I'm on the train

Treecreeper, York

The yellow alerts for Storm Bram had retreated more than somewhat overnight but it was still looking like not being a nice day. It was dry and remarkably warm when I ran the morning's errands but the knees felt like they'd been set in concrete so I wasn't up for any fell-running. I'd already planned on using one of my Delay Repay compo tickets for a day out to York (there are three more in the post) so I headed into Manchester and got the Leeds train at Victoria Station.

I hadn't realised just how much I've been actively avoiding Manchester City Centre lately. It looks like the pigeons are doing so, too, as Piccadilly Gardens was bereft of them (there's usually a crowd of them hanging round from dawn to midnight).

The sky was black and the rain teeming down as we crossed the Pennines. The River Calder was in angry spate. Along the way woodpigeons, jackdaws and even carrion crows huddled in trackside trees and mallards dabbled in fields. The weather calmed down on the approach to Bradford and became settled grey and windy.

On a whim I got the train that goes the long way round to York. I recently realised that "the train to Poppleton" is the stopping train to York via Harrogate and Knaresborough and "the train to Burleigh Park" is the train back from York. I have friends in the area so I thought I'd do a reconnaissance to see how easy it would be to let on to them (the answer is it would be a doddle).

It turned out to be a very good whim indeed. I've never seen so many red kites on one journey. The idea of having red kites as garden ticks, as they evidently do in Weeton, makes my brain itch. Every so often the train would disturb one from a trackside tree and it would float off, its tail twitching in the wind. More often there'd be a slim form hanging on long wings high above rolling fields.

A day's worth of red kites

Arriving at York I had a short wander round. I've always dashed straight into the city centre so today I decided to approach it leisurely by way of the Memorial Park and the river. The singing robins and the mixed tit flock I bumped into in the park was a nice change of pace. 

Ouse Bridge, York

I've seen the river higher than it was today but it was quite high enough for me to worry about riverside occupants. When rivers are this high and fast the waterfowl move on to calmer waters and so it was today. I had a nice surprise as I was taking scenic photos when a treecreeper jumped onto the tree I was standing by. Getting such a fidgety bird into focus so close to hand defeated my photographic skills but it was good to see it. Treecreepers are one of those I know they're definitely around but I ain't seeing them birds, it's always a treat when they jump out and say hello.

I took the direct route back to Leeds. It doesn't take a lot to flood the fields around Ulleskelf so it didn't shock me to see a big flock of Canada geese sharing a pop-up lake with mute swans and mallards. I was surprised to see red kites skirting Leeds City Centre, mind. And a Mediterranean gull loafing on its own on a wet football pitch was a shock.

I picked out the woodpigeons, jackdaws and carrion crows best could in the failing light on the train back to Manchester where my train home was cancelled. It's a rare thing for me to use a Delay Repay compo ticket without ending up submitting Delay Repay claims for late and cancelled trains.