Cob Kiln Wood

The bridge over Old Eeas Brook 

I had caught up with my sleep, which always leaves me feeling like human wreckage and put paid to the ambitious plans for the day. I'll have to start getting up when I'm awake at seven instead of drifting off to sleep and having anxiety dreams about work, which I left ten years ago but still seem to carry the scars. In an effort to blow away the cobwebs I had another quiet woodland walk, this time through Cob Kiln Wood.

For a change I walked down Cob Kiln Lane from Urmston town centre. House martins hawked low over the corner of Church Road, the low cloud and brisk wind providing a plentiful supply of midges.

Cob Kiln Lane 

It was a very quiet walk down the lane. Magpies, jackdaws and carrion crows rummaged about in the paddocks. A flock of woodpigeons fed in a fallow field. A great tit chunnered in the hedgerow. I took some photos of where a goldcrest had been. And that was it. I carried on down to the river, a handful of lesser black-backs flying overhead.

The River Mersey passing over the weir
No dippers or wagtails today.

The pigeons usually to be found fussing about the road bridge over the river were notably absent though one flew high overhead. Downstream a heron and a couple of mallards loafed on the shoals at the bend of the river and a couple of moorhens under the Lancashire bank. A cormorant fished midstream, coming upstream to the weir then drifting back down before starting upstream again. Presumably any fish stunned by tumbling over the weir will be easy pickings.

A short walk over the river and down a drizzly Banky Lane was quiet save a singing robin. I didn't fancy walking through Banky Meadow and messing about with buses home so I turned back, crossed the river and down the lane into Cob Kiln Wood.

The electricity pylon clearing 

Jays silently disappeared into cover and goldfinches and starlings twittered in the treetops as I walked through the electricity pylon clearing. I told myself whatever the provocation I was not going to complain about the rain yet. The rain of the past couple of weeks had had its magic effect: the clearing was carpeted with a fresh new growth of comfrey leaves.

Comfrey

As I walked into the trees I was aware of robins, great tits and dunnocks and every so often I'd hear or see one or other of them. A calling nuthatch and the squeak of chiffchaffs was a lot more definite. As I passed the edge by a grazing field red admirals settled into the brambles and a buzzard disturbed the woodpigeons in the trees beyond. I lingered by the bridge over Old Eeas Brook in the hopes a couple of great tits might become a mixed tit flock but it wasn't to be. I headed home in the rain.

Cob Kiln Wood