Irlam Locks

Black-headed gulls 

It was a bright sunny morning and I'd had two hours' sleep. The usual array of a dozen black-headed gulls danced for worms on the school playing field while two dozen spadgers demolished suet blocks in the back garden. The black-headed gulls disappeared before noon. A few herring gulls floated in, saw there was no playground activity and moved on.

Black-headed gulls 

Fortified by tea and toast I set out for a lunchtime walk — it had struck me as a nice symmetry to begin and end the month with a stroll round Irlam Locks. I'd no sooner got to the garden gate when the clouds rolled in. 

I got the 256 into Flixton and walked down Irlam Road. Woodpigeons were suddenly back and adorning chimney pots along the way. When I got off at Towns Gate the wind had an edge to it and every so often the sun poked through a hole in the clouds. Pigeons clattered about rooftops, starlings bubbled and squeaked as they gathered in the treetops and house sparrows clamoured in hedgerows.

Irlam Locks 

There weren't many small birds about on Irlam Locks, the thin cover not providing much protection from the wind. Blackbirds rummaged round in the brambles while dunnocks and robins kept to the hedge bottoms.

Black-headed gulls

Pairs of mallards and a single mute swan floated down the Manchester Ship Canal while a pair of gadwalls dozed under the far bank. There were more mallards with the crowd of black-headed gulls by the locks, some on the water and more loafing on the lockside. It occurred to me it would be nice to find a Mediterranean gull in the crowd, I've had a poor year for them, but all that wasn't black-headed gull was a couple of lesser black-backs and a common gull. A heron croaked loudly as it flew in and settled down at the end of the lock.

Black-headed gulls

Yet more black-headed gulls were fussing about the water treatment works with a dozen or so magpies. I couldn't find any wagtails and it's long months since I last saw oystercatchers here.

Irlam Locks, looking downstream to the railway bridge

Pigeons

As I crossed the lock it started to rain. A hundred or so pigeons loafed on the lockside downstream of the gates. Down at the end of the lock cormorants dried their wings in the rain. Moorhens bustled across the canal but there was just the one great crested grebe. A couple of pied wagtails skittered about the Irlam side of the locks.

Manchester Ship Canal from Cadishead Way 

Walking along Cadishead Way I was hoping there'd be small birds bouncing about in the trees by the canal but they had more sense than me. I decided I'd walk over to Liverpool Road and get the 100 to the Trafford Centre and thence home.

River Irwell Old Course, by The Boathouse 

Crossing over, I walked along the River Irwell Old Course to Princes Park. A great tit called in the trees by The Boathouse and a grey wagtail flitted about the waterside. Moorhens, mallards and coots sheltered by the bankside, except for those moorhens intent on chasing each other across the path. The rain was at its most intense when the low sun lit up the trees like a stage set. Approaching the park a mixed tit flock — quite a lot of long-tailed tits and blue tits and a pair of great tits — bounced through the alders and willows and coincided with a small flock of goldfinches.

River Irwell Old Course 

I walked through the park and struck lucky with the bus. The rain stopped as we passed through Irlam, which was a blessing as I'd missed the 25 and had to get the 250 and walk through the park home. Lesser black-backs and black-headed gulls flew overhead to roost and the park was dead quiet save the magpies on the football pitch.

Lostock Park