Mersey Valley again

Banded demoiselle, by Kenworthy Woods

The great tits brought their youngsters into the garden this morning. The parents spent a lot of their time ferrying insects picked off the Pyracantha flowers to the youngsters shivering their wings in the rowan tree. The rowan tree's serving as a kindergarten for titmice this year.

It hadn't warmed down much so I parked the plans for another day. Then between my leaving the house and my arriving at the station the train to Warrington was cancelled so that knocked another idea on the head. So I went over to the Trafford Centre and played bus station bingo. The 248 to the airport was first out. That gave me the options of Wellacre Country Park, Carrington Moss, Banky Meadow, Priory Gardens or Wythenshawe Park. Priory Gardens offered more shade and I could then move on to Sale Water Park and see where I go from there.

Blackbird

I got off the bus and walked into Priory Gardens. Most of the woodland locally was planted within my lifetime, the gardens were abandoned well before that and has a lot of mature trees and not a lot of understory except at the margins. Blackbirds, blackcaps, robins and chiffchaffs sang in the trees and bushes by the main path at the side. A pair of mistle thrushes held court further in, rattling their displeasure at my passing by.

Priory Gardens 

I meandered my way back to the main path and then onto the patch of meadow at the corner by the motorway. I'd hoped there might be a whitethroat about but I was disappointed. Blackcaps and chiffchaffs sang in the hedgerows. Speckled woods and holly blues fluttered about the woodland margins, large whites and common blues across the meadow. At last! My first common blue damselflies of the year zipped about the brambles in the hedgerows.

Common blue damselfly

That small patch had a remarkable miscellany of intertwining brambles in flower, including one with big, semi-double flowers. Any time I despair of the ludicrous complexities of gull watching I think of botanists studying brambles.

Bramble
A semi-double form

Bramble
A narrow-petalled form

I crossed the motorway into Sale Water Park. It being the Whit Week school holidays it was bedlam though the mute swans and Canada geese were making a living by it so long as they didn't mind sharing the lake with kids and dogs. The car park was swarming with common blue damselflies.

Common blue damselfly

Barrow Brook 

I walked round and joined the path by Barrow Brook and suddenly everything was a lot quieter. Or would have been had the parakeets turned it down a bit. Blackbirds, blackcaps, dunnocks and wrens were doing most of the heavy lifting with the singing with chiffchaffs, robins and a song thrush doing the backing vocals. Blue tits fidgeted about in the trees and a family of long-tailed tits worked their way through the willows by the brook.

I emerged blinking into the sunlight at Jackson's Boat. There was a nice breeze blowing down the river so I decided I'd walk down to Kenworthy Woods, the advantage being that this was the side of the river with some shade. I was grateful for it, too, despite the breeze.

River Mersey 

The river was low after a dry Spring. Mallards and Canada geese loafed by the waterside and a cormorant swam downstream. Whitethroats and blue tits fidgeted about in the willows on the bank, more whitethroats sang on the golf course with blackcaps and chiffchaffs. Banded demoiselles fluttered about the bank, the green females out in the open, the dramatic blue males tending to keep to the cover of vegetation.

Banded demoiselle

A grey wagtail was where I expected it to be. Less expected were the half a dozen sand martins nesting in the same place. The sand martins hawked low over the river, it was rare that they rose above the bank. The top of the bank was busy with banded demoiselles, painted ladies, large whites and common blues, making up in numbers for a dismal first half of the month. A little further along a pair of mandarin ducks loafed by the water. They're becoming a lot more common on our stretch of the Mersey.

Mandarin ducks

Latest contender for the giant butterbur leaf of the year

Hand for scale

Approaching Kenworthy Woods 

Swifts and swallows hawked over the river as I wandered on and into Kenworthy Woods. The woodland songscape was quieter, more dispersed but still a steady backing track to the walk. Blue tits and long-tailed trees fidgeted through the trees but there was a notable absence of great tits. My surprise at surprising a rabbit almost had me miss a bullfinch quietly exiting the scene stage left. 

Kenworthy Woods 

Brimstones and speckled woods fluttered about the woodside margins as I headed for the bus stop on the other side of the motorway, and an extended family of long-tailed tits stretched itself over the hawthorn bushes punctuating the complex of slip roads. I contemplated staying on the bus and having a wander round Alexandra Park but the convenience of the connection with my bus home at Hough End proved too alluring, much to the relief of a pair of feet desperate to get out of hot boots.