Blackleach Country Park

Canada geese, mute swans, mallards and coots

The choice was between heading for the Wigan Flashes for to look for a great northern diver or Pennington Flash for to look for a scaup but after oversleeping after a bad night's sleep and a busy morning I hadn't the energy for either. I refilled the sunflower seeds feeders and was rewarded by the first chaffinch in the garden this year, a male. I don't know why we don't tend to see chaffinches in this area. The goldfinches have been singing since Christmas but it was still a surprise to see a pair courting in the rowan tree, the male sashaying up and down the branch his tail flung from side to side like a flamenco dancer.

I got the fidgets and decided to go for a walk to try and get my head straight a bit. Bus stop bingo got me the 25 to the Trafford Centre where I just missed the 126 to Leigh so I got the next outgoings bus, the 22 to Bolton, and after a bit of dithering about I decided I was going to Blackleach Country Park.

I got off the bus in Kearsley and walked down to the motorway bridge, the woody bit of scrub by the path busy with blue tits and blackbirds. It feels like a bumper Winter for blackbirds, the hedgerows and waste grounds are full of them.

At first I thought this was a stack of oyster mushrooms, it's actually the ripped fibres of the  splitting trunk.

Crossing the motorway the woods in Blackleach Country Park were December quiet, as if they'd been worked out by Bonfire Night, which they might well have been given how early Autumn started last year. It was a relief to bump into a blackbird.

Blackleach Country Park 

Black-headed gulls, lesser black-back and coot

The lake was mostly frozen over and populated by loafing gulls, mostly black-headed gulls. A few first-Winter herring gulls and adult lesser black-backs accompanied them and there was just the one common gull. Coots and moorhens skittered about past them.

Common gull

Mute swans and mallards 

There was a tiny patch of free water by the little pier and it was packed solidly with coots, mallards, Canada geese and mute swans. Those that couldn't fit on the water loafed about on the path with some robins and blackbirds and it was a bit of a feat negotiating my way past both them and a sheet of wet ice.

Coot

I looked at the time and decided I'd done enough getting cold while pretending to take some exercise for one day. I walked over to Bolton Road and got the 37 to Salford Crescent for the trains home. I didn't have long to wait there and was serenaded by a song thrush while the train arrived.