Urmston and Irlam

Teal, Davyhulme Millennium Nature Reserve

It was another fine May morning in March. I woke to the dawn chorus, missing the blackbird but catching all the rest of the current cast, and asked myself what I was going to do with it. It didn't take long to amass a long list of what I wasn't going to do with it so I decided I'd pick up and run with yesterday's plan and just to make sure I didn't do a repeat of yesterday I walked over to get the 15 bus which runs every quarter of an hour and stops near the Davyhulme Millennium Nature Reserve.

I could walk there from home but it's three miles of not unduly enervating suburban road walking and I did plenty enough of that during lockdown to last me a while yet. I got off a couple of stops early, though, just to make sure I was getting a little bit of exercise in for the day. It also meant I could walk down Daresbury Avenue from the start instead of walking in from the bus stop, getting to the crossroads and wondering which of the three Daresbury Avenues I need to be walking down.

Willow catkins

The reserve was awash with Blackthorn and cherry blossom but it was the catkins of the goat willows that made the biggest visual splash. 

Blackthorns 

Peacock butterflies, of which there were many, basked in the sun as they fed from the blossom at the tops of the cherry trees. Long-tailed tits favoured the catkins and the abundance of small insects feeding on them. The blue tits, great tits and chiffchaffs preferred the lower reaches of the willows though one chiffchaff did have a rummage about in some catkins and got chased off by a pair of long-tailed tits. The songscape was turned up to eleven with great tits, chiffchaffs, chaffinches, dunnocks and woodpigeons trying to be heard over the wrens and robins.

Goat willow 

Manchester Ship Canal 

The Ship Canal, viewed through the trees, was littered with waterfowl. As I crossed over Bents Lane Brook I noticed a couple of teal dabbling upstream of the bridge. A dozen more dabbled and dozed where the brook ran into the canal. Pairs of mallards and gadwalls hugged the canal banks, great crested grebes cruised midwater and cormorants fished. Most of the cormorants were working solo but there was some cooperative fishing going on, including three swimming upstream in a line abreast, taking turns to be the one in the middle capitalising from panicked fish coming in from either side.

Davyhulme Millennium Nature Reserve 

A couple of blackcaps sang in the bushes at the corner where the path splits. The creaking sound turned out to be my left knee rather than the whitethroat I'd hoped it was, the weather must be on the turn.

Barton Lock 

I walked round to the canalside at Barton Lock. For all that there were loads of gadwalls about there wasn't a single coot or tufted duck to be seen. Half a dozen black-headed gulls made enough noise for a crowd and a lesser black-back sat on a lamppost. I already knew where the heron's preferred fishing point was and felt a bit smug at having been proved right again. It'll be elsewhere next time I visit.

Heron on Barton Lock

I walked round and followed the dead straight path along the reserve boundary. Yet more peacock butterflies, some of them barging comma butterflies off favoured basking spots. A treecreeper added to the songscape. I'm never sure if I really am hearing a treecreeper and it always comes as a relief when I see the bird fidget up a tree trunk. A buzzard called loudly as it flew overhead, I wondered if it's the same pale-headed bird I've seen a few times on Cadishead Moss.

Gadwalls and moorhens drifted about a pond that will soon be all but invisible behind reeds and flag irises. It's still many weeks too early to start expecting to see dragonflies, which didn't stop me looking.

The pond

I got talking to a couple walking their dog and we both joked that if we were here the kingfisher that's often seen on the canal won't be. I'd taken three steps when it shot down the canal past me. I shouted over to thank them for being lucky mascots and hoped they'd see it on their way back. I hope they did.

The afternoon was yet young so I decided to go and have a look at Irlam Locks. I could have got the 15 to the end of its route on Lytham Road and walked down from there, it's five stops so I guess that would be defensible. But it's only five stops, slightly over an extra mile, so I walked it. Lytham Road Park is a few acres of green space between the road and the canal, every time I go past I feel sure there should be a path down to Irlam Locks despite my knowing full well there isn't one. I stopped and asked myself if I was sure and had to look at two maps before I was convinced. The rookeries on Woodsend Crescent Road were bustling with activity but no sign of youngsters yet.

Rookery

The house sparrows in the hedgerows down Irlam Road were noisy and fussy, which set me wondering if some didn't already have mouths to feed. Robins, blackbirds and dunnocks were doing most of the singing in the background.  

Irlam Locks 

The clamour of the black-headed gulls on the locks and the water treatment works almost drowned out the songbirds' efforts. I scanned through the crowds in the hopes I might get my first Mediterranean gull of the year but they were all right and proper black-headed gulls, even the second calendar year birds that were keeping their white heads awhile.

Black-headed gulls

A couple of cormorants loafed on the locks. A string of fourteen of them fished downstream under the railway bridge. The great crested grebes favour fishing here but they'd obviously been outnumbered by larger birds and so were loafing with the gulls in the lock.

River Irwell Old Course 

I sort of drifted over the locks and up Cadishead Way and over to the Irwell Old Course. Great tits, chiffchaffs and woodpigeons sang in the trees. They were joined by blackbirds, robins, wrens, dunnocks and a song thrush as I dropped down the steps and walked along the bankside. Moorhens, coots and mallards pottered about on the water and a terrapin basked on a log. Some of the mallards succumbed to the fires in the blood which scandalised a couple who shouted, clapped their hands and threw sticks at them. Looking at them and their only child I got the impression that somebody had done the same to them.

Moorhen

Collared doves joined the songscape and goldfinches twittered in the treetops. I decided I didn't have the legs for a wander up Irlam Moss so I walked over and got the 100 to the Trafford Centre and thence home. It had been a nice, chilled sort of walk and I was glad I hadn't badgered myself into anything more frenetic.