Mersey Valley

Great tit, Chorlton Ees

It was a bright, sunny day so I thought I'd have a walk through the Mersey Valley from Turn Moss to Princess Road. I've only skimmed through Chorlton Ees so far this year and haven't walked the stretch of the river from Jackson's Boat to Chorlton Water Park. It's about time I did.

Ivy Green 

Hazy clouds had drifted in by the time i got to Turn Moss. Walking down Hawthorn Lane the ring-necked parakeets, carrion crows and magpies were competing to see which could make the most noise in the treetops, drowning out the robins and titmice in the wayside. The damp nights have taken their toll of the paths across Ivy Green. As I slid and squelched my way across the mud there was a definite "My God, not this again!" vibe from the old knees. The green itself had been strimmed to an inch of its life and was for all intents and purposes a desert, even the magpies and crows couldn't be bothered with it.

Chorlton Ees 

Blackthorn 

I crossed the brook into Chorlton Ees where the footpaths were better, if still muddy, and the bird life less subdued. The parakeets were very vocal but couldn't drown out the great tits and robins. Blackbirds and song thrushes bustled about in the dead hedges, titmice bounced through the hawthorns and jays were uncharacteristically quiet as they scuttled about the treetops. A heron flew low over the hay meadow but didn't stop. 

Blackbird

The Mersey was running fast and high past Jackson's Boat. Pairs of mallards loafed on the banks, complaining loudly as they took to the water every so often to avoid dogs intent on getting themselves soaking wet. A line of black-headed gulls drifted down the middle of the river snatching at emerging midges. As each drifted too far for the snacking it flew upstream and joined the end of the line.

Black-headed gulls

The trees and bushes on the Lancashire side of the river were quietly busy with magpies, jays, bullfinches and goldcrests. The goldcrests were very confiding but made sure there was a twig in front of their faces every time the camera got them in focus. 

Jackson's Boat 

Things changed beyond Jackson's Boat. There were far fewer people and dogs and, at first, fewer birds in the hedgerows. The gangs of Canada geese and mallards on the riverbanks made up the numbers.

Long-tailed tit

I was checking the larches on the edge of the golf club for finches, in vain as it happens as it looked like all the cones had been worked out. As I was looking up a troupe of long-tailed tits came giddying across the hedgerow with a few blue tits in tow. Even by long-tailed tit standards the action was frenetic, the lean times seem to have come early this year with everything being out of synch and this cold snap after a mild start to the month can't be helping. Further along as the river ran beside Barlow Tip wrens, robins and bullfinches sang in the trees and another troupe of long-tailed tits passed by.

Cormorant

A couple of cormorants dried their wings on the far riverbank in the company of a few mallards and a redhead goosander floated downstream. The water was too high for the grey wagtails to be in any of their usual haunts, if they were about they were more likely to be fossicking about under bridges than up on the banks. Bailey Bridge, which connected Chorlton Water Park and Kenworthy Woods, had been condemned as unsafe and has now been removed completely. Fingers crossed for its replacement coming soon.

Barlow Tip 

The metalled path into Barlow Tip was very wet indeed, the surrounding ground was even wetter so I didn't wander from it. There were plenty of blackbirds, magpies and dunnocks about. Robins, carrion crows and song thrushes sang and bullfinches wheezed from the trees, a mixed tit flock bounced through the undergrowth and another heron flew overhead. I couldn't work out whether the squeaking from a gorse bush on the rise was a great tit or a chiffchaff, it went quiet almost as soon as I heard it and I wasn't for walking up the cascade of muddy water to try and get a visual on it. Every so often even I can recognise a fool's errand. 

The tufted ducks were easier to see here than at Lymm

Chorlton Water Park was busy with people, birds and dogs and roughly in that order. Rafts of tufted ducks, mallards and black-headed gulls drifted about the island at the Barlow Tip end. It took me a while to find the great crested grebes, they were cruising about just off the island. 

Chorlton Water Park 

There was a much bigger raft of black-headed gulls, inevitably, off the landing stage by the ice cream van with a lot of mallards, coots and pigeons. The Canada geese were very vocal but there were only a handful of them and there were only a few mute swans about. Half a dozen goosanders drifting midwater here included a very salmon-pink drake which evidently knew where all the best shrimps were. Cormorants sat on the island at this end drying their wings and the trees were full of gulls. There were a few common gulls about and they spent most of their time chasing black-headed gulls to try to pinch whatever they'd found to eat.

Black-headed gulls and common gull

I rejoined the river and walked down to Princess Road. Parakeets, magpies and carrion crows called from the woods. Titmice and goldfinches fidgeted through the hedgerows on this side of the river. A coal tit sang from one of the gardens and house sparrows fussed about by the children's playground. I walked down, joined the road and got the 87 into Greenheys and got the 15 back home. I need to remind myself to do that walk more often, it's just the right length for getting the knees working properly and it's very productive for birdwatching, even on a half-term holiday afternoon.

Looking over the river to Kenworthy Woods 

Chorlton

Heron, Chorlton

Noises in the rambling rose suggest the first lot of baby spadgers have arrived though I couldn't see any of them. The feeders under the rowan tree are largely hidden by new growth on the rose and the nearby dogwood, both of which are due for a severe chopping back after they've flowered. The feeders by the washhouse are being visited but I've only been seeing the adult males here so far.

It was another glorious day so I thought I'd have a walk along the Mersey. I got the bus to the stop on the Chorlton Boundary and wandered onto Turn Moss and thence onto Hawthorn Lane where the song thrush competed with the robins, blackbirds, blackcaps and chiffchaffs in the trees.

Hawthorn Lane 

Whitethroats and carrion crows added to the songscape as I crossed Ivy Green, though they kept well under cover. I'm always suspicious when I can hear crows but not see them, like when you're at a family get-together and all the small kids disappear but can be heard giggling. I've no idea what they were up to. 

Ivy Green 

I had hoped a walk across the meadow would find me a few butterflies. My butterfly sightings are well up on last year, which was a disastrous Summer for them across the country, but they're still not in the numbers I would have hoped for this time of year. It might take a couple of decent Summers for them to recover. An absence of meadow browns is beginning to make itself conspicuous. An absence of any butterflies at all on the meadow was worrying, it came as a relief to bump into some large whites and a small white at the woodland margin at the other end.

Hay meadow, Chorlton Ees

There were a few more large whites and some speckled woods in the woodland by Chorlton Brook and on Chorlton Ees. And plenty more blackbirds, blackcaps, chiffchaffs, robins and whitethroats though it was the devil's own job seeing any of them and the only small bird I saw well was a garden warbler in a hawthorn bush. I had as much trouble looking over the hay meadow, two pheasants were having a punch-up in the middle of the meadow and the grass was too high for me to see them. It's going to be hard work when everything goes quiet for the post-breeding moult. I shall, of course, blame my lack of success on the hayfever rather than poor fieldcraft.

Another day, another buzzard being chased by a carrion crow 

The robins and blackcaps either side of the river at Jackson's Boat vied loudly with each other and almost drowned out the chiffchaffs and greenfinches. It was today I finally realised that the reason why I haven't seen parakeets nesting in the old telegraph pole by the bridge is that they took the pole down last year. I had a baffling five minutes watching five tiny ducklings by the Cheshire bank of the river and wondering how they came to be alone. Their mother was out of view under the Lancashire bank but swam out to join the brood when some carrion crows started getting noisy. I wasn't surprised to find them harrying a buzzard. A drake mallard was pottering about by the pub.

Mallard, Jackson's Boat 

River Mersey 

It was a quiet walk down the river. There was one of the grey wagtails by Jackson's Boat, the wagtail at their usual favoured spot was a female pied wagtail. A few chiffchaffs and blackcaps and sang in the hedgerows, whitethroats sang on the golf courses, a couple of drake mallards dabbled on the river. A heron lurked on the bank amidst backlit grasses. Some orange tips and brimstones provided a bit of variety to the large whites fluttering along the verges.

Barlow Tip 

I lurched into the path that joins Barlow Tip by the golf course and followed a path I nearly always avoid. In Winter and Spring it's usually impassible because of shin-deep mud, in Summer and Autumn because of brambles and Himalayan balsam. It made a nice change to walk it. The warblers were camera-shy but at least I managed to spot a few of them: another garden warbler, a couple of chiffchaffs and a blackcap with a green caterpillar that would choke a hippopotamus. I had good cause to be disappointed in my inability to get to grips with hoverflies and solitary bees: they were legion, the hawthorn blossoms, cow parsleys and dogwoods were buzzing with them. I'm trying to bring to mind what the scent of dogwood flowers reminds me of, it's something to do with my time working in a museum and it isn't floor polish or chloroform.

Barlow Tip 

I joined the service path then climbed over the rise and down to Chorlton Water Park. Common blue damselflies danced around my ankles as I brushed past the sedges and long grass. All the butterflies were large whites. Most of the singing was done by a blackcap and a chiffchaff with backing vocals from a dunnock and a whitethroat.

Chorlton Water Park 
The white in the trees isn't blossom, it's willow seeds

I dropped down into Chorlton Water Park. A few Canada geese, mallards and a couple of mute swans mooched about this end of the lake with a handful of coots. Walking round there were more Canada geese, more coots, more swans. It wasn't until I was on my way home I realised there were no tufted ducks. Over by the far bank a pair of mute swans had a couple of cygnets. A couple of reed warblers sang in the depths of almost non-existent reedbeds, each perhaps a square foot of reeds mixed into patches of great willowherb and purple loosestrife. 

Ring-necked parakeets

A comma was a nice break from the monotony of pierid butterflies. It put a lot of energy into chasing brimstones off its territory. I'd been hearing parakeets all afternoon, the only ones showing themselves were the ones on the car park feeders.

Comma

It had been another of those slow-noisy sort of walks where I had been doing most of my birdwatching by ear. Which is perfectly okay, by the way. I got myself an ice cream and walked up the road for the bus home.

Chorlton Water Park 

Mersey Valley

Ring-necked parakeets, Chorlton Water Park 

It was another cool, grey but dry day. The last time I'd checked the clock before finally getting to sleep it was half-six so I really didn't feel up to the planned expedition and tried to cadge an extra hour's sleep instead. (It had been my own fault: I'd wanted to get some writing done but had to wait until the cat had gone to bed before getting started — cats and keyboards and all that — and by the time I got to bed myself my mind was too active for sleep.)

Flood damage, Northenden

I went into town to renew my monthly travel card then got the 101 down Princess Road and got off at the river. I thought a walk might wake me up and clear my head a bit. The effects of the New Year flooding at Northenden were very noticeable, including a spectacular landslip on the Cheshire side of the bank. The river was back to normal levels now and quietly flowed along in all innocence. A couple of mallards dabbled by the bank and a pair of goosanders flew up and down stream for no apparent reason.

River Mersey 

I walked downstream on the Lancashire side of the bank under Princess Parkway and on to Chorlton Water Park. The litter of flood was everywhere, all the bankside saplings were festooned with rubbish. At its height the water was twelve feet above usual levels and was lapping over the higher of the two banks either side. The path on the lower bank felt substantially closer to the river than usual, in places it looked like it had been scalped and scoured. The combination of jetsam and fresh ground was keeping the carrion crows occupied on both sides of the river.

Over in Kenworthy Woods the parakeets and magpies were shouting in the trees, here on the Chorlton side great tits and robins called and sang from the hedgerows.

Gadwalls and coots

It's half term so Chorlton Water Park was busy, which was good news for the black-headed gulls, mute swans and mallards hanging round the banks for a feed. They were joined by a few coots, common gulls and a couple of young herring gulls. The Canada geese were a bit too preoccupied with their love lives for that sort of thing. The adult great crested grebes were sporting full breeding plumage, the first-Winter birds were still in blacks and greys. A raft of a couple of dozen gadwalls drifted about midwater, not something you see every day. Further out yet half a dozen goosanders cruised by the far island.

Chorlton Water Park 

I walked round the end of the lake and decided to pack it in. I was just too tired, a combination of brain fog, eye fog and aching joints. Even as I was walking down to the bus stop at Southern Cemetery, though, my mind was coming up with suggestions as to where I could move on to for another walk. I managed to be sensible and dismissed nearly all of them. Which is why when the bus got into Urmston I didn't stay on to the Nag's Head to make a connection with a bus home, I got off at Davyhulme Park and had half an hour's wander before walking the mile home, the sort of decision-making that goes on when the rational mind is asleep at the wheel. (Mind you, the rational mind has its moments.) 

I often wonder why I nearly always pass by without stopping here, the reason is that it's a very quiet park as far as birdwatching's concerned. I don't know why, there are plenty of trees and bushes and even a couple of water lily ponds but I get more birds in my back garden than I find here. Just one of them things I guess.

Davyhulme Park 

I went home, made a pot of tea and got twenty minutes' kip which made me feel almost human. I'd have got more sleep but I had the window open and the long-tailed tits and goldfinches were busy on the feeders and were being noisy eaters.

Mersey Valley

Common gulls and black-headed gulls, Chorlton Water Park

It was another cool and foggy day and I put the plans for today back on the shelf. If I was to be going out in the freezing cold not being able to see anything I'd as well be doing it locally as spending time and money getting somewhere to do it. So I got the 23 to Southern Cemetery, walked down to Chorlton Water Park and along the river back into Chorlton via the river and Jackson's Boat.

Pigeons in the mist

Chorlton Water Park was busy with people walking off Christmas despite the weather. Which somehow didn't persuade the pigeons to come down from the trees by the lake. The lake was heaving with waterfowl and gulls. Coots and black-headed gulls provided the crowd scenes but there were plenty enough mallards, gadwalls, Canada geese and mute swans to break the monotony and half a dozen bright salmon-pink drake goosanders dozed midwater in the mist. The cormorants, common gulls and great crested grebes hid in the crowds and it was only by accident I noticed the herring gulls sitting in the ghosts of trees on the far bank with a lot of black-headed gulls and a couple of common gulls. The ring-necked parakeets in the trees provided a constant invisible chorus to the whole scene.

Chorlton Water Park 

Gadwalls 

Mute swans, coots and Canada geese 

Goosanders, black-headed gulls and cormorant

There were small birds about in the trees along the path round the lake but most of they weren't for making themselves obvious. Dunnocks chased each other on the verges and robins sang in the bushes. A flock of long-tailed tits in the willows by the lake seemed to be working independently of the flock of blue tits working their way through the birch trees on the other side of the path.

Barlow Tip 

I had a quick wander round Barlow Tip where the jays were courting noisily and magpies singing to themselves quietly in the trees. Another flock of long-tailed tits, about a dozen of them, bounced their way through the hawthorns by the path.

River Mersey

The walk along the Mersey to Jackson's Boat contrived to be both very busy and very eerie with people fading in and out of the mist ad lib. As did the cormorants and carrion crows flying over the river. A few mallards added a bit of solid reality on the river and, despite the water still being high, one of the grey wagtails was fossicking about on the usual rocks by the bank.

The view across the river

Song thrush

A song thrush was singing in a bush by the tram bridge, suggesting that Spring isn't far behind. It was almost drowned out by the squawking of parakeets and rattle of magpies.

Jackson's Boat 

It was decidedly foggy at Jackson's Boat with its invisible parakeets and blackbirds calling from the grey shapes by the pub.

I decided to walk through Hardy Farm and Chorlton Ees into Chorlton, walking through the woods then following the brook to Chorlton Green. By the sound of it the jackdaws and parakeets had given up on the day and were heading to roost. Unlike the blackbirds and mistle thrushes which were busy in the undergrowth when they weren't sitting on fenceposts barracking passersby.

Chorlton Ees 

Rather a lot to my surprise I'd quite enjoyed the walk and it had been some productive birdwatching but I was looking forward to getting home for a pot of tea and a stand in front of a heat source.

Chorlton Ees 

Mersey Valley

Heron, Merseybank 

It was a glorious day, I didn't want to spoil it by stressing about travel or finding anything in particular so I opted for a slow drift up the Mersey Valley starting at Turn Moss and ending somewhere beyond Chorlton Water Park. In the event I walked into West Didsbury.

Hawthorn Lane 

Robins were singing, parakeets squeaked and shrieked, and squirrels chased each other about as I walked down Hawthorn Lane then cut across the clearing into Ivy Green. There were plenty of jackdaws and woodpigeons about and a couple of carrion crows practised for their Winter songs.

Chorlton Ees 

At first it looked like more of the same in Chorlton Ees save that the small tortoiseshells of the open paths of Ivy Green gave way to the speckled woods of the thicker woodland. A couple of great tits took exception to me and as I was watching them I noticed a couple of leaves high in a tree behind them fall upwards. My usual mistake when looking for the runners and riders in a mixed tit flock is to look too high, today I was looking too low: all the action was going on in the high canopy of the ash trees. More great tits, half a dozen blue tits, some long-tailed tits, at least three juvenile chiffchaffs, a couple of goldcrests… and a lot of unidentifiable shadows flitting behind leaves. And not a sound from any of they.

Where the action was

There was bank maintenance work going on at Jackson's Boat so that stretch of the river was dead quiet except for a lot of grass dust. It wasn't a great deal busier further along, a few mallards and a heron flew downriver, a few black-headed gulls drifted about, there was the usual traffic of woodpigeons overhead. The first brown hawker of the day patrolled the bankside. There wasn't much happening in the hedgerows. It's a lot early to expect redpolls or siskins in the larches by the golf course but I checked them out and got squeaked at by a chiffchaff.

By the Mersey

It was with a sense of reckless abandon that I plunged into Barlow Tip at the first opportunity and barged my way about along one of the wilder paths. Blackbirds and blue tits joined the robins and chiffchaffs in the trees, wrens sang deep in bramble patches, a pair of bullfinches whistled sadly in an elderberry bush. Every so often a Southern hawker would skim past the small trees. 

Barlow Tip 

I emerged onto the metalled path and decided to stick with it, some of the brambles and blackthorns had drawn blood. This path was busy with brown hawkers, a few territorial bouts resulting in mid-air collisions I could hear from yards away. A migrant hawker sped through in a dead straight line, this is one of the circumstances where it would be the hunted not the hunter.

Chorlton Water Park 

Unsurprisingly Chorlton Water Park was busy with people. It was also busy with tufted ducks and black-headed gulls, it looked a bit light on mute swans, Canada geese and mallards and nearly all the coots were down the other end of the lake.

Tufted ducks, Chorlton Water Park
Female tufties often show rounded heads and sometimes have a white blaze at the base of the bill, suggestive of scaup. A scaup's a much bigger bird and they generally give the impression that they lie lower in the water than tufties.

River Mersey by Kenworthy Woods 

I chose not to walk round the lake, I went back to the river and walked upstream. The bridge to Kenworthy Woods is still closed so I carried on along the river listening to the calls of buzzards, nuthatches, dunnocks and wrens and the songs of robins and chiffchaffs. Oddly there were no parakeets along this stretch.

Heron, Merseybank 

There was more bankside maintenance going on by Princess Parkway so it was a while beyond there before I started bumping into mallards dabbling on the river. A heron was sunbathing on the far bank of the river and not caring overmuch about the walkers and cyclists passing by. I almost didn't notice the female mandarin sitting among the rocks at a bend in the river.

Mandarin duck, Merseybank 

I decided to call it quits when I got to the steep path up the bank and onto Merseybank Park. It was a short walk to the bus stop for the 23 and thence the weekly shop in Urmston.