An enjoyable Autumn walk at Reddish Vale Country Park

One of our local parks is the Country Park at Reddish Vale. For one reason or another it’s been a few months since we were last there but we remedied that earlier in the week.

It’s near enough to where we live and in fact is only a five mile round trip so it’s easy for us to get to at the same time as it being a decent enough walk.

Thankfully the weather had continued to be relatively mild which made for pretty much ideal walking conditions to and from the park, around the lakes and garden and then along by the river.

Parakeets

There were a few parakeets flying in and around the Community Garden area and it’s interesting to see how accustomed they have become to people and how increasingly less timid they have become.

You know when they are about as you can normally hear them long before you see them with loud squawking – it would be fair to say they can be pretty vocal. You can read about ring necked parakeets at this link.

Pests?

A quick Google search will bring up an awful lot of information on this bird along with how they have come to be so prevalent in so many parts of the country – although you’ll also find a number of different versions of how they began to spread in the UK and how they first arrived in Manchester.

There are also competing views on just how popular they are, and in fact they are officially classed as pests!

Click to open the picture gallery

Parakeet

Pretty ducks and autumn leaves

In addition to the parakeets there were some very pretty tufted ducks on the water along with th usual collection of moorhens, swans, cormorants and heron. Just as nice as seeing the birds was the superb autumn colours.

Although the leaves were falling fairly rapidly whilst we were there, it does seem to me that the leaves have stayed on the trees much longer than normal this year – perhaps that’s connected to the particularly warm summer we enjoyed this year?

I should also add that despite my age I still find it incredibly satisfying to listen to the crunch of dry leaves underfoot and to kick the fallen leaves as I walk along.

Autumn really is a glorious time of the year.