Hindley

Blackcap, Low Hall

After yesterday's debacle I needed some exercise and a bit of a morale boost so I decided a woodland walk was in order. I headed for Amberswood, hoping to get willow tits and/or jays onto the monthly tally and perhaps even find some Norfolk hawkers on the wing. The weather forecast was set to muggy with some chance of rain so I carried my light raincoat over my arm.

The 25 was running quarter of an hour late so I decided to walk through the park and get the 250 to the Trafford Centre. The blackbirds, wrens and woodpigeons were in full song. A couple of the robins sang, as did a couple of blackcaps and a chiffchaff. There was neither sight nor sound of any whitethroats anywhere, the brambles that hosted three territories in the past had been strimmed down to the ground to tidy the "waste" ground up last year and they've been replaced by huge stands of goldenrod and willowherbs. On the plus side, there are now two song thrush territories.

Barton Clough

I got over to the Trafford Centre and got the 132 to Wigan, getting off at the entrance to Amberswood on. Manchester Road It's a long haul from the Trafford Centre to Hindley and we passed through two heavy showers along the way. The weather was cool and grey and heavy when I got off the bus but the rain seemed to have taken most of the pollen out of the air.

Amberswood 

I waited for two ponies and their lady riders to pass by before joining the trail into Amberswood. All the usual woodland choristers were in song except the great tits which quietly got on with their business. Blue tits were heard, just, but not seen as they shepherded youngsters through the hedgerows. Swifts and swallows passed overhead but didn't seem minded to stay. I thought it too cool to expect to see any butterflies other than the peacock caterpillars on the nettles and was proved wrong by the ringlets and meadow browns fluttering about the grass verges round the lake. 

Peacock caterpillar 

Amberswood Lake 

My arrival at the lake was heralded by Cetti's warblers, I think it's three birds here, two at the North end and one at the South, but I wouldn't be shocked to find it was four. Nearly all the small birds sneaking about in the reeds turned out to be reed buntings. The exception came as I was scanning about for dragonflies and a reed warbler hopped onto a willow twig by my side. We looked at each other for a while, each pretending we hadn't seen the other, then the warbler decided to have a rummage about in the litter at the base of the reeds where somebody had been pulling out Himalayan balsams. A little further along something seemed to be greatly agitating one of the moorhens in the reeds but I could see neither the bird nor the cause for its alarm.

Out on the water there seemed to be two great crested grebes nests on the go at either end by the reeds and one male cruising about midwater. Mallards, mute swans and tufted ducks cruised about and a couple of black-headed gulls squabbled for no particular reason. A heron jumped up into a sapling the better to watch me on my way as I turned the corner at the Southern end.

Heron

Low Hall 

I crossed Liverpool Road for a wander round Low Hall. The song thrushes did their best to sing over the rest of the chorus but they weren't having it. Mute swans and mallards dozed on the pond and a pair of gadwalls and their near full-sized ducklings dabbled in the far corner. I had a bit of a wander round, watching a mixed flock of great tits and blue tits moving anticlockwise round the dipping pool while a family of long-tailed tits moved clockwise. I surprised a male blackcap which had been rooting about in the nettles at the base of a tree, it flew up to the lowermost branches by my head. I think it was only scared of my treading on it.

Blackcap

I checked the time and the buses and decided my best bet was to walk back through Amberswood and get the 132 back from Manchester Road, I'd get to the stop with about five minutes to spare. And so I did, stopping along the way only to watch a couple of common terns coming in to the lake, a whitethroat taking an immense beakful of caterpillars to its nest, and to allow the ladies and their ponies by as we all headed for the Manchester Road entrance.

I didn't get to see willow tits or jays or Norfolk hawkers at Amberswood today but them's the vagaries. As the bus sat at traffic lights in Atherton town centre a jay slowly flew across the road.