Rother Valley

Wren, Treeton Dyke

I thought I'd have an adventure and explore a bit of Yorkshire new to me. I had a look to see what was about, saw a red-crested pochard has been on Catcliffe Flash for a couple of weeks, saw that it was dead easy to get to and within walking distance of a couple of other sites, decided to go and have a look.

I got the train to Sheffield and the X54 to the top of Treeton Lane, got off and lo and behold there was the start of the path to Catcliffe Flash right across the road. It looked harder on Google Maps. I went through the gate and walked down a grassy path in between two lines of trees, one lining the river Rother, the other lining the flash and both doing a good job of hiding the water most of the way.

Catcliffe Flash 

Chiffchaffs squeaked in the trees, woodpigeons and wrens sang. The path was fizzing with common blue damselflies and every so often a brown hawker would zip past my cap. Even less often a blackbird, great tits or goldfinch would break cover to fly from one line of trees to the other. A couple of banded demoiselles fluttered by, always a delight, and as the path passed an open stretch of the river an emperor dragonfly powered its way over the waterside vegetation.

Common blue damselfly, Catcliffe Flash 

Banded demoiselle, Catcliffe Flash 

The first glimpses of the flash through the trees were tantalising. Pochards, mallards and tufted ducks bobbed about. A couple of pochards sat in a drowned dead tree to preen. Black-headed gulls noisily skittered about, cormorants hung out to dry and a mute swan cruised along the far bank. No sign of a red-crested pochard but it was early days yet.

Catcliffe Flash 

I walked round to Trenton Lane and found a bus stop back to Sheffield by the exit, which is handy. I ignored it because I had places to go yet. I walked up the road to the layby where it turned out I got a full view of the flash. It's a relatively small lake perhaps a couple of hundred yards long and about half that wide. The bank opposite was thickly lined in reeds.

Mallards, black-headed gulls and gadwalls, Catcliffe Flash 

Female pochard, Catcliffe Flash 

At one side by the reeds there was a tiered arrangement of planks. Ducks and black-headed gulls were arranged on this like dolls in a toy shop window. Most of the ducks were mallards and gadwall, there were a few tufted ducks but most of them were drifting about in groups of three or four out on the flash. Coots fussed in the reeds, moorhens and dabchicks picked their way through the ducks. More pochards passed by. A heron walked behind the ducks and gulls on the showcase. No red-crested pochard. The reports hadn't said if it was a duck or a drake though this time of year with the drakes being in eclipse plumage it's not easy to be sure if you're just seeing the one bird. I wasn't seeing anything either way and was about to give up in despair when I caught a flash of bright candy pink out of the corner of my eye. An eclipse drake red-crested pochard got added to the year list.

Red-crested pochard (centre left), moorhen, mallards and coots, Catcliffe Flash 

The plan had been to walk through Treeton and go on to Waverley Lakes for a nosy round but a dog walker suggested I take a diversion along the way to look at Treeton Dyke. The path was dead easy to find, it ran alongside the railway just before the bridge that takes you over into Waverley and the lakes. Yet more common blue damselflies, speckled woods and large whites fluttered about the hedgerows and chiffchaffs squeaked in the trees. It took me a while to identify the migrant hawker patrolling the nettles by the path.

Treeton Dyke

Great crested grebe, Treeton Dyke

People were waterskiing on Trenton Dyke which turned out to work in my favour because all the waterbirds were congregating by the bank near the path. It's not often I get to see great crested grebes and mallards side by side, the grebes looked tiny and skinny in comparison. A family of wrens were bouncing about in the willows by a small pond across the way. Any piece of reasonably healthy water larger than a pocket handkerchief will have its moorhens and so it did. It also had a Southern hawker zipping about the waterside.

Moorhen, Treeton Dyke

I walked back, turned, apologised to my knees for the steps up to the railway bridge and crossed over into Waverley where chaffinches, great tits and chiffchaffs called in the trees. The Rother looked very picturesque as it burbled its way through the rocks just downstream of the bridge, elsewhere it was a fairly sleepy river.

River Rother

Waverley Lakes

The lakes are out in open parkland. I picked my way through the damselflies towards the nearest and largest lake. Immediately to the North a new housing estate was being build. This didn't seem to bother any of the birds. Nearby there were dozens of coots, mallards, black-headed gulls and tufted ducks, one of the tufties having four tiny ducklings in tow that were already impressive divers. There were also a few pochards and mute swans and the far bank was lined with Canada geese. Further out was a raft of forty or fifty lesser black-backs. I expect there's some serious gullwatching done here in Winter. The swallows and martins that had been conspicuously absent so far hawked over the lake, albeit only being two swallows and a house martin.

Waverley Lakes

I checked the bus times. If I walked back into Treeton or Catcliffe I'd have to wait three-quarters of an hour for a bus back to Sheffield. If I carried on walking along the river to Woodhouse Mill the buses were roughly every quarter of an hour. I headed thataway.

Walking by the River Rother

It was a pleasant walk. Wrens chaffed in the undergrowth. Goldfinches, greenfinches and a couple of little egrets flew overhead. There was a stand-off between me and a Southern hawker as it hovered in front of my face for what felt was hours but was actually half a minute. In the end it moved around me and headed off up the path whence I came. I passed an open patch by the river and a robin ran through a few practice notes of song.

Orgreave Rise 

I followed the path down to Retford Road and got the 52 back into Sheffield. Next time I'm this way I'll follow the river South from here through the Woodhouse Washlands and see if I can get down to Rother Valley Country Park. It had been a good day's birdwatching today, it'll be interesting to see how they compare.

Home thoughts

I'd had three hours' sleep and the alarums and excursions of the night extended unto lunchtime so I shelved the plan for the day, which is just as well as I had eyes like peepholes in the snow. (They all lived happily ever after in the end.) 

Mid-morning brought three new, spotty and scruffy blackbirds to the back garden where they made a performance of taking a bath under the supervision of the adult male before lurching up into the rowan tree to make a worse first of grabbing berries by the beakful than I would have done. The young great tits have white cheeks now though their napes and wings still have yellow tones. I know there are young wrens about more by instinct than observation, the male's not sung for a few days though he's still on the alert patrolling the garden, especially when there are magpies about.

• Blackbird 4
• Carrion crow 1
• Collared dove 2
• Feral pigeon 1 
• Great tit 2
• House sparrow 4
• Jackdaw 2
• Magpie 2
• Robin 1 
• Woodpigeon 4
• Wren 1

The gulls have sussed that the lunchtime banquet's suspended for the Summer holidays. The lesser black-backs pass over in the evenings as they go off to roost but are absent during the day. Today there were just five black-headed gulls dancing for worms on the playing field, joined by three adult herring gulls. The crowd scenes were provided by the jackdaws.

• Black-headed gull 5
• Feral pigeon 3
• Herring gull 3
• Jackdaw 18
• Rook 7
• Woodpigeon 6

Goyt Valley

River Goyt 

The day started with another young robin in the back garden. That'll be the third and all different vintages. Have there been three, not two, nests on the go locally or has one pair double-brooded? There's no use in my speculating, I'll never know for sure.

I decided I needed to bounce myself out of my recent doldrums by visiting someplace new. If the birdwatching was quiet I'd still have the fun of exploration. The Goyt Valley between Offerton and Bredbury has been on my radar for a while so I headed thataway. I got the 25 into Stockport and the 358 to St John's Church (I could have got the 383 but the 358 came first), walked down to Hall Pool Drive and followed it round until I came to the footpath that heads to the Goyt Valley.

For the first few hundred yards the path was bounded by a fence on one side and a trees on the other. Behind the trees was a steep bank running down to a brook I can't find on the maps. Every so often the path got close enough for me to be able to see the brook, a small thing that must have been following a fault line in the underlying rocks to have carved that deep, narrow valley. A couple of woodpigeons sang in the trees, speckled woods skittered about and swifts hawked over the fields and rowan saplings beyond the fence.

Goyt Valley 

All of a sudden the fence ended and there was an open field beside the path, sloping down to meet a bank of trees in the valley below. Gatekeepers and ringlets fluttered about the grass while high overhead there was a swarm of swallows, house martins and sand martins wheeling round the interface between the field and the woodland, enjoying the best of both worlds. It took me a while to convince myself that all three hirundines were up there, second-guessing myself until at last I had to concede the point.

Walking down to the river

Walking down to the river

I followed the path into the woodland and took a roundabout way down to the river, keeping the gradients gentle where I could. Aside from the very occasional squeak from a chiffchaff and a couple of contact calls from great tits and robins it was very quiet indeed. As woodlands tend to be this time of year.

River Goyt 

The path I ended up following brought me to the River Goyt at Jim Fernley Bridge. There were a few people about, mainly families taking small kids for a walk and a few cyclists but it wasn't terrifically busy. I looked over the river and scanned the stream-washed gravel in the hopes of wagtails or dippers, or at least a few dragonflies, but found nothing. But it was very picturesque.

Dark Lane

By Dark Lane 

I crossed over and walked up to Dark Lane. Magpies and greenfinches called in the fields and a couple of dozen rooks foraged a couple of fields down from the lane. I debated whether or not to walk down the lane either to Bradbury or Chadwick but decided instead to retrace my steps and explore the woodland by the river. It struck me that next time I come this way (because I will) I might get the 384 from Stockport, get off in Harrytown and walk down this way.

Walking by Poise Brook 

I had a bit of a wander by the river, finding a few dead ends to paths along the way and being sworn at by squirrels, then joined a path running alongside Poise Brook. At first the path ran on a high bank well away from the brook but they soon converged as they ran through the woods. Every so often I would hear a chiffchaff or a robin, a dunnock dived into cover ahead of me. A couple of jays were relatively obliging, bits of pink and blue showing through the leaf cover on an old ash tree.

Approaching Poise Brook 

The further along I walked the fewer people were around. I got to a couple of bridges and crossed over to the other side of the brook. A wren sang in the ferns here and a nuthatch called from high in the trees. There was a bench by the brook so I sat down quietly for a bit and waited to see or hear what might be around. The wren sang again and was joined by a robin singing from the trees on the other bank. I heard a couple of great tits go by as I watched a pair of large whites chasing each other in a clearing just ahead. I was surprised to hear a pied flycatcher calling, my astonishment being all the more because I would have put good money on my not having the first idea what they sounded like. I quickly checked on Xeno-Canto and confirmed what I heard. (Of course I didn't use Merlin, if it can't identify buzzards yelling and bawling a couple of trees away it won't be any use for small, quiet songbirds.)

Poise Brook 

Walking by Poise Brook 

Walking by Poise Brook 

I followed the path down and the trees gave way to clearings filled with Himalayan balsam, nettles and hogweed (not giant hogweed), all rising above my head and I'm a little over average height in my elevated boots. Magpies rattled in trees, woodpigeons sang and a Southern hawker zipped by. Then all of a sudden I was walking down Holiday Lane to Marple Road.

The lane joins Marple Road halfway between bus stops on that long bend that doesn't have a pavement on this side. It's a busy road and you take your life in your hands trying to cross it here. I elected to walk back to the stop opposite St John's so I'd be facing the traffic and could hug the wall by the road if need be. And did.

I got the 383 and seeing as I was passing I got off at Compstall and went to take some photos of mandarin ducks in Etherow Country Park.

Mandarin ducks

Mandarin duck

Mandarin ducks
Even in eclipse plumage I think a mandarin is a very pretty duck

Mandarin ducks

Mandarin duck
Taken from thr bridge by the weir

Mandarin ducks

I looked in vain for dippers or grey wagtails on the river by the weir. Just as I was lamenting this a kingfisher shot upstream then rose suddenly before the bridge and disappeared over the trees. There's no good reason why a kingfisher can't fly over trees just as easily as any starling but it's still a surprise when I see it happen.

Etherow Country Park 

A coal tit was singing in the tree by one of the bridges over the canal on the way back. Further along a couple of buzzards were making a terrific row as they soared low over the lake and Ernocroft Wood.

Buzzard

Buzzard

Buzzard

Buzzard

Buzzard
Not often I manage to get a photo of one hovering.

Etherow Country Park 

Wellacre Country Park

Woodpigeon, Jack Lane 

I had a wander down to Wellacre Country Park, getting the 256 to Town's Gate and walking down into a very quiet Wellacre Wood. The mid-July doldrums are a couple of weeks late this year, probably because a lot of birds were having another go at nesting after a disastrous June. It was cloudy and heavy but a stiff breeze brought a freshness to the air when it could. A woodpigeon sang, a magpie rattled, a great tit muttered its disapproval and many speckled woods danced and chased about the trees. A brown hawker zipped past as I emerged from the trees onto the path.

Wellacre Wood 

Wellacre Country Park 

Leaving the woods and walking past the fields there was a steady traffic of woodpigeons and lesser black-backs. A flock of six stock doves debated joining the carrion crows in the field where the hay was being baled but decided to head for the stables. Over by Irlam Road a hundred or so starlings perched on the pylons and a few sand martins joined the black-headed gulls and pigeons whirling round the locks.

Jack Lane 

Jack Lane was busier than the woods, in so far as two chiffchaffs squeaked in the trees and deep in the reeds baby moorhens wheezed in reply to the chastisement of their parents. A reed warbler warned me off as I stopped near its nest site to watch a Southern hawker patrolling the reed margins.

Heading for Dutton's Pond 

Walking down to Dutton's Pond I became aware that there was a mixed tit flock in the willows on the railway embankment. I don't know how to explain the feeling one gets when you know one's there even before you've heard any noise you can put a name to. I suspect I unconsciously notice "leaves" moving the wrong way out of the corner of my eye. I could hear a chiffchaff squeaking, I eventually saw a pair of blue tits and a great tit flew out and into the willows behind me. I couldn't see the long-tailed tits which is unusual because they're generally the only small birds coming out in the open this time of year.

Dutton's Pond 

A couple of moorhens mooched about on Dutton's Pond while chiffchaffs squeaked in the trees. I decided against a stroll over Green Hill so I walked down the path to Ambleside Road, passing a family of Canada geese loafing by the pond side along the way.

Canada geese, Dutton's Pond 

I got the train home and discovered I'd missed a drama. There were feathers all over the front door step and the remains of a woodpigeon in one of the plant pots. The head being eaten suggested it was a sparrowhawk kill though the rest of the carcass had been cleanly butchered. I went inside and told the cat what she'd missed.

Manchester Ship Canal

Herring gulls

After a bad night's sleep caused in part by its being hot and humid, in part because Network Rail were working on the lines at 2am but mostly because the cat I live with was in training for a high school marching band I didn't feel like doing anything especially energetic. This was supported by the temperature quickly getting to the high sixties in the early morning. The Met Office thunderstorm warnings still held first thing so I had a think about what I was going to do with the day. If I was going for a walk at all it had to be somewhere with shelter readily to hand and an easy retreat. Probably as well to avoid relying on the trains as well given the number of cancellations at Humphrey Park. And somewhere near water so that if the small birds are coy there's the chance of waterbirds.

Salford Quays 

While I was dithering about I got my dinner, had a quick look at the dozen black-headed gulls on the school field, just in case, then got the 25 to the Trafford Centre. The idea was to get the 126 into Boothstown and have a walk along the canal. Then I saw the queue for this single-decker bus. I'd have half an hour to wait for the next bus to Worsley to pick up the canal from that end. The mercury had crept up to what my dad insists is the high twenties and I insist is the high seventies and I didn't fancy hanging round the bus station in that. So I got the 250 down to Wharfside and had a wander along the Ship Canal.

Black-headed gull

I was hoping to catch the adult yellow-legged gull that's been haunting Clippers Quay on and off this past couple of weeks. There was a raft of a couple of dozen large gulls with the herd of mute swans over by the Lowry, three lesser black-backs for every herring, and there were black-headed gulls all over the show.

Great black-backs and herring gulls 

I had no luck finding a yellow-legged gull but did find a couple of great black-backs, an adult and, I think, a first-Summer. They were loafing with the herring gulls that were keeping aloof of the crowd of black-headed gulls on the quay. Moorhens and coots fussed about amidst the litter on the mud, a heron stalked the shallows and mallards, mute swans and Canada geese drifted aimlessly in the heat.

Heron and black-headed gulls

Mute swan and black-headed gulls 

Herring gulls and great black-back 

Great black-back and herring gulls 

I walked down the path below Trafford Road Bridge where a blackbird was singing on one side of the canal and a goldfinch on the other. Pigeons and woodpigeons flew hither and thither, a few courting pigeons dancing about the girders of the bridges.

Pomona Dock 

Out on the Pomona Dock a couple of pairs of mute swans cruised about, seemingly intent on visiting every bay of the dock and taking a proprietorial interest in each. Cormorants fished in the middle of the canal and a few more lesser black-backs flew over. A canal cruise boat passed by and moorhens bobbed out of hiding at the bankside in its wake.

Bridgewater Canal at Throstle Nest Bridge 

I've not done this walk since the developers took over and built blocks of flats on the dock, I wanted to see if it was still possible to walk up to Cornbrook. It wasn't possible by walking along the dock, the path was fenced off. I backtracked a bit and joined Pomona Strand, time was you could walk down here and either turn onto Waterways Avenue to the wharf or else carry on down, cross the Bridgewater Canal then go under Cornbrook tram stop onto Chester Road. You can't now, that's fenced off, too. So all I could do was walk back to Pomona tram stop and walk down the Bridgewater Canal. I decided to just walk back down into Trafford Park and get the 250 back. Aside from a few pigeons and lesser black-backs it was a quiet walk.