Wellacre Country Park

By Green Hill 

I decided that I was going to be frustrated that the day's tally hasn't got to fifty, especially as one of the birds I hadn't seen today was blue tit. Instead of getting the train back to Urmston and walking home I stayed on to Flixton and walked over to Wellacre Country Park to try and bump that total up a bit.

It was dead quiet on the Mersey at Flixton Bridge, save for a woodpigeon having a drink. Holly blues and large whites fluttered about the bushes by the road.

I walked along the path at the edge of Green Hill looking to see the usual family of blue tits in the willow trees. I didn't. Chiffchaffs, wrens and dunnocks squeaked me on my way.  Large whites, speckled woods and holly blues skittered about the brambles. A Southern hawker patrolled the canopies of dogwoods, elderberries and whitebeams. A few bumblebees visited the goldenrods punctuating the bramble patches. But no blue tits.

Goldenrod 

Mallards, coots and moorhens dozed on Dutton's Pond and a chiffchaff squeaked in the willows. The willows along the railway embankment were very quiet of anything and there were only couples of carrion crows and woodpigeons on the fields.

Walking to Jack Lane 

Jack Lane Nature Reserve 

I found a blue tit — a blue tit — on Jack Lane but I found a goldcrest first. A young moorhen fossicked about in the reedbed by the path. The single pool that was left, about the size of a table cloth and not a lot deeper, was covered in pond skaters so crowded they could barely move without colliding.

Pond skaters

A couple of swallows flew by. A chiffchaff, a robin and a wren marked my passing by. There was a reassuring clatter of woodpigeons in the treetops.

Walking down Jack Lane into Town Head there was no sign of the swarm of sand martins of my last visit. Nor any sign of the flock of house sparrows usually resident in the hedgerows.

I headed for Irlam Locks for a nosy. A few swallows flew overhead. There were sparrows in the hedgerows by Irlam Road. Collared doves sang in the background. 

Irlam Locks 

Mallards dozed by the canal. There weren't as many black-headed gulls about as my last visit but I was a couple of hours earlier this time. A few herring gulls and lesser black-backs loafed on the lock with mallards, black-headed gulls and cormorants. The great crested grebes' humbug was successfully fishing for itself. A common gull flew in. The common tern fished by the gates. Over on the water treatment works magpies, carrion crows and black-headed gulls fussed about on the pans while woodpigeons and collared doves fed in the grass. And no sand martins.

I looked downstream from the lock. A couple of mallards drifted by the bank and cormorants fished midstream. Carrion crows and pigeons loafed on the bays. Then a raven flew over and into Irlam, a beardless youth missing a few tail feathers and looking very front-heavy as a consequence.

I turned and walked back. A sand martin hawked over the field by Irlam Road. I got the bus home with a day's tally of fifty-four and a sense of seasons passing.