Seven Acres Country Park

Heron

It was a nice day for a walk, we're not getting the heatwave the South of England is enduring, at least not yet, it's just July warm with a cooling breeze. I was in a pottering about and sod the numbers mood so I went and had a walk through Seven Acres Country Park just outside Bolton. It was one of those July days where you see fewer species of birds in a local nature reserve than you do from the bus driving through a housing estate on the way home but it's a pleasant enough walk and any one that starts with a kingfisher and ends with grey wagtails is nothing to complain about.

I got the train to Bolton and the 471 heading for Rochdale, getting off at Stephens Street and walking back a little (the entrance to the reserve is near enough exactly halfway between bus stops, there's a shop on the walk back and I wanted to buy a drink as I'd forgotten to fill my water bottle).

The entrance path is hidden a bit by the bushes at the corner of the car park. I'd hardly emerged from the bushes and onto Rosario's Pond when a kingfisher flashed across the water. It sat on a dead branch on the opposite side for a moment then dropped down into cover. I really wasn't expecting that. I suppose that given the lack of rainfall kingfishers are having to spread themselves around. A heron in the middle of the pond was startled by the kingfisher and flew over to the side of the reeds before resuming fishing. A few common blue damselflies zipped about and a Southern hawker patrolled the reeds well away from the heron.

Walking by the brook

I followed the path into the woods and upstream along the bank of Bradshaw Brook. A woodpigeon sang, a magpie rattled, brown hawkers patrolled the Himalayan balsams and speckled woods chased gatekeepers out of their territories. The shoals and shallows of the stream were occupied by small humans.

Common darter

Beyond the bridge over the brook the terrain felt a little wilder, primarily because it's not so easy to get to the brook. I kept scanning the shoals and shallows for wagtails and dippers but wasn't having any success. Red admirals and common darters joined the wayside cavalcade as the canopy opened up and let in more light.

Bradshaw Brook 

Bradshaw Brook 

Just after the path forks I started to hear signs of a mixed tit flock in the willows along the bank (I was following the low road). A blue tit churred and I started to hear the quiet contact call tuttings of long-tailed tits. They were coming my way so I stayed still and let them pass. A few blue tits, at least one pair of great tits and a family of long-tailed tits. The dramatically backlit long-tailed tits appealed to my artistic sensibilities but the photos weren't up to much.

Long-tailed tit

Long-tailed tit

A couple of chiffchaffs squeaking in the oak trees by a little clearing were the only warblers of the day.

Bradshaw Brook looking upstream from Thicketford Bridge 

I'd reached Thicketford Bridge when I noticed a quick dash of something over the water. I walked round to get a clear view of the brook and found a grey wagtail flycatching from the stones. When I crossed the road to walk up to the bus stop I found another upstream of the bridge.

I caught the 561 on Thicketford Bridge. A few stops on as I looked out of the window a small brown and orange object kept pace with the bus, not as big a challenge as it sounds as this bus route can't find a corner without having to turn into it. I'd have put money on not encountering a hummingbird hawk moth in Breightmet.

Seven Acres Country Park

Jay, Duncan Wood

Yesterday's very high pollen count and high humidity had cut my strings but I thought I needed to make an effort today. I headed into Bolton with the idea that I'd take a walk through Leverhulme Park and Moses Gate Country Park and try and make sure I did as much as possible of that in the shade. 

As I got off the bus at Stephen Street, next to the Lancashire Wildlife Trust resource centre and the entrance to Seven Acres Country Park it occurred to me that although I've gone past here scores of times I've never had a look at it. It seemed as good a time as any to rectify that.

Rosario's Pond 

I followed the path by Rosario's Pond next to the resource centre which was lively with midges and whirligig beetles but not damselflies or dragonflies. I was a bit underwhelmed by the woodland walk at first, a song thrush and a blackbird sang over the traffic noise but I wasn't seeing or hearing any small birds. I passed a heavily vegetated little pond where a common blue damselfly zipped around and an unidentifiable dragonfly with a shot of blue about it patrolled the undergrowth. Then the path dropped down to Bradshaw Brook and the fun began.

Coal tit

It was fairly young woodland with a dense understory. Wrens, robins, blackbirds and blackcaps sang in the trees. I hadn't gone far when I bumped into my first mixed tit flock of Autumn: families of blue tits, great tits, long-tailed tits and coal tits bouncing round the trees in the company of nuthatches, chiffchaffs and blackcaps. I stood and watched them for ten minutes, they paid no heed to me save to flit out of shot whenever the camera got them in focus. They were ruthless and restless hunters, rummaging about on mossy tree trunks, gleaning from leaves and darting out to catch insects on the wing.

Juvenile blue tit

The path followed the twists and turns of the brook as it headed upstream. The brook was running fast and shallow, burbling over shoals and pebbles. I chided myself for wishful thinking about grey wagtails then turned a corner to find one having a bath.

Grey wagtail

The path carried on. Sometimes the brook dropped out of sight behind the undergrowth, there was a stretch where the far side was constrained by the retaining wall of a factory then brook and path both lurched to the east into the woodland. 

Bradshaw Brook 

Brambles

Here and there the trees thinned out a little and the path was lined with densely flowering brambles, nearly all big and white-flowered, a few smaller, pink-flowered types sheltering under oak trees, and bumblebees and hoverflies buzzing about. In the light shade it was all ferns and hogweeds and Himalayan balsam with occasional stands of sweet cicely along the brook side. Speckled woods and large whites fluttered about by the shady lengths of path, red admirals and small tortoiseshells about the brambles. Along the way I bumped into a couple of smaller mixed tit flocks that tended to keep to the oak canopy.

Small tortoiseshell 

A juvenile chiffchaff that tagged along with a family of long-tailed tits by the pathside didn't notice me coming along and when it did finally notice it didn't much care. It's not often you get any wild bird too close for the camera to focus on easily as it fidgets about, let alone a warbler. I eventually had it nicely framed in a profile shot with the yellow gape at the base of its bill showing well when it noticed a passing fly…

Juvenile chiffchaff

It's an odd thing: Bradshaw Brook gets bigger as you go upstream here. I carried on and crossed the bridge over the brook when I got to it. The hayfever had been behaving itself so I didn't walk through the meadows to the car park, I carried on walking by the brook. A pair of blackcaps looked and sounded as if they had mouths to feed. Another long-tailed tit family passed by, then a mixed flock of blue tits and great tits. Young wrens retreated into the brambles when told to by a scolding parent.

Approaching Thicketford Road 

The landscape opened out on the approach to the bridge carrying Thicketford Road. A couple of mallards dabbled amongst the water crowfoot as I passed.

I had about twenty minutes to wait for either the 561 or 562 bus back to Bolton. I wondered if the path continued along the brook. There was a cut in the wall with steps leading up to the housing estate, I had a nosy and yes, there was a path down. It didn't take me directly to the brook, instead it passed through a meadow dotted with oak trees. Blackbirds and wrens sang and bullfinches wheezed in the trees.

By Bradshaw Brook

In my experience it's unusual for a jay to fly over to have a look at you.

It soon became apparent how the oak trees got planted. A jay bounced through the trees as wrens and robins scolded their displeasure. I wasn't sure if it was the same jay I was seeing a little further along. It spotted me and instead of doing the usual jay thing of either melting into the background or flying off in a huff it flew over to have a better look at me.

Jay

It turned out I wasn't anything special so it went back to fossicking about in the tree roots.

Jay

The path entered Duncan Wood and the woodland became denser as it neared the brook. My first sight of the brook coincided with a dumpy bird shape that could have been a kingfisher or a dipper but was convincingly neither shooting downstream. Dunnocks, nuthatches and a song thrush sang in the trees, blue tits and great tits bounced by, I got scolded by a treecreeper as I passed too close to something I didn't see.

Duncan Wood 

The path split. I followed it along the brook until it petered out at the end of a wall. I retraced my steps and followed the path up a steep climb through the trees. I'd promised myself no climbing this week. The ground leveled out and I checked the maps. It looked like I should be able to join the path from Bottom o'th'Moor along the brook to Longsight Park and thence the bus back to Bolton. The first path I followed round led to a precipitous descent down to the brook that wasn't inviting to an old man with dodgy knees. 

No.

The alternative was closed due to a landslide. 

Also no.

I took the hint and walked down Bottom o'th'Moor and got the 507 back to Bolton.