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| Blackbird, Guide Bridge |
The first bird of the year was a collared dove that started singing at dawn in the back garden. The spadgers were notably absent until at the stroke of noon they descended mob-handed. Across the road the herring gulls outnumbered the black-headed gulls most of the morning.
I had been tempted to set off at dawn for Southport with a view to giving the birdwatching year a rip-roaring start by finding all those scarce geese I didn't find last Saturday at Marshside. Then I wondered if I was physically up to it after feeling so wiped out yesterday. I decided I'd probably be better having a gentle potter about and see how I go. (I'm getting over an asthma attack on Tuesday night, which normally I could take in my stride but the arrival of the sudden cold snap yesterday was an extra knock)
The Longendale Trail is dead flat easy going and starts just round the corner from Hadfield Station where there's a train back to Manchester every half hour. So that was my afternoon walk.
I arrived at Piccadilly Station just in time to catch the Rose Hill Marple train so instead of kicking my heels for quarter of an hour at Piccadilly waiting for the Hadfield train I waited ten minutes for it at Guide Bridge. There were no waterbirds on the canal but the canal side hawthorns were busy with blackbirds.
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| The Longendale Trail, approaching Padfield High Road |
It was a bright, cloudy afternoon when I arrived at Hadfield. Woodpigeons and jackdaws clattered about and house sparrows chirped in garden hedges. I joined the Longendale Trail and the hedgerows were dead quiet at first, I was just hearing the jackdaws on the rooftops beyond.
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| Bullfinch |
I soon started to find woodpigeons mooching in treetops while robins and blackbirds fossicked about in the wet trackside leaf litter. There was a steady traffic of people and their dogs taking the opportunity for a new year's walk but it didn't much fuss the few birds that were about. The grey squirrels didn't mind the people but were off like a shot at the first sign or sound of dogs, and quite wisely too. A movement that caught the corner of my eye turned out to be a pair of bullfinches feeding on bramble pips halfway up the embankment. Surprisingly, given their colour schemes, the brown and beige female stood out more than the red and grey male, from this angle the colours broke up his outline against the bare twigs.
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| Canada geese |
A flock of Canada geese were grazing on the pasture above Bottoms Reservoir, and yes I did check to make sure they were all Canada geese. A few jackdaws and carrion crows flew about and a buzzard hovered in the stiff breeze over the hilly pasture above me. The breeze made the water on the reservoir very choppy and it wasn't immediately obvious that there were seventy or eighty black-headed gulls loafing midwater.
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| Bottoms Reservoir |
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| Walking by Bottoms Reservoir |
Walking along I bumped into a small charm of goldfinches and wondered what they were finding to eat in the bare hawthorn hedgerows. Perhaps there were more aphids and the like in the nooks and crannies to keep them going. Predictably, the more sheep and molehills there were in the pasture the more jackdaws accompanied them and on the approach to Valehouse Reservoir they were joined by a handful of rooks.
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| Walking towards Valehouse Reservoir |
I walked up to the end of Valehouse Reservoir. I was starting to feel a bit winded but I was doing a hell of a lot better than I thought I would. I looked over at the dam below Rhodeswood Reservoir and wondered if I should get that under my belt, too, but decided not to push my luck. Instead I passed the hour before sunset dawdling my way back into Hadfield.
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| Valehouse Reservoir |
A cormorant flew over, looking to be headed towards Dove Stone. The buzzard floated by, a lot of long straw dangling from its ankle being evidence of a meal near missed. A raven floated over the hill and into the woods on the other side of Bottoms Reservoir, the jackdaws feeding in the pasture making very rude noises at it as it passed.
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| Heading back |
More robins, blackbirds and woodpigeons rustled in the hedgerows, great tits and chaffinches pinked in the trees, dogs overestimated their ability to outrun squirrels, the sun poked through and made everything golden for a few minutes and the train back to Manchester arrived at the station the same time I did. I'd had a very nice walk, I'd made a start on the year list and much was well in the world. Which was nice.
