Up On The Roof.

Black Redstart, originally uploaded by Sergey Yeliseev.

Not blogged (or, indeed, tweeted) about birds for a while. There are two reasons for this; first, work is taking up a lot of my mental capacity at the moment so the mooching and thinking I usually do before posting (honestly, I do) are not happening. Secondly, work is in a different place, which means I'm no longer getting my three mornings a week cutting through Peel Park and skirting The Irwell into town. Which means no Kingfishers since just after Christmas. I've picked up a short walk along The Irwell slightly further towards town past Strangeways and usually walk up to Wellington Bridge. It's a good site for spotting Grey Herons and the Goosanders who were with us until a month ago hung out there and up towards Broughton Bridge. Oh, and the Grey Wagtails, but I've not seen much unusual along there. It's also a bit too secluded and slightly seedy; broken bottles, burger boxes and condoms are pretty common, but at least the resident tramp seems to now know I'm down there for a good reason and we're on nodding terms. And on a positive note I found a fiver on the other side of the subway on Friday. I hope he didn't drop it...

As mentioned, work is now somewhere else. That being the corner of Lever Street and Faraday Street, where the streets are named after scientists and somewhere up there is a black redstart that refuses to show himself when I have bins in hand. At other times, I've seen a bird on top of a television aerial singing, and the song is the appropriate one, but until I get a proper view I'm not counting him.

In the meantime, thanks to Sergey Yeliseev on flickr for his great rooftop pic of a juvenile black redstart.