Mersey Valley

Hornet-mimic hoverfly on hemp agrimony, Kickety Brook 

I spent most of Friday asleep, which is a pity as it looked like a nice day. Today was considerably warmer and it took a bit of an effort to persuade myself out for a walk. Luckily there was still enough of a breeze to make the walk the more pleasant once I got out into the open.

I headed over to Stretford Meadows. Collared doves and woodpigeons dozed on garden fences as I passed by. It was that sort of afternoon. A few spadgery mutterings were heard from the hedgerows of Newcroft Road. I braced myself for a quiet walk.

Arriving at the meadows I had barely passed the extended patch of rock-hard cracked mud at the entrance when a family of whitethroats gave me the collective raspberry from the depths of their bramble patch. I was a bit surprised as they're not usually this near to the trees, preferring the open spaces. Perhaps it's a reaction to the recent extreme heat, a bit less heat stress or a more reliable supply of insects? Anyway, they were keen to have me on my way.

Stretford Meadows 

It was a very quiet walk across the meadows. There was a steady traffic of woodpigeons and jackdaws overhead, whither and thither they alone knew. On the ground I saw a couple of magpies at the top of the mound. A handful of goldfinches twittered. A couple of woodpigeons rummaged about in the small oak trees checking out the state of the acorns. A handful of large whites fluttered about the brambles, meadow browns were numerous but rarely flew higher than a couple of inches above the parched ground. The nettles were wilted, the thistles and willowherbs had gone to seed, a few ragworts and small patches of black knapweed were still game. A large patch of goldenrod in full flower on one of the slopes had not one butterfly and scarce any bees or hoverflies.

The view from the top of the mound

I dropped down the Eastern slope of the mound, a couple of greenfinches letting everyone know I was passing by. Apples were ripening on the trees and bramble patches were thick with blackberries. In a Summer of disappointing blackberries I found one of the best I've had in years, so I had three and left the rest to the invisible wildlife. A cock pheasant appeared out of a patch of wilted willowherbs, ran across the path in front of me and disappeared into a line of brambles and elderberry bushes.

Rather to my astonishment, the flooded path across one of the terraces was even wetter than usual. I had been worrying about the wildlife going thirsty.

Blackberries 

I dropped down further and joined the Transpennine Route, heading for Stretford Ees. A Southern hawker patrolled the wayside. Somewhere in the depths a song thrush appeared to be doing vocal exercises. I stopped to take a photo of a blue tit in the trees and a blackcap flew into the hawthorn by my side and told me to go away.

Blue tit

By Kickety Brook 

On the other side of Chester Road things picked up a little. The brook was bone dry but the shade of the trees had provided some shelter for the wayside plants. They were dry but mostly not scorched or wilted though the Himalayan balsams were shadows of their usual selves. For once their scent wasn't overwhelming, instead it mingled with the smells of ripening blackberries and elderberries, all held together by the strangely fugitive scent of the stands of hemp agrimony. An enormous hornet-mimic hoverfly zipped past my nose on its way to the hemp agrimonies on the wayside next to me.

Hornet-mimic hoverfly 

Woodpigeons and magpies clattered about. Lesser black-backs passed overhead. Goldfinches, less than a handful, twittered in the trees. Blue tits fidgeted through the undergrowth. There was a sudden and unexpected burst of song from the trees on the other side of the brook as a garden warbler rushed out a few phrases and gave up before the end. Even the pigeons under the aqueduct were someplace else.

Stretford Weir
This collects the water from the ees when in flood and channels it down into the Mersey drain, which empties back into the river half a mile downstream, and Kickety Brook.

Goldfinches twittering in the hawthorns and the shrieks of parakeets in the trees by the cemetery provided the background to an otherwise very quiet walk across Stretford Ees. A brown hawker patrolled the reedmace in the waterless Stretford Weir.

River Mersey 

The river was, unsurprisingly, running very low. A flock of woodpigeons lined the banks as they had a drink. For a moment I thought the river was even lower than I'd thought as a grey shape pottered about the far bankside. It wasn't a woodpigeon having a paddle, it was a drake mandarin duck in its eclipse plumage. I couldn't see a female anywhere. I'd only taken a couple of steps when I noticed a bird tearing in from the mouth of Chorlton Brook. It was an adult dipper and it carried on downstream, the speed of its flight exaggerated by the sluggishness of the river. 

Mandarin duck 

A bit further down the bend a pair of mallards dabbled close to the bank. A chiffchaff squeaked from a hawthorn on the corner. I crossed over into Chorlton Ees grateful for a bit of shade. Great tits, dunnocks and wrens marked my passing by and magpies dug holes in the banks between trees as they grubbed for insects. Up in the canopy woodpigeons sang and billed and cooed and a pair of males had a punch-up, knocking each other about from tree to tree.

Woodpigeon punch-up 

Woodpigeon punch-up 

Dryad's saddle

Chorlton Ees 

It was more of the very quiet same as I walked through Ivy Green into Chorlton. There were more ring-necked parakeets in the gardens than there were in the woodland. The house martins hawking overhead as I waited for the bus in Stretford brought the day's tally up to thirty, which felt okay for this time of year.

Urmston

Goosanders and little egret, River Mersey

It was a coo what a scorcher bank holiday Saturday and I was feeling misanthropic so I binned any of the ideas for the day that involved public transport or the presence of people. Perhaps I was just tired, I was so 

 exhausted last night that I went to bed early and dozed off soon after the blackbird kicked in for the dawn chorus. So I had a teatime walk over to Cob Kiln Wood and thence into Urmston town centre and got the train for the two minute ride home.

Collared dove, Stretford
The collared dove and the woodpigeons take turns cooing down the chimney to sound bigger and bolder than they really are. Every so often they'll sing a duet and damned confusing it is, too.

Robins and blackbirds sang all the way as I walked past the station and the allotments. Collared doves and woodpigeons sang from rooftops, blackcaps and dunnocks from the hedges by the primary school and wrens from the motorway embankment. It had the makings of a noisy walk.

Walking into Cob Kiln Wood 

Parakeets added to the soundscape as I walked into Cob Kiln Wood. As I crossed the little bridge over Old Eeas Brook a titmouse churred at me as it bathed at the side of the brook. I had to look twice and even then I wasn't convinced until it flew up into the tree by the bridge to give me a good telling off. Whatever else I was expecting to find in the wood today I wasn't expecting a willow tit. I apologised and let it be, I walked on into the wood. As it turned out, the only titmouse I would see along the whole walk not mostly hidden by at least two layers of leaves would be this willow tit.

Cob Kiln Wood 

The wood smelled of elderflowers, the going over of may blossom and oak leaves. The little dragonfly pool was parched and cracked mud, the flag iris flowers hanging limply in the sun. I had missed the cuckoo pint flowers along the path, in fact I couldn't even see any leaves. Blackcaps, blackbirds, robins, chiffchaffs and wrens song, magpies rattled and parakeets screeched.

The electricity pylon clearing 

The electricity pylon clearing was surrounded by song thrushes, well nigh drowning out the songs of anything else. Blackbirds, robins and blackcaps tried their best from the trees, whitethroats from the hawthorn bushes, wrens from brambles and a garden warbler sang from the depths of a stand of dogwoods.

Cob Kiln Lane 

I dropped down into Cob Kiln Lane and walked to the river. Chiffchaffs, robins and blackbirds dominated the songscape along here. The river was low, with large parts of the steps of the weir exposed. I had a look to see if the usual grey wagtail was about and found, instead, a dipper.

Dipper
Not the best picture but given the light and the foliage in the way from any other angle it'll have to do as a record shot.

I walked over the bridge and looked at the river. Upstream there was nothing about. Downstream was a different story. A couple of pairs of mallards dabbled by the banks and down on the shoals at the bend in the river a pair of goosanders dozed in the company of a little egret while their small redheads splashed about by the Cheshire bank.

Looking downstream from the bridge
Back when the Mersey was the county boundary Cheshire was on the left, Lancashire on the right.

I debated walking on down Banky Lane and decided to walk back into Urmston.  Rather than walking the length of Cob Kiln Lane I struck on over the fields towards the bridge over Old Eeas Brook by the cemetery.

Song thrush

Every bush seemed to have a song thrush singing in it. Blackbirds and chiffchaffs sang from the trees on the margins and whitethroats and wrens sang from the brambles and nettles.

River Mersey 

As the path curved round I got a better view of the shoals of the river and noticed a heron lurking in the trees on the Lancashire bank. Sand martins hawked over the river. They used to have a big colony here on the Cheshire side but the bank collapsed about ten years ago. A smaller colony nests downstream these days.

Heron, goosanders and little egret

Walking above the ox-bow lakes 

The path entered the wooded area by the ox-bow lakes and blackcaps picked up the chorus. Chaffinches and dunnocks provided backing vocals and sedge warblers sang from the flag irises in the ox-bows. Jays, normally the most secretive of birds this time of year, made an exhibition of themselves though they took care to land in branches with a good cover of leaves to them. The leaves served the parakeets well, though, the young leaves of the ash trees matching their emerald green plumage. A couple of youngsters would have been inconspicuous if they weren't so noisy.

A pair of great spotted woodpeckers gave me a good telling-off as I walked past the cemetery into Urmston. I checked the time: I'd have ten minutes to wait for the train back home. They run every two hours, if they're not cancelled, it would have been rude not to.

Carrington Moss

Carrington Moss 

It was threatening to be a pleasant day so I decided I should go for a proper walk on Carrington Moss, I've only skimmed its margins so far this year.

I could have got the 247 or 255 into Carrington and walked down Isherwood Road but rather than mess about with connections or hang around at bus stops I got the train to Flixton and walked down. That extra mile is what I would have done to get to the 255 bus stop anyway. It worked in my favour: when I had a look at the river at Flixton Bridge a pair of gadwalls were swimming downstream and a dipper flew upstream.

I had another stroke of luck at the top of Isherwood Road. I was scanning the fields to see if any swallows were about — they nest at the stables — and I didn't just find swallows swooping over the horses, there was also my first house martin of the year.

There was a wealth of birdsong as I passed by the light woodland between Isherwood Road and Carrington Logistics Hub. Robins, blackcaps, great tits and chiffchaffs were making most of the running, a few blackbirds and willow warblers and a song thrush providing backing vocals. A raven cronked atop the electricity substation before flying off over Carrington.

Carrington Moss 

I joined the path running between the fields and the Shell Pool enclosure. The trees and bushes behind the fencing were almost in full leaf so I was hearing more black-headed gulls, Canada geese and coots that I was able to see on the pool. At least two black-headed gull nests were on the go. The trees were busy with singing chiffchaffs and willow warblers.

A dozen carrion crows rummaged about on the nearby field. I could hear skylarks but struggled to find them and when I did I struggled the more actually identifying them. Despite the clouds, the light was bright and high contrast;  against the almost black soil the larks weirdly glowed bright sandy white when they were out in the open. A couple of pied wagtails skittered about. When I got to the corner of the field and looked back I was better able to recognise the skylarks. There were also two other, less chunky, birds glowing pale yellow. Were these my first yellow wagtails of the year? I wasn't convinced, perhaps it was a peculiar trick of the light and they were just more skylarks, I mean, besides being the wrong shape, size and colour they were dead ringers. They took pity on me, took off and flew all of three yards along the distant field, enough time to confirm them as wagtails. Presumably they were female yellow wagtails, a yellow head of a male would have glowed like a beacon in this light.

Entering the woodland 

I turned into the bit of light woodland on the track that becomes Brookheys Road. Blue tits, great tits, robins and wrens skittered about in the bushes. Blackbirds chased each other across the track and through tree canopies. All about was a cacophony of birdsong. The chiffchaffs gave way to blackcaps. Robins, blackbirds, great tits, wrens and dunnocks competed for air time. Goldfinches and greenfinches twittered past. A chaffinch gave a song a go and gave up because it could hardly hear itself over a song thrush. Somewhere in the background were woodpigeons, pheasants, carrion crows and black-headed gulls. In the midst of all this, as I passed some hawthorns that had taken a bashing when a birch tree fell over, I could hear something shriller and faster than the blackcaps, in a desperate hurry to get the end of the song finished. I tried in vain to see the garden warbler. I do a lot of finding where a bird is by ear and I had little chance in this environment. And no chance at all once a whitethroat hopped over and joined in. Still, it's a nice problem to have, walking through silent countryside this time of year is awfully worrying.

Yellowhammer
All the other photos were of burnt-out yellow blobs.

At the crossroads I turned onto Ashton Road, trying and failing to photograph the blackbirds, blackcaps and whitethroats singing in the hawthorns or the greenfinches disbudding the flowers. A chap on a bike rode up and we let on and exchanged notes. He'd found plenty of wheatears about on the field immediately to the South. No sooner said than seen, on my first scan round I found a couple of female wheatears striking distant poses on ridges on the deeply furrowed ground. There might have been half a dozen out there, there might just have been three, they were up and down the ridges like jack-in-the-boxes. A male white wagtail was a lot closer, flying in for a drink from a puddle on the road just in front of me and off again before my camera was out of my bag. A bright yellow shape hopped across the field. At first I couldn't identify it, it was just a butter yellow glow. As I got closer I could see it was a male yellowhammer, a nice find as these are another farmland bird I'm struggling to find in previously reliable haunts.

Wheatears and skylarks

Birch Road

I walked down Birch Road. I usually avoid this as there's generally traffic to and from the United training ground but I didn't want to walk back up Ashton Road to join Brookheys Road to walk down to Sinderland Brook. There were only a couple of cars today and the trees lining the road were full of titmice, robins, blackcaps and chiffchaffs.

The Irlam to Altrincham line 

As the road met the brook I joined the track running down into Broadheath, another footpath bequeathed to a grateful nation by Doctor Beeching. The songscape resumed, this time with greenfinches becoming active participants. A grey wagtail skittered about the kingcups in a trackside pool, it's not often I get the full set on one day.

A trackside pool 

I emerged into Broadheath and got the 247 back to Davyhulme and had five minutes to wait for the bus home. Along the way the active rookery on Woodsend Road brought the day's tally to 49 species, that fiftieth eluded me and my knees were too insistent on telling me I needed to get home and get my tea for me to add on a side excursion, special like.

Etherow Country Park

Dipper

I hadn't intended going to Etherow Country Park to take photos of mandarin ducks. I was headed to Stretford Meadows to see if any whitethroats had arrived. It had been a cool, fitfully sunny day with a wind that cut through your kidneys like a knife after a wild, wet and windy night which I'd mostly slept through. I put the big coat on and left home, walked past the allotments as the rain started, asked myself if this really was the best idea I was going to have today and found myself on the 23 bus going to Stockport. Was I getting off in Chorlton for a walk in the shelter of Ivy Green and Chorlton Ees? Apparently not. Nor having that explore of Heaton Valley Nature Park I keep not getting round to? No… At Stockport Bus Station the next bus out was the 383 to Marple and Romiley. I bowed to Fate. The rain nearly stopped, the sun poked through and I had a walk round Etherow Country Park.

Mandarin duck
A bit of head-bobbing for his lady, and to warn off a passing drake.

Most of the mandarin ducks were paired up. There were a good few unpaired drakes about, they either loafed about together in the tree roots or spent some time getting warned off by pairs of mandarins. The drakes puffed themselves up, fanned out their orange standards and did a lot of posturing about. The ducks cut to the chase and bit the interloper.

Mandarin ducks

Mandarin ducks

Mandarin ducks

Mandarin duck
At rest the fans point in, not out.

Mandarin duck

Mandarin ducks

Mandarin duck
Extreme head-bobbing including making bubbling cooing noises before blowing bubbles in the water.

Etherow Country Park 
(Yes, the beech trees really do lean like that.)

There was plenty else about. Mallards, coots and moorhens were in furtive mode, which is always a good sign. A coal tit was the first singing bird I heard as I walked in from the bus stop. Robins, blackbirds, great tits, goldfinches, blackcaps and chiffchaffs quickly joined in. The odd mix of seasons had swallows swooping over the boating pond and siskins skittering about in the tops of alders. Carrion crows bathed in the river, dunnocks and house sparrows struck poses in garden hedges, jackdaws and pigeons massed on rooftops, a few young black-headed gulls lingered by the car park and woodpigeons were all over the shop.

Carrion crow, drying out after a bath

River Etherow 

On the approach to the wobbly footbridge I looked in vain for a dipper on the river, a grey wagtail was a fine consolation prize, it's been a lean couple of weeks for them. 

The weir 

I was standing by the weir, which was looking the better for not being a single sheet of water, when a dipper flew over, struck a pose on a rock at the top then disappeared under the water, very occasionally bobbing up for a breath before disappearing again. It reappeared with what looked like a caddis fly larva and flitted down to an alcove at the base of the weir to deal with it. I noticed it had a ring on its leg but I had no luck trying to read it. The dipper took off and disappeared, reappeared on another rock at the top of the weir and disappeared again. And then all of a sudden it was back on the alcove. I think it was flying up the weir behind the curtain of water. Given the weight of the water I saw it flying through while it was hunting up at the top of the weir it's certainly possible. Sturdy little buggers are dippers.

Dipper

I had no intention of walking into Keg Wood but the cold and the wind and the rain required me to use the public conveniences near the entrance to the wood and it seemed a shame not to just walk into the wood a little bit to take in the birdsong then I noticed that the bluebells were in full bloom — already! — and I had to go and get a look at the drifts under the beechwood. And so I did. And the two layers of memory foam in my boots did the required trick and I wondered why I was remotely worried about this walk.

Keg Wood, with bluebells 

Keg Wood 

More bluebells 

Keg Wood 

Keg Wood 

Besides the bluebells, and the first of the wild garlic, the wood was filled with birdsong. In fact, the rain falling heavier seemed to encourage it. Nuthatches and a song thrush joined in the medley and a parakeet screeched from somewhere up the hill. Chiffchaffs and blue tits bounced about on wayside twigs. Pairs of great tits saw me off their territories with a selection of sharp ticks and squeaks. Long-tailed tits ignored me completely, coal tits came to see what I was about and robins struck poses and sang. A chap walking his dogs asked if I'd seen the deer, there were three of them kicking about. I said I'd best make tracks home so I don't put them off. The sun came out and it poured down, so like a muffin I got wet taking photos of rainbows behind the trees.

Getting wet

A bunch of drake mandarins were loafing in the willows on the mill pool at the head of the canal. The lighting effects were as outlandish as the geometries of a preening mandarin.

Mandarin duck

Mandarin duck

Mandarin duck

Etherow Country Park 

On the way back a chaffinch joined the songscape, up to then they'd been a conspicuous absence from the assembly. Mute swans cruised the boating pond, the usual pair of Muscovy ducks cruised the canal and a couple of drake tufted ducks had dropped in.

I got the 384 back to Stockport. The bus had hardly left the stop when I noticed a roe deer grazing with the sheep in a field by the river.