A late evening wander, going upstream from the iron bridge had yielded only a mandarin and mallard standing adjacent in the river while trying to ignore one another and the fairly well grown mallard duckling which was investigating both of them. But getting just beyond the lower weir at about 10pm, flushed a big heavy egret with a very long neck from the river itself. Only seen very briefly, but lumbered off upstream and out of sight close to the near bank. Carried on, carefully scouring the river, up to the more modern weir, where paused to look around and failed to find anything, only, when moving on, to flush the Great egret again from a tree on the near bank. It carried on upstream towards Marple bridge, but didn't look like it was going far it probably went back into an unviewable tree before it got to anywhere within sight of Marple Bridge itself (from which only the plastic decoy heron on the other bank was visible through the, by that point fairly deep, gloom).
Wasn't going to mention this, but looking at other sites few were reported today. c60 House Martins drifted in over the park mid p.m. About half of these drifted back a bit later. Also 2 chiffchaffs at least. Bring on the winter visitors soon please, it's all a bit drab at the moment.
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It was terribly quiet yesterday and quite depressing, but one thing raised the spirits a little. A dipper was seen towards the 'Marple Bridge'. It proceded to hunt under water which, from my elevated position, and with shallow water and no reflection, I was able to witness as it 'walked' on the river bed. Probably the first time I've seen this in the flesh.
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9 brambling in a flock with a similar number of chaffinches, feeding under the beech on the edge of the football pitch nearest to the iron bridge (near the path to it). Two were very orangey individuals - worth seeing as much as waxwings to me. Speaking of which, what was near certainly 4 of those flew over towards Cherry Tree estate, Romiley (looked as if they landed). Also seen c20 stock doves on farmland viewable from Rollins Lane. Note the bramblings were being disturbed quite often, but always dropped back to earth quite quickly. Saturday might be a different matter as it will be busier.
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walked up from brabyns park to the canal and along it to romiley birds seen starlings 6 collared dove 1 black headed gull over 6 magpie 5 canada geese 56 mallards 31 blackbirds 3 robins 3 buzzard sparrowhawk 1 herring gull over 6 woodpigeon 30 kingfisher 1 long tailed tit 1 blue tit 3 great tit 3 jay 3
walked up from brabyns park to the canal and along it to romiley birds seen as follows starlings 3 collared dove 1 black headed gulls over 6 magpies 4 canada geese 56 mallards 31 blackbirds 3 robins 3 buzzard 1 sparrowhawk 1 herring gulls over 6 woodpigeons 30 kingfisher 1 long tailed tit 1 blue tit 3 great tit 3 carrion crows 15 jay s3
Hey! This one's been dormant for a while. Not a truly exciting afternoon, but the weather was just superb for setting off autumn colours. Probably the birding highlight was in a single birch tree which held 8 goldfinches, a couple of chaffinches, 2 siskins (my first of this 'winter') and a male bullfinch. Nuthatches were everywhere. Two goosanders were on the river, a very few redwings were about, and the usual buzzard sighting was thrown in. Perhaps my last butterfly of the year sort of completed this pleasant picture, a comma feeding on ivy.
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Ever wondered what the Earth was like before life evolved? Stick around.
this seems the appropriate thread to put this in, a walk along the river goyt (downstream)from brabyns brow/marple bridge to rollins lane iron bridge 12.30-1.45pm.
1100-1200 2 Stock Doves 1 Bullfinch Lots of common birds but no sign of any Bramblings 2 Song Thrushes and a Mistle Thrush in full song near the entrance.
