On Friday evening when we
were sitting outside we had a splendid view of a pair of sparrowhawks getting
angry with a couple of crows. Quite
often it’s the other way around; birds mobbing birds of prey to get them away
from their nesting area. The
sparrowhawks seemed exceptionally angry so we assumed the crows had found their
nest.
Light cloud was forecast
for Saturday in this area, but like the south we hardly saw a cloud all
day. We fancied a bike ride so after
breakfast we set off down the towpath to Congleton. We saw plenty of orange tips, a few green veined, small and large whites and singletons
of red admiral, peacock, small tortoiseshell, brimstone and speckled wood.
At one muddy patch Karen spotted our first holly
blue of the year. It looked freshly
emerged and was taking in the moisture.
Unfortunately it wouldn’t open its wings so we can’t show the gorgeous blue
colour of the upper wings.
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Our first holly blue this
year
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As I mentioned the other
day, the Macclesfield canal has large milestones every mile and smaller ones at
the ¼ mile intervals. It also has quite
a few stanking plank stores and Karen soon got fed up waiting for me as I was
taking pictures. This was probably just
as well as we may have missed the holly blue if she hadn’t gone on ahead 😉
When we got home there
were three boats moored behind us, thus the moorings were full but the farthest
two moved off in the late afternoon.
The sparrowhawks were back
again in the evening but they just seemed to be having fun playing and wheeling
around the oak trees. At one point one
of them caught an animal or bird and they spent a while eating it on one of the
large boughs of an oak tree.
The couple on the boat
behind us were also sitting outside enjoying the sparrowhawk. They had a couple of whippets that went to
bed even earlier than Buddy and he kept walking up to their boat and just sat
there next to one their dog’s balls as if willing them to come out and play:
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Since being here, five hot
air balloons have passed in the distance each morning and evening. The wind hasn’t brought them close enough to
get a decent photograph but it certainly has been the ideal weather for them.
Following the temporary
repair works on the leak at Macclesfield the canal has been reopened so it
looks like we’ll have no problem getting to Bugsworth next week. We currently plan on staying here another
couple of days and cruising during the week.
I need to get on now and
find a good circular walk for today that is not on the towpath so we can avoid
the milestones 😉
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Sunday morning looking good
😊
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