A winter's day in Doggy

I had a little walk around my local area today, and rather than writing down notes, I used the voice-memo function on my phone to record myself doing a running commentary as I walked along.

This is a (very slightly edited) transcript of that recording.

Thursday, around 2pm:

I’ve come out of the library in North Ormesby ('Doggy' to its friends) and I hear the sound of Starlings and House Sparrows chattering. It’s really quite loud, and as I go onto Esk Street I see in the hedgerow a good twenty or thirty House Sparrows and a similar number of Starlings. They’re making a right racket. A bit further down two Blackbirds hop out of the hedge onto the pavement and I can hear another one flying behind me and making that rattling, scolding call that they do.

Overhead is a flock of Starlings and there’s a seagull… it looks like a Herring Gull I think. And there’s another Herring Gull, flying over the houses on Maria Street. As I walk a bit further down Esk Street a Pied Wagtail flies up off the road - I didn’t even see it there until it flew. I hear it doing its ‘chizzik, chizzik’  flight-call (leading some people to call them “Chiswick Fly-overs”).

A couple of Carrion Crows up in a Sycamore tree are joined by another Blackbird.

The new play area on Esk Street is looking quite nice now. The grass is all grown. The new evergreen shrubs in the flowerbeds with all the bark chipping underneath them… they’re looking quite well maintained, and there’s cherry blossom just coming out. Oh, and there’s a Long-tailed Tit, flying along the little line of young trees that have been planted, to the lovely little blossom tree. Now I can hear the ‘drr drr drr’ of a small flock of Long-tailed Tits. There’s one, two, three... four, five, six, seven… eight. Tiny little pink, white and black birds like a fuzzy ping-pong ball with a long tail. And they’ve gone into the honeysuckle, erm, hedge I suppose you’d call it, next to the basketball court. Just behind them is where all the fairground equipment is stored. It looks like just a big storage yard but there’s still life there.

In the playground, amongst all the grass there’s Red Deadnettle, Groundsel, Field Speedwell, Chickweed, Spear Thistle, what looks like a Dock (maybe Broad-leafed Dock),  Sow-thistle. The grass is growing through the plastic netting they’ve put down to protect it - it’s looking okay. It’s still winter and once it gets a bit warmer I’m sure it’ll grow well and you won’t be able to see the netting.

One of the young trees has been broken off by vandals but there are some shoots growing from the bottom, so that’ll still survive.

Walking down the footpath from Esk Street, down towards James Street … it’s actually nicer than I remember. There’s a bit of litter and a bit of dog poo, but it’s more open, less enclosed than I remember it being. Going past the school on one side and the yard with the fairground equipment on the other. A couple of guys are welding some of the equipment together - doing repairs I think, getting ready for the spring and summer season.

I can hear more House Sparrows in the hedge now, and there’s a couple of Woodpigeons just flown away. And the catkins in a small Alder tree. There are two different kinds of catkins … male ones hanging down - yellow with pollen - and the little female cones that look a bit like tiny pine cones.

A little bird hops across the path. What is it? Oh, I can see - it’s a Dunnock. Its greyish head and brown streaky body. Like a Robin but without the red breast and with more grey on the head. My mother (and everyone of her generation) used to call them Hedge Sparrows, but they're not closely related to our other sparrows.

And round onto James Street. Up in the tree - what are those things up there… like round balls. As I get closer I can see they are Woodpigeons.

I like the way they’ve used old tyres, in the school playground, and also in the Esk Street playground - they’ve half buried them, so that the top bit’s sticking out and they make, like a kind of mini obstacle course I suppose.

There are a couple of Goldfinches up there in a tree on James Street - just chattering away, making buzzy calls with little twittery notes.

Walking further down James Street to Harrison Street - there are two big planters with nothing in them, apart from wood chips, covering the soil. They’re a good three metres by seven metres, with car parking spaces in between them. Something could be done with that I think.

Coming round towards the church and the Market Square, I can hear more Starlings up on the church tower. They seem to like the high vantage point. 

These trees in front of the church had a flock of 60-odd Waxwings in a couple of years ago… no sign of any this year, although there were a few over in Sainsbury’s car park in Middlesbrough a couple of weeks ago. They're pretty birds, like a pink Starling, with  funny hairdo and waxy red and yellow tips to the wings. They come down from Scandinavia in winter to feed on our berries. They seem to like the trees that they plant in supermarket car parks and housing estates.

There’s a lone Black-headed Gull on top of a street light at the end of Kings Road on James Street. He’s not got his (or maybe her) black head, because he’s in winter plumage.

After walking down the first bit of Kings Road I turn right, and then left onto Kreuger Alley (I wonder where Kreuger Alley gets its name from). There’s lots of Pyracantha - Firethorn - here, with its little orange and red berries. That should be good for birds to feed on.

Going further down Kreuger Alley there’s a big open area where it looks like maybe a couple of houses were knocked down - it’s all sort of waste ground… sometimes cars park on it. Looking through onto Westbourne Grove, there’s a whole lot of Buddleia in there which is providing cover for some birds that I can see. What’s that? Oh, it’s another Blackbird. Its just flown out onto a garage roof.

And there’s a Feral Pigeon strutting around in the site of another former house - it’s drinking out of a puddle. It’s lifting its head after every mouthful - which is interesting because I read that pigeons are among the few birds that can suck water up without having to lift their heads to let the water roll down their throat… this one’s definitely lifting its head though. I can hear the sound of the pigeons wings as they flap away.

I didn’t realise this alleyway had a name until today, but this is still Kreuger Alley. Coming up to the end of the alley, to where it comes out onto Kings Road, there’s the back yard of a house with a high wall and lots of broken glass stuck on the top of it - just next to that there’s a whole lot Clematis growing over the top of the wall. It’s been cut back a bit but it looks like it might be quite nice when it’s flowering.

Getting back to my house - I can see that I really need to tidy up the front yard. There’s a whole lot of litter that’s been blown into the corner underneath the plants. And lots of grass growing out from amongst the slabs. You might think grass is just grass, but a lot of this is a plant called Water-bent (a funny name for something that grows out of dry paths and pavement edges). It’s not native to this country but has colonised cracks in paving stones, starting off in London and working its way around the country… so it’s definitely made it up as far as Middlesbrough. 

And now I'm home and it's time for a cup of tea!"