Birding Bradshaw and District: Mad Dogs and ……..

Monday, 6 June 2016

Mad Dogs and ……..

17:45 - to (can’t remember) 20:30 ish

Curry for Sue and her friend Helen, at our place, this evening so she dropped my off at Priestley Green so I could enjoy a long saunter home.

I had the strange idea that the hot weather might have cooled a bit by after 5 pm.

It was very hot and there is zero downhill from Priestley Green to Bradshaw until you hit Roper Lane.

I started off taking a stroll down Lees Lane; the track that leads down to the A58 near Hell Fire Crossroads then retraced my steps and headed off right along Shuts Lane turning left at the end to walk up a cracking greenway to exit nr. Coley Church.

Here I turned right along Coley Lane and right again at Denholme Gate Road.

After going across Shelf roundabout I turned right up Cross Lane then along Cock Hill Lane, Pepper Hill, Jackson Hill, Deanstones Lane, New Park Road, Foxhill Park, Fleet Lane and across to Roper Lane via some good paths before dropping down the horse field past Shugden Barn and home via Bradshaw Lane.

Not my idea of a good walk but easy enough path finding when the weather is so hot and you want to make progress.

Birds:

I gave Lee Lane a good looking at for Lesser Spotted Woodpecker and also listened out for Nightjar.

I did get a Woodpecker, very close, within 5 metres but it stubbornly refused to show itself. The Woodpecker call, of course, seemed fainter than a Great Spotted but then it would, wouldn’t it?

So a Great Spotted Woodpecker it is.

I think this area has great potential though – pity it’s so far off.

Birds were scarce, but I got a couple of Pied Wagtail a Kestrel a possible Tree Sparrow, Dunnock, Greenfinch, Goldfinch and a couple of Lesser Black-backed Gull.

Also a Meadow Pipit or two and a Skylark.

The perspiration level took some satisfying with the water bottle empty by the time I got in (all the curry GONE as well) so a couple of cans of Guinness were the order of the day.

I need to find a more interesting route home for Hipperholme to Bradsahw, although the path to Coley Church is a real cracker.