Mersey Valley

?Essex skipper, Stretford Meadows

Yes, I did watch the football, and yes, I did have eyes like peepholes in the snow all morning. It was a fine, bright day and not too hot. The back garden is looking like the Lost City of the Incas but I decided against doing anything about it. Yesterday's short effort at reining in the tall grasses and goose grass, and the two hours spent sneezing consequently have convinced me that it would be wise to wait until the end of the hayfever season then blitz the lot. Which is good news for the wrens, they sound as if the youngsters are out of the nest and would benefit from the extensive cover.

By mid-afternoon I'd decided I wasn't for lolling about all day. Seeing all those marsh helleborines at Nob End the other day reminded me I should go and look out for the broad-leaved helleborines on Sale Water Park. If I walked over via Stretford Meadows I could also see if I could find the twayblade I found on the mound the year before last. And if I put the effort into looking for the twayblade I might accidentally encounter a lesser whitethroat, they've been conspicuous by their absence on the meadows this year.

A rather nice large-flowered pink bramble by the car park

Stretford Meadows 

Blackbirds, song thrushes, wrens, a blackcap and a chiffchaff sang in the trees by the car park on Newcroft Road. Dozens of ringlets and large whites skittered about the drifts of thistles and great willowherbs, a few red admirals chased around the the nettle patches. Whitethroats sang from the large hawthorns out in the open, a couple of them performing their flying songs, longer and with more trills, crescendo to the top of the flight and diminuendo as they drifted back down to the trees. Squadrons of woodpigeons passed overhead, moving from the fields and woods by the river into the town centre for who knows what reason.

Meadow brown

Meadow browns fluttered deep in the grasses and vetches out in the open country. Up top of the mound, where the song thrushes sang from the little oak trees, the grasses are finer and shorter. I don't know why, it has a cropped look about it but I've seen neither rabbits nor rabbit droppings here. My eye was caught by a small heath which somehow disappeared into a patch of fine grasses and low-growing white clovers. I had no luck finding the twayblade. Nor any lesser whitethroats. 

Cinnabar moth caterpillar 

Not for the first time I wished I was better at identifying the grass moths and not for the first time I had to concede I'm unlikely to get any better at it. The cinnabar moths were unmistakable, even in caterpillar form. Small skippers fluttered about the clovers, vetches and vetchlings, keeping low in the cover of the stems and grasses, not often giving me much chance of getting a photo. Having said that, they were infinitely more accommodating than the birds. Even the goldfinches were twittering from deep in the bushes and the magpies were noises off in the long grass.

Small skipper

A few skippers were showing well as they fed on red clover flowers. As I took their pictures I felt there was something very slightly different about them. I recalled reading the other day about the spread of Essex skippers into Northwest England, including high numbers being found on Woolston Eyes. I also recalled looking up the identification criteria and thinking: "No chance." I looked them up again and had another look at the skippers in front of me. In the end it was the black ends to the antennae that finally persuaded me. Then I persuaded myself I was wrong. And I'm still not sure. There were lots of small skippers about and at least two of them were probably, possibly Essex skippers.

?Essex skipper

?Essex skipper 

Three song thrushes sang a duel in the hawthorn bushes around the bramble patch surrounding a plum tree, drowning out the songs of a blackbird, a whitethroat and a dunnock. For a moment I thought I heard a lesser whitethroat tutting at me from the brambles but was deafened by song thrushes before I was sure and after ten minutes I had to give up on hoping I might hear it again or go mad. 

Hold your plums

Stretford Meadows, walking to Stretford Ees 
The fence really does bend like that, its not a camera artefact.

Blackcaps, blackbirds, chiffchaffs and a whitethroat sang in the hedgerows as I walked over to Stretford Ees. Families of long-tailed tits moved like shadows in the trees, young great tits were called back into cover by their parents. Brown hawkers patrolled the waysides, gatekeepers and red admirals fluttered about the brambles.

Passing under Chester Road 

I passed under Chester Road and walked on beside Kickety Brook. Magpies and woodpigeons barged about in the treetops, song thrushes and wrens sang, goldfinches twittered, parakeets screeched. And  for all that the only birds I was actually seeing were the carrion crows flying overhead.

Walking by Kickety Brook 

The pigeons sat, evenly spaced in a line, on the support girder for the aqueduct arch as I walked underneath. In retrospect I should have risked upsetting them and got a photo so this post would have had a picture with some birds in. It's that time of year. Insects, flowers and landscapes will feature over the next couple of weeks.

Stretford Ees 
The tramline to Altrincham is behind the fence.

Large whites, ringlets, small skippers and peacocks fluttered about the brambles and hedgerows of Stretford Ees. Whitethroats sang in the scrub by the gate, blackbirds, chiffchaffs and song thrushes in the trees. The wrens were silent, stopping only to give me dirty looks before retreating into cover. I was struck forcibly by the difference between knowing there were robins out there somewhere and being able to record any evidence of them. The parakeets screeching in the treetops provided their own testimony.

The grey wagtails that had been nesting by Crossford Bridge had had some success, the female was supervising a rather downy youngster on the rocks by the riverbank as I crossed.

Sale Water Park 

Sale Water Park was busy-quiet. A big herd of mute swans was muscling out the Canada geese over on the landing stage and a couple of lesser black-backs loafed on the open water. There was no sign of the great crested grebes. All the mallards were in their moulting shyness, small clusters hiding on the little islands or on the pools and ditches of Broad Ees Dole. 

The Teal Pool 
Only mallards today.

The view from the hide on Broad Ees Dole was slightly obscured by the foliage outside but not enough to not be able to see what was about. There was just the one heron loafing on the islands, and that pretty much crowded out by the mallards. They were well into their moult, the drakes not having much grey left in their plumage and more brown than green on their heads. A few coots and moorhens pottered about, there was just the one lapwing and a couple of black-headed gulls were having a bath. Sight or sound of dabchicks there was none.

Broad Ees Dole 

I found the broad-leaved helleborines, a few days past their best but still game. It's only ever one or two plants and I often worry that they may be tidied up out of existence at some point.

Broad-leaved helleborine

The walk round Sale Water Park took longer than intended because I got into conversation with a chap by the lake. He's written a book about cryptocurrency so of course we discussed that but we generally ranged over the subject of work-life balance. And dragonflies. He'd been blown away a few days earlier by an encounter with a large dragonfly along a canal towpath and had been frankly amazed to discover he'd spent half an hour watching it. I laughed and welcomed him into the club and warned him that his first encounter with a Southern hawker might freak him out because they're dead nosy and will come right up to eyeball you. We were just saying our farewells when one did precisely that. The next fifteen minutes was spent with our trying to keep track of it and the two brown hawkers also circling us both.

By Barrow Brook 

It was getting on. Blackbirds, chiffchaffs and woodpigeons were doing the bulk of the singing and swifts were flying lazy circles high overhead. I checked the bus times, if I got the tram I had a fighting chance of getting the next bus home from Chorlton. I watched the bus sail past as I tried to cross the road and had an half hour wait for the next. It was only when I sat down at the bus stop I realised I'd been on my feet the past four-and-a-half hours. It was a typical July walk, the bird life hinted at more than seen or heard. And it seemed that I might have seen my first Essex skippers, though I still wasn't convinced.

A couple of juvenile swifts were chasing their parents over the rooftops when I got home. Time marches on.