Wellacre Country Park

Swallow

It was a pleasant afternoon, and getting warmer, I didn't fancy travelling anywhere very far so I had a wander round Wellacre Country Park, which is getting to be a habit.

I bumped into the first mixed tit flock almost as soon as I'd got off the bus and walked towards Wellacre Wood. I noticed a goldcrest fidgeting through a hawthorn bush and a couple of blue tits noticed me. I was quickly told to move on my way by great tits and long-tailed tits. The goldcrest quietly went about its business.

Wellacre Wood 

The wood was littered with falling leaves. Ring-necked parakeets called in the treetops, blackbirds muttered in the undergrowth, robins squeaked and practiced their vocals. Deep in the wood I stood to one side to let a lady and her dogs past. She waved me on, her cat, which was also on the walk, was on a sit-down strike under a bush. 

House sparrows 

I left the wood and walked round to Jack Lane. A migrant hawker passed by. Besides being smaller and distinctly bluer they differ from Southern hawkers in not stopping to have a close look at you. The house sparrows I hadn't been seeing last time were out in force today, forty-odd of them dust bathing on the path. Swallows and sand martins zipped about low over the fields and hedgerows and groups of young swallows twittered about in the tops of hawthorn bushes.

Swallows

Swallows

Swallows

Swallows

Jack Lane Nature Reserve 

Large whites, speckled woods and common darters fidgeted about the brambles at the entrance to Jack Lane Nature Reserve. A mild, damp week had perked up the vegetation though the pools were just mostly only slightly muddier than last time. I could see where moorhens had been, and where a dog had chased a moorhen into the reeds, but didn't see any of them. A reed warbler had a bit of a sing to itself from the depths of the reeds. A loud cronking overhead made me look up and see two immature ravens flying over to Irlam. Do they commute between the Mersey Valley and Irlam or for ravens do all roads lead to Irlam, I wondered.

As I walked by the railway embankment chiffchaffs and blue tits bounced through the trees. High overhead a soaring kestrel did a very good impersonation of a sparrowhawk and had me fooled for a moment. Lesser black-backs headed for Woolston Eyes. Speckled woods and large whites fluttered about in the wayside. 

Heading for Dutton's Pond 

By chance I was watching a large white fluttering about the canopy of a willow tree when I spotted another butterfly which wasn't one of the regulars. It was a bit smaller than a gatekeeper and at first looked to have plain foxy brown underwings. It stayed high up and I was only getting fleeting, erratic sight of it. As it flew across the path I got the sense of an inner underwing and outer underwing but no conscious sense of a line between them. My guess, and it is only a guess, is that it was a brown hairstreak. Either that or something considerably rarer. There are plenty enough blackthorns locally to support a population of brown hairstreaks but I didn't think we got them round here. Way, way back when most of our roadside trees were elms, there used to be reports of white-letter hairstreaks but I can't see that happening these days, Dutch elm disease did for the lot of them.

A mallard, a moorhen and a coot pottered about on Dutton's Pond. I rather hoped there was more of the same on the other side of the island.

The blue tits made an appearance as I walked by Green Hill and they joined a wren in making disapproving noises as I passed by. Goldfinches twittered in the treetops and half a dozen pigeons courted on the roof of the abandoned barn at the end of Carrington Road. A mixed tit flock — blue tits, long-tailed tits, chiffchaffs and goldfinches — in the trees by Flixton Bridge were a nice coda to the walk.

Jack Lane