Sunday 2nd June; Roundthorne bridge to Ellesmere
The sun woke us early, to clear blue skies and birdsong. I went out with my first cup of tea and heard a cuckoo away on the mosses. We set off around 9 as usual, but didn’t go far, about a mile.
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| Roses in the sunshine |
We moored a couple of hundred yards past the junction with the Prees Arm. The edge isn’t wonderful but you can use chains and it was fine. Our plan was to find one of the waymarked walks on Whixall Moss. When we were here last, which would have been well before lockdown, the project to reclaim the mosses was under way but I don’t recall anything like the wealth of birdlife we heard today.
By the time we had tied up I had heard a curlew and another cuckoo, as well as various common birds like blackbirds, thrushes and robins. As we left the boat I turned on the Merlin app, just in time to identify a loud and sudden burst of song – a Cetti’s warbler! They are not that common (only 2000 breeding males in the UK according to the RSPB site) and I’ve never heard one before so I was bouncing with excitement! Soon after that it identified a Whitethroat and Willow Warbler, which I have heard before, but I do find it hard to identify them when other birds are singing too. The paths are waymarked, with some information points along the way.
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| It didn’t say what animal this was when alive |
We met several walkers, some with expensive camera gear, enjoying the peace, the wildlife and the sunshine. As the weather warmed up the dragonflies were about, and some of the little bright blue or red damselflies. As the drainage channels have been blocked, and the peat has become wet again, the sundew has come back. They are surprisingly small carnivorous plants, much smaller than the American ones you often see in the hothouses in botanical gardens. They grow in nutrient-poor environments (peat’s main use in garden composts was for texture and water-holding, not for its plant food value which is very low!) It’s not a great photo, as if I’d stood any closer I’d have got my feet very wet.
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| Sundew |
The little leaves have sticky red protuberances round the edge which tempt insects to land. They can’t escape and in response to their struggles the leaves gradually fold closed and digest the insect – not a sudden snap like a Venus fly-trap! The Large Heath butterfly also lives here, with hare’s-tail cotton-grass as the larval food plant. It’s restricted to boggy areas, mostly in the north, and unfortunately it was a couple of weeks too early to see it on the wing.
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| A drift of Hare’s-tail cotton grass |
As we turned into the last few hundred yards leading to the car-park, more walkers appeared. I activated Merlin again and it picked up a garden warbler – another one I had never knowingly heard. These warblers are mostly little brown things and tend to skulk around in trees and bushes, so if you don’t know their songs, the Merlin app is a great boon. The path came out at Morris' lift bridge, which was open as a boat went through. And I suddenly realised my binoculars were missing! I remembered exactly where I had put them down, annoyingly rather a long way back. So Dave and Jess went back to the boat along the towpath and I set off back the way we came, with a mix of jogging and walking. Well, I have been wanting to get back to running since I had pneumonia on our last trip! But they weren’t at the information point where I thought I’d left them. Perhaps someone had seen them or picked them up? I caught up a lady and asked her – phew, she had, and she’d tucked them out of sight behind the post ….. no wonder I hadn’t spotted them! Anyway I’d got them back and all was well.
We cruised on for a while, in hats, shorts and t-shirts with sun cream applied, and moored for lunch in a lovely spot past a winding hole near Bettisfield.
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| A bit too hot for Jess |
We carried on past the meres as we wanted to get to Tesco at Ellesmere before they closed. It had taken us a lot longer than we had anticipated to get this far. The flow on the canal is noticeable now, and when you have moored the leaves float by quite quickly. We were moored along the arm by 3, but a lot of the ‘fresh’ food in Tesco was looking a bit tired by then.
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| Will the old warehouse at the end of the arm ever be restored? |
We stopped to water up and get rid of rubbish at the services block, and moored for the night about half a mile further on. We could hear the beeps of a reversing vehicle in the distance, assuming it was late-working tractors, but otherwise it was peaceful. Roast chicken tonight, yum.
As we were turning out the light, about 10.30, some loud music indicated the passage of a boat – it seemed to be a hire boat as it cruised by, maybe they have to return it to the marina in Ellesmere tomorrow.
8½ - 9 miles, Morris lift bridge (opened for us), Ellesmere tunnel
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