Nine to Five.

Papa Blackbird, originally uploaded by LuLu Witch.

If I opened up the BBC News website one day, and discovered a link to a story which said that scientists had conclusively proved that birds operate a shift system I wouldn’t be in the slightest bit surprised. It was something that I first started noticing when I was pushing my eldest son around Heaton Park on a daily basis, back in the Summer of 2001 when he was brand new and all that.

On different days and at different times there would be a noticeable surfeit of one species of bird in particular. One day it might be blue tits, other days, robins, twittering across the paths, breaking the daytime silence. Half an hour later, another species would be in the ascendancy. I’m sure that there’s a logical and no doubt scientific explanation for it, but it always felt like they were taking turns, clocking on and off duty, as the day went by.

I was put in mind of this early today when walking to work between Salford University and Manchester House I was confronted by a small army of blackbirds. Male, female, on paths, in bushes, up trees, static and scattering to the four winds as I passed by. Normally, I may see one or two, but today was definitely their day at the coalface.

I also had happy encounters with a pair of Little Grebes - a male by the abandoned footbridge, and a tiny female bobbing up and down into the water by The Old Pint Pot, and a Kingfisher skirting the Manchester bank of the river as I peered over the metal and wood-barrier round the back of Café Rouge in Spinningfields.

Thanks to LuLu Witch on Flickr for this great photograph of 'Papa Blackbird' in Sheffield.

The Streak.

IMG_1760, originally uploaded by melvinheng.

I went through the first 44 years of my life only managing to see two; more recently I began to notice flashes of colour out of the side of my eye, now I can barely look at The Irwell between Peel Park and Boddies without seeing Kingfishers. It reminds me of the time when my mother-in-law was slightly obsessed with those magic eye 3D images that were all the rage a few years back. I looked and I looked and I couldn't see anything. One day she said, just defocus your eyes while looking at one. I did. WOW! A 3D cowboy on a horse. From then on whenever I was looking at one I'd just go 'doink', and defocus my eyes. Two seconds later, there was the image in full effect.

It's like that with the Kingfishers, as if my eyes and my brain suddenly worked out how to go 'doink' so I could see them. This has meant over the past three or four weeks I've been seeing them almost as often as I see the Grey Wagtails, and more often than the Goosanders. Best of all was this morning when I was looking from inside Peel Park towards the opposite bank of the river and heard the now familiar twitter-gargle they make - a bit like a more high-pitched finch song. My eyes went 'doink' and I found it heading up towards Castle Irwell, low above the water. When it reached the gated and locked footbridge, which no longer takes students over the river between Salford University campusses, it turned and headed back, landing about twenty feet in front of me on the concrete riverbank. I tried to get a better look with the binoculars but the movement must have disturbed it and it flew off.

Earlier, I'd been looking from the bridge described above and heard a commotion among some carrion crows in trees on the far bank. Some swooped out and swooped into the foliage, again and again, calling angrily. They were obviously mobbing something. I tried to see clearer what it was, but as I only use a pair of 10x25 bought from Walmart in Canada purely functional compact binoculars it was difficult, but it looked a crow with a thin white stripe along each upper wing. I couldn't get a clear enough view as it, and they, kept moving, but I can only presume it was a crow with a few stray, mutant white feathers. Further along, and now opposite the tree, I looked again, but this time they seemed to be working out their anger on a smaller, brown bird, possibly one of the sparrowhawks which can be seen along there.

Following on from this blog's first anniversary at the weekend I've decided to post a few more of these longer, more city centre nature-focussed pieces, and also to source more photographs from Creative Commons (as I'm never going to get good wildlife photographs). So, thanks to Melvin Heng for the usage of the photograph.

Something I Learned Today.

Waterfall, Tresaith Beach, Wales., originally uploaded by mithering.

Observations made on holiday:

1. Walking distance from nearest shop is much more important than actual distance from nearest beach.
2. Rock pools > Sand.
3. There are loads of dolphins in Cardigan Bay.
4. Every other pub in Mid Wales is called The Ship Inn.
5. Birdwatching is much harder in the countryside. There are too many trees and bushes for your quarry to lose itself in, particularly if they use that pesky camouflage developed through millions of years of evolution.
6. People go shopping in cities for a reason.

Up Against The Wall VIII: Slates, Slags Etc.

Up Against The Wall VIII: Slates, Slags Etc., originally uploaded by mithering.

"Slags go Prestwich! haha", back seat of The Village Bus.

Male slags...
In the cold nearly old ska Jamaican dawn
Dead publisher's sons
Material hardship pawns
The Beat, Wah! Heat
Male slags...

The first Village Bus of the day runs past the bottom of my street at 7.55, the last one leaves Shudehill Interchange at 17.27. A single fare is more expensive than a single fare on the other buses which get me home, or into town, but a day pass is notably cheaper. Ho, and also Hum, you say, but the good thing about The Village Bus is that there's only one an hour, which takes a lot of the randomness and pain out of journeys into and out of town. I have to be in the Interchange at a twenty-seven minutes past the hour, or waiting on Heywood Road at five-to. Previously, when I took the 135, "Bus of the Stars", I would turn up at a bus stop and wait, sometimes for up to twenty minutes, whereupon one, two or even three would turn up at the same time and stutter into town, picking up and dropping off at virtually every stop along the way.

In more recent times, before I discovered the mono-glory of The Village Bus, I had started getting the 137, the 135's shorter, less glamorous cousin, from a stop near Blackfriar's Bridge. This runs every twenty minutes, which was good for organising my life, but less good when it didn't turn up. Which was often.

Now, I take The Village Bus as far as the site of the old Boddies Brewery cross Great Ducie Street and head onto New Bridge Street to stare at wildlife from the runtish bridge which crosses The Irwell there. It's a fairly deserted spot - most of the activity along there comes from cars heading towards the crofts of car parks - and I've been lucky enough to watch an American Mink climb up and down the bankside vegetation, searching for something or other, herons fishing, fish-jumping and bizarrely, but weirdly appropriately, a moorhen chasing a rat.

In Heaven (The Lady In The Radiator song).

Bank of the River Irwell, Salford side., originally uploaded by mithering.

Not the greatest photograph I ever took, but the last time I attempted to blog on this subject I used somebody else's YouTube content, pressed the 'blog this' button, spent a not inconsiderable amount of time writing, pressed send... and nothing. Into the white.

So, this time, playing it safe, I've used a picture I took myself, last July, of the actual spot where I saw it. In case you're wondering why I took this picture of an indiscriminate part of the Irwell, well the tiny grey smudge near the far right of the greenery is a grey heron with its wings spread out, as if it's taking the applause of the river.

Anyway, I've tested this with a few people I know. The types who know I'm not a bullshitter. The types who know, colour-blindness aside, my eyesight is, to quote my dear dead Dad, "like that of a shit-house rat'. The types who know I say what I see, without any prompting from Roy 'Catchphrase' Walker. I've mulled it over, I've rolled it around in my head, I've even tried blogging it a couple of weeks back.

It was the afternoon of The Big Cup Final back in May. A Wednesday. Too eager to get home and enjoy the feast of football which was due to be served up I logged off my computer prematurely and found myself with half an hour to kill before the last Village Bus left Shudehill Interchange at 17.26. I decided I would take the scenic route in order to do a tiny bit of birdwatching.

So, across Bridge Street and left onto the footbridge which takes Inland Revenue Staff and the odd confused foreign tourist over The Irwell into Salford. Right along the river, keeping my eyes open for something. Anything. Nothing but boring bastard black-headed gulls on the mither for food.

Up the steps and left down Blackfriars Road onto the scrag-end of Chapel Street, right towards the old Victoria Bus Station, then right again up the hill and over the river again. Look right, back towards where I'd come from, as a heron sometimes fishes under Blackfriars Bridge, commuters and shoppers passing oblivious over his head. Nothing.

So up and left, opposite the Cathedral. Further round to the left than the view in the photo above, which was taken on the approach to the car park where Exchange Railway Station used to sit. Bear in mind I'm a pretty happy bunny at this point - off to watch his team play in the European Cup Final, with two days off work in front of him. (Just in case). Anyhow, I pause again and look over the metal fence, down towwards Victoria Bus Station where we used to come into town on the 95 bus from Broughton. Back in the day. Still nothing. Time to kill. I notice a grey wagtail and begin to follow its progress around the banks, eyes left, eyes right.

Then, in the water I spot a large fish. I'm intrigued. I've seen fish jumping in the river several times, but they were small and silver. This is much larger. I watch its movements for a few seconds until it's head comes up. Ah, a rat. Not seen one in the river since I used to go down The Landslide in the 70s. It's a bloody big one, though. I carry on tracking it until it reaches the bank you can see in the photograph (although there was less of it, the river being higher). Out it comes. It's not a rat. No rat-like tail, no pointed head, no ratty little ears.

It's an otter. Long, bendy and with the tail of an otter.

The otter, my otter, ran along the bank and headed behind the greenery in the photograph. I exclaimed, I grinned, I high-fived myself. I blinked, I doubted, I watched the spot for as long as I could and then I headed off to get the bus.

At home I hit the books, the internet and the descriptions of things that it might have been. The closest thing was a mink. It wasn't a mink. The shape was wrong, the tail was wrong. It was an otter.

In the end, losing to Barcelona carried no shame. They're sort of fan-owned, they play attractive attacking football and they're not Chelsea. Which is nice.

The football went wrong, but I had my otter to keep me warm.

Careful With That Axe Eugene.

The Arndale Axeman Cometh., originally uploaded by mithering.

Not The Brightest Idea In The World #10983 - Selling axes in The Arndale. For less than a tenner.

Round and Round.

Mmmm... meat, originally uploaded by mithering.

Five posts in and it's [MES]repetition repetition repetition[/MES]. The peregrines have either finished their peregrination or they never went away. I've spotted them twice in town this week. First, Monday morning, having taken a detour via Victoria Bridge (adjacent to the old Victoria Bus Station for Old Heads) to check out The Irwell for herons, I looked up and saw one doing a circuit round the old tax office and the cathedral. It then landed on the building (in Salford) I suspect they're nesting on. Being called Peregrine and living in Salford must be character-building. The avian equivalent of 'A Boy Called Sue'.

Then today, at dinnertime, walking up John Dalton Street on my way to Piccadilly railway station, up above moved that fantastic gliding t-shape. I looked around and nobody else seemed to have seen it. People just going about their business don't look up at the sky unless there's something terrible up there. (Which there is, if you're a small mammal, or a smaller bird, or a less aggressive bird (pretty much any bird, then)).

Second case of [MES]repetition repetition repetition[/MES] is a bus thing, harking back to my first post way back last month. If I could have any super power beyond the totally godlike ones, I'd have to go for one which guaranteed I arrived at a bus stop at the exact moment a bus arrived. I realise this is probably An Urban Power Fantasy, reserved for people who have a pretty regular bus service, but we all have our weaknesses.

(The photograph is one which I took at The Railway Inn in Hucknall, Notts, on an away trip to watch FC United. If I'd had a usable photo of a peregrine that would have pride of place, but I don't. When I do, it'll be here first).

What The World Is Waiting For.

Manchester Peregrine Falcon, originally uploaded by coxy.

Another blog. From Manchester. Well, strictly speaking from Prestwich, but with work in the city centre. I've ummed and ahhed for a long time. I've created, typed, launched and pulled two previous attempts as I couldn't focus down on the why and the what. Now I've decided to just write about what I'm interested in. Or, more likely, what I've found interesting, stimulating or uplifting on any particular day. Like the Manchester Peregrines, who I saw on an almost daily basis, usually perched on the 'E' of ARNDALE, during the summer, but haven't seen for a while. They must, as their name suggests, have wandered off. Eyes peeled for their safe return.