Wellacre Country Park

Jack Lane nature reserve 

The planned options for the day involved either being windswept and interesting on the Lancashire coast or taking my new boots for a walk up a hill. It became apparent that I had no intention of doing either when I found myself emptying the last from a packet of posh Darjeeling tea into the teapot and filling the toaster with crumpets.

It was a bright, cold day. I told myself I should be out there frolicking in the sunshine while there was still sunshine to frolic in. I told myself. After an interval which involved a toasted cheese sandwich and more toast I dragged myself out and got the 256 into Flixton for a walk round Wellacre Country Park.

Wellacre Wood 

The paths onto Wellacre Wood were muddy but not atrociously so. In the shadows the puddles were still frozen. Parakeets and magpies called in the trees by the school but the wood itself was deadly quiet save the occasional falling leaf.

Oyster mushrooms 

Carrion crow 

Emerging, blinking, into the strong sunlight I had a look round the fields by the paths. Carrion crows and magpies fed in the fields occupied by horses, those without horses were also empty of birds. Way over by Irlam Locks a few pigeons and black-headed gulls wheeled about and the starlings were starting to congregate on the electricity pylons.

Jack Lane

I took a chance and walked through Jack Lane nature reserve. To my surprise the path was bone dry. Most of the pools had refilled, and many were frozen over. It came as something of a relief to see a flock of woodpigeons. I kept hearing redwings in the trees but only actually saw a mistle thrush and a fieldfare, the blackbirds were busy in the hawthorn bushes. I'm a bit puzzled by my keeping on seeing lone fieldfares round here, it goes against the natural order of things. Moorhens muttered in the reedbed while a water rail squealed and there was the welcome return of the Cetti's warbler I've not heard in months. Mixed tit flocks were busy either end of the reserve, long-tailed tits with blue tits at the Jack Lane end, long-tailed tits with great tits and blue tits by the railway embankment. I looked out for any willow tits but it wasn't my day for them.

Wellacre Country Park 

Dutton's Pond 

A cormorant briefly visited Dutton's Pond and got more barracking from the moorhens and mallards than the anglers.

Walking along the path at the bottom of Green Hill found me a large mixed tit flock: a couple of dozen long-tailed tits, a dozen blue tits, a few great tits and a nuthatch. I think the house sparrows, chaffinches and bullfinches were innocent bystanders dragged into the melee.

River Mersey at Flixton Bridge

The river was very high at Flixton Bridge and for the first time in a while it had no birds on it. I walked down to the station and got the train home.