Reddish Vale

Mandarin duck

The energy for plans A and B still eluded me. It was yet another splendid Spring day, the wind was warmer, I felt I really should make something of it. I got the train into town with a half-formed idea of getting a train to New Mills or Glossop and the bus into Hayfield for a dawdle along the Sett Valley, which is how I came to be on the Sheffield train. I didn't stay on to New Mills. As we passed along the viaduct over the Tame I looked down on Reddish Vale Country Park and decided that was today's walk. So I got off at Brinnington and walked round to the footpath entrance on Blackberry Lane.

Reddish Vale Country Park 

The reader has probably become weary of my listing what has become the standard Greater Manchester songscape of blackbirds, blackcaps, chiffchaffs, dunnocks, great tits, robins, wrens and woodpigeons. I never weary of hearing it and hope I never do. Hearing isn't seeing mind, and even with the oaks and ashes barely breaking bud I was seeing perhaps a tenth of what I was hearing. Invisible whitethroats churred from hawthorns smothered in may blossom, long-tailed tits tutted from ivy-decked branches and tree canopies hid chaffinches, goldfinches and greenfinches. I had the consolation that the butterflies weren't a bit shy and were numerous and showy, the orange tips, small whites and large whites fluttering about the open and the grassy verges, the red admirals about the woodland edges and already extensive nettle patches.

Brinnington Beach and the Manchester to Sheffield railway

Mallard and ducklings

I walked down to Brinnington Beach, where the Tame turns on two sixpences before going under the viaduct. A mandarin duck and a kingfisher shot upstream, mallards drifted downstream. A platoon of mallard ducklings were being marched along the opposite bank by their mother.

Grey wagtail

I'd kept hearing grey wagtails but didn't see them until after I'd passed under the viaduct. A male was fly-catching from the river, flying up and snatching insects in mid-air before settling back down by the banks.

Grey wagtail

I almost missed the young wagtail fossicking about on the far bank.

Juvenile grey wagtail

The pond

A wave of sand martins descended over the river, a few house martins joining the crowd by the bridge back into historical Lancashire. I crossed over and had a nosy round the pond.

Coot

Coots were on nests, mallards had duckling entourages and a heron lurking on the far bank had a youngster in tow. I wasn't sure whether or not a mandarin duck was on a nest or not and wasn't for disturbing her to find out one way or another. Her drake walked over my way and gave me a hard stare, just in case. More mandarins pottered about on the pond. For some reason one of the coots had an intense dislike of unpaired drake mandarins and would charge across the pond to have a go at any that caught its eye.

Mandarin drake

I walked down Reddish Vale Road into Reddish for the bus into Stockport and thence home (it was the approach to rush hour(s) and I wanted to avoid the city centre). Male woodpigeons had fights in the trees, barging and clattering into each other until one backed off and flew away. In one case it was a good five minutes before the fight was conceded and there was a carpet of leaves and twigs on the ground to commemorate the bout. The standard Greater Manchester songscape prevailed, decorated by the twitterings of swallows as they hawked over grazing horses. I got to the bus stop on Reddish Road and watched the holly blues fluttering about the hedges as I waited for the bus.

Woodpigeons squaring up for more fisticuffs

Reddish Vale

Female banded demoiselle

The blackbird started singing absurdly early at quarter to four, the other birds had the sense to wait until daybreak. It had become another cloudless day and I wondered what I was going to do with it. The journey back from Sheffield the other day reminded me that there are a few places of interest along the way within the Stockport boundary. I haven't yet visited the Goyt Valley this year and that's an easy walk from Romiley Station. And I keep telling myself I should visit Reddish Vale, an easy walk from Brinnington. In the end I settled for the latter.

I got off the train at Brinnington, turned right at the station, left at the bottom of the road and then left at the bottom onto Blackberry Close. Opposite the sign for the Transpennine Way I noticed a cut onto a footpath into the country park so I took that and had a wander.

The long-tailed tits weren't for having their photos taken 

I followed the path down through light woodland and glades. Blackcaps, chiffchaffs and blackbirds sang constantly, robins and wrens mostly rummaged about and sang occasionally. Blue tits, great tits and long-tailed tits were phantoms amongst the leaves. A treecreeper broke into song, something I don't hear nearly often enough. Speckled woods chased each other along the bases of the oak trees, red admirals frolicked about nettle patches.

Speckled wood
The butterflies were as camera shy as the titmice.

Walking through the woodland 

First sight of the viaduct

The woodland gave way to open oak and hawthorn scrub and the tall railway viaduct taking the Manchester to Sheffield line across the River Tame. Great tits and blue tits showed themselves as they flitted between bushes, whitethroats sang from the depths. 

Carrion crow 

I reached Brinnington Beach, the shingle bank on the bend of the river. A couple of carrion crows beachcombed, a family of Canada geese dozed, all of them keeping on the opposite bank from the families on the beach, unlike the drake mallards mooching about on the off chance. I decided I wasn't taking any more photos of Canada goslings, it's just winsomeness on false pretenses as they all grow up to be bad-tempered psychopaths.

The viaduct from downstream 

I walked downstream from the viaduct. Large whites fluttered about, mallards dabbled, whitethroats and blackcaps sang, I became concerned about a distinct lack of dragonflies. It's not like there weren't any midges to keep them fed.

Mute cygnets
Even more deceptively winsome than Canada goslings but it's as well not to be rude about them because they can break your nose with one blow of their wing.

Mallards, coots and Canada geese mooched about on the fishing pools and a pair of mute swans kept their cygnets on a tight rein as they pottered about the water side. A black-headed gull scouted round. A couple of coots sat on nests, a couple of pairs had chicks in tow. Unlike goslings and cygnets you know what you're getting with baby coots, they look like that rough kid at school who got ringworm and had to have his head shaved and painted with gentian violet.

Nesting coot

One of the fishing pools

It sounded like a pair of dabchicks had small chicks in the depths of the reeds. I don't often see young dabchicks in their humbug colours and I didn't today, either.

Canada goose family
Well, you've got to in the end.

I rejoined the river and walked upstream opposite the beach. Two families of Canada geese were on the bend now, the original group still dozing by the bank, the other having designs on settling on the beach amongst the children but thinking better of it once a couple of horses walked in for a drink and a paddle.

Common blue damselfly

A blue-tailed damselfly fluttered weakly out of a dog rose bush. I looked for some more and found a pair of banded demoiselles and a handful of common blue damselflies instead. Oddly, all the damselflies I saw today were in this bush.

A meadow by the river

I followed the river through more light woodland and patches of open scrub. A sedge warbler sang from a patch of flag irises in the trees. A garden warbler sang from an oak tree, I'm averaging one garden warbler for every ten or dozen blackcaps in this sort of landscape this year. Song thrushes and chiffchaffs sang by the riverside, whitethroats did their song flights from bushes in the scrub.

Ragged robin

Beyond the M60 motorway the landscape was more open with a few damp patches rich in ragged robins and monkey musk and a small pond almost entirely covered with reedmace and flag iris. Woodpigeons clattered through the trees or grazed in damp meadows in the company of carrion crows, jackdaws and magpies.

Pond by the path to Stockport Road 

I followed the path its length to Stockport Road. The final length ran through light woodland filled with blackbirds, robins and wrens. It was a warm day so the horses that would have been grazing in the fields were sheltering in the shade of the trees. I had to politely push past them to get to the gate out onto the road, it was like trying to negotiate my way past the cat but the horses were more careful about where they were treading.

I walked up the road to the bus stop and didn't have long to wait for the 322 to Stockport. It had been a very pleasant walk on a very warm day.