Alkrington Woods

Twilight descends on the River Irk

It was a thoroughly grim and stormy start to the day. Both I and the birds in the back garden kept under cover. Across the road the school playing field was carpeted in jackdaws and gulls. I had no intention of going for a walk.

The need to get a new monthly travel card asserted itself so I went into town and got one. Oxford Road on Tuesday wasn't a lot better than Oxford Road on Monday and the station staff had my sympathy. Nonetheless I wanted to get some value out of the new card so I decided to go over Victoria, get the train to Rochdale and see if I could get the Town Hall peregrines onto my year list.

Manchester Victoria was considerably worse than Oxford Road. The key problem here was that the Transpennine line between Greenfield and Huddersfield was closed due to damage caused by a fire this weekend. Consequently all the trains not replaced by buses were going through Rochdale and Halifax, which is a fairly busy route anyway, and everything had snarled up. This is what happens when successive governments of all stripes spend forty years announcing plans for new Transpennine rail routes and doing nothing about them while closing ones that already exist.

I gave it up and went for the bus. The 100 to the Trafford Centre was due in ten minutes, I'd get that and go home. The 59 turned up before it, I remembered that goes by Alkrington Woods and the sun was threatening to show its face. So I had an hour's wander round the woods as the sun went down.

Canada geese, mute swans, black-headed gulls, tufted ducks and a herring gull

The lodge by Manchester Old Road was busy with mute swans, Canada geese and tufted ducks. Black-headed gulls had a pre-roost wash while pairs of coots squabbled and fought for the territorial rights of stretches of water they then swam away and ignored.

Perch Pool 

The next lodge along the causeway, Perch Pool, was busy with mallards and coots. I almost missed the pair of gadwalls in the shadows of the willows, half a dozen wigeons were dozing midwater.

River Irk

I walked along the River Irk into Middleton. Robins, great tits and blue tits sang in the trees. Wrens scolded my passing by. Woodpigeons, magpies and parakeets clattered about in the trees. 

Alkrington Woods 

As I approached the entry onto Manchester Old Road a bullfinch sang wistfully deep in one of the willow trees. It rather matched the blues and pinks and greys of the twilight.