a nuthatch with a couple of great tits. More great tits, blue tits and coal tits flew in and I took the hint and headed back. Which was as well as I was dead beat by the time I got to the bus stop. I don't know what was wrong with me today.

Etherow Country Park 

Along the way I encountered a big group of mandarins loafing in drowned willows on the canal. The drakes were doing a lot of puffed-up breasts and flaunting of orange sails for the ladies, which were all being suitably demure about it. All charmingly different to the rugby scrums the mallards were indulging in by the car park.

Mandarin duck

Mandarin duck

Mandarin ducks