Urban birdwatching

Boggart Hole Clough 

When I'm going through Manchester City Centre I always keep one eye on the Gothic rooftops for black redstarts. There's a tiny breeding population up there and once every seven years or so I actually spot one. Today was not one of those days.

I was in Rochdale for lunch with a friend. Had Rochdale and I not had history I'd be quite taken with the town centre, even so I was impressed by the new approach to the Town Hall. I'd seen a post on Facebook about the Town Hall peregrines coming back so I had a good look round. A pigeon's leg on the pavement suggested a peregrine had been around but I couldn't see any evidence of anything other than pigeons or woodpigeons having sat on the clock tower since it was spruced up. There was a background chorus from the trees on the slopes down from St Chads, a blackcap being the most persistent of the singers, with lusty support from robins, wrens, blackbirds and a song thrush. A nosy on the river found a pair of mallards by the bus station and a lone Canada goose further downstream.

Rochdale Town Centre 

After lunch I decided I would play bus station bingo and see where I went. The 17 was first bus out so I got that. I didn't want a canalside walk in Castleton or a walk round Alkrington Woods today, I felt like having a bits and pieces sort of an afternoon. It was only after the bus had passed the stop I remembered Boarshaw Clough was just off Rochdale Road. I did, however, remember to get off at the entrance to Boggart Hole Clough.

Boggart Hole Clough 

Robins, blackcaps and great tits were singing in the trees by the entrance. Blue tits and wrens joined in as I walked through, then chiffchaffs and willow warblers, blackbirds, song thrushes and nuthatches. Somewhere a few dozen layers of treetops beyond a family of young carrion crows were demanding a feed. Magpies scuttled about, woodpigeons barged about in the canopy, dunnocks and long-tailed tits popped up onto twigs and disappeared just as quickly. I passed under a stand of larches on a bend and found a goldcrest foraging in the twigs just above my head.

Large white

There were lots of butterflies enjoying the sunshine. Large whites, orange tips and green-veined whites fluttered about the path verges, commas basked on paths and speckled woods patrolled the woodland margins. The difference a couple of weeks and a bit of sunshine can make.

Comma

Instead of following Boggart Hole Brook to the boating lake as usual I decided to walk up the path running Northeast alongside another little brook. There were lots more titmice, warblers, butterflies and crows, the squirrels were a bit more conspicuous and a couple of ring-necked parakeets screeched in the treetops. And it was altogether a very pleasant walk.

I played bus stop bingo at Grange Park Road. The 149 to Oldham came first so I got it and went to have a look at Alexandra Park to see how the herons were getting on.

As I waited to cross Kings Road I had plenty of time to listen to the willow warblers, robins, dunnocks and wrens singing by the roadside (it's one of those roads that has a line of traffic coming one way and nothing the other and you have to time your crossing for when they flip over). Town centre willow warblers always surprise me.

Alexandra Park, Oldham

There were more in the park, together with blackcaps, goldfinches and great tits. The heron's nest in the tree in the middle of the boating lake had three nestlings too big to fit the nest.

Heron nestlings

Heron nestlings

Heron nestlings

The park was very busy so I only had a bit of a wander round and headed to Primrose Bank for the bus back to Manchester. (Primrose Bank is as well-named as Flowery Field, by the way.) The 79 turned up first and as it wended its way through Limeside a voice in the back of my head suggested I could get off and walk down to Crime Lake and Daisy Nook. Enough is as good as a feast, I stayed on the bus and went off home.