Clifton Country Park

Nithatch

It was a lot cooler today — low to mid seventies in old money — and overcast. The mystery of the morning was why the collared dove should suddenly start singing at twenty to three in the morning and then suddenly stop. In my befuddled half-asleep state for a moment I wondered if a tawny owl was in the garden.

The lake at Clifton Country Park 

For some reason I felt achy and tired and headachy and I let the need to run an errand be the excuse not to go on the planned excursion for the day. Instead I played bus station bingo, got the 22 into Clifton and went for a walk round the country park.

Mute cygnet

The mute swans had well-grown cygnets in tow. I worried that one had a length of fishing line in its beak but it turned out to be a long length of fibre from a Himalayan balsam stem it had been chewing. The black-headed gulls had plenty of young birds with them, the adults were in that strange grey-headed phase where the white Winter plumage isn't quite replacing all the brown feathers on the head. The youngsters were in various stages of looking very tea-stained. The coots had small chicks, the mallard ducklings were full-grown and capable, just, of flight, and all the tufted ducks were adults.

Black-headed gull

River Irwell 

I walked round to the bridge over the Irwell into Bolton. The beach on the bend here always looks like there should be waders on it and there never is. Up North there'd be a common sandpiper sure as eggs. A few Canada geese cruised upstream, black-headed gulls and magpies caught midges by the outflow from the water treatment works and grey wagtails bobbed about on rocks by the bankside.

The path by the river

I turned back and took the path that follows the river downstream. It's a higgledy piggledy sort of a path, up and down like a rollercoaster, lurching round trees and here and there showing signs of disappearing into either the river or the hollow ground on the other side. It's rather fun when it's not muddy.

Mallards

The views of the river are mostly obscured by trees, which is frustrating when you can hear a kingfisher. Every so often there's a good view of the river, I found that if there weren't grey wagtails about there were mallards. I caught up with the kingfisher a few hundred yards downstream when it flew down a small course of rapids.

Grey wagtails

The birds in the woods by the path were mostly silent and skulking. Except the young robins that were showing off a bit. A pair of nuthatches were so busy being silent and skulking they didn't notice me standing by the tree they were feeding in. 

Juvenile robin 

The river was a lot lower than usual and was exposing large expanses of the sandstone strata it runs over and through. Brown hawkers patrolled over the shallows and rapids. My first common blue damselfly of the day was in the beak of a young grey wagtail. I was looking out for dippers and having no luck. I was also looking for goosanders and wasn't having much better luck until I spotted a couple of young redheads loafing on a shelf of damp sandstone. They'd spotted me first, barked and swam off downstream. It only occurred to me then that I had had no idea what noise a goosander makes.

The path by the river

I followed the path round as it turned away from the river to a little pond where common blue damselflies swarmed, pond skaters zipped about on the surface and broad-bodied chasers made inroads on the midge population. A little further on I had a sit-down to decide which paths to take back, having conceded it was too warm for the walk into Prestwich, and I was serenaded by a blackcap. Which probably just objected to my being there. I knew there's a bridge over the railway this side of the motorway so there should be a path into Clifton, I decided to take that as it was the shortest route to a bus stop.

At this point the knees had words. They were not nice words.

Luckily I knew there was a bridge there so I was looking for a path to it, it turned out to be an inconspicuous gap in some elderberry bushes. My knees asked if we really should be doing all them they steps, little did I know what lay ahead. The first few hundred yards on the other side was not the prettiest stretch of The Salford Trail but there was the consolation of watching a buzzard looking out for anything flushed out of cover by passing trains. 

The Salford Trail into Clifton

Then the path turned into some woodland. And lots of steps. At the fourth flight I noticed a path haring off to the left in the direction I was headed so I took that. Which turned out to be a gently sloping meander up the steep bank ending with a mad scramble up to the official path as it goes by Clifton Farm. Which all in all was a very nice walk even though it was very quiet birdwise.

I'd no sooner joined the path than I was passing St Anne's Church, which was dead handy as the bus stop on Manchester Road is by the front gate.

I was shattered when I got home and wondered why until the sensible voice in the back of my head I ignore a lot pointed out that even though it's a lot cooler than it was last week, by any objective measure today was A Hot Day. I'll try to bear this in mind.