Etherow Country Park

Grey wagtail

It was a dreich, rainy day. Two male dunnocks sang in the blackcurrant bushes as I refilled the feeders and the robins were courting amongst the snowdrops. I left them to it, I was glad to get back inside.

Etherow Country Park 

I still had a touch of the glooms on me so I headed out and drifted towards Etherow Country Park with half an idea of taking photos of mandarin ducks in the rain. Except that it stopped raining and the mandarin ducks were nearly all hiding in the trees. One of the willow trees on the canal had fallen over across it and workmen were repairing the damage caused to road and the bank by the uprooted roots. So the mandarins were hiding in the drowned willows in the mill pool. A couple of the drakes came out for a swim for less than a minute before rejoining the others.

Mandarin ducks

Mandarin ducks 

The usual array of black-headed gulls, mallards, coots, Canada geese and moorhens joined the mute swans and pigeons in the pool by the car park. A grey wagtail puttered about the bank by the visitor centre. 

Mallards

Mallard

River Etherow 

The river was high and fast and I'll have to wait to be adding dippers to the year list. I decided not to visit Keg Wood today, rather than doing what has become the usual half-arsed attempt at a visit I'll come round early sometime soon and make a proper job of it.

Muscovy duck

On the way back I was greeted by the pair of Muscovy ducks on the causeway. I hadn't noticed the redhead goosander sitting in the weeds by them until it barked at me and swam off.

Etherow Country Park 

The lily pond 

Black-headed gulls and cormorants 

I wandered back and had a wait for the bus back to Stockport — if the roadworks at Rose Hill don't get you, the roadworks at Romiley will — and got the bus home. It had been a fairly quiet afternoon but I felt a lot better for having had the walk.