The evening of 9th July, the sun had come out and the day was ending on a sunny note. I relished the prospect of taking the bitch on its regular route after work from the office to home, which includes a circular on the outskirts of Adlington taking in the Leeds Liverpool Canal and the River Douglas. The evening light revealed the true beauty of the nettles growing alongside the canal near to the Bridge Pub. I tried to recall the exact words of a poem by Edward Thomas about nettles, and how an April shower uncovers their beauty - but I couldn't and besides it wasn't April and it hadn't rained - but they still looked gorgeous (and good for wildlife too!)

The Elder growing in the tangled hedge canalside hedge were producing budding fruit. The previous month the air near my house had smelled of cloying cat like pee from the huge creamy flowers of this plant, but at least it doesn't last long and come early autumn I love to see the flocks of starlings moving from tree to tree and gorging on the berries.  

Once we clear the first 100 yeards of canal, I go through a hedge gap and let the bitch run wildly through a neglected field to let off steam. The grasses are in full seed headed glory and remind me of how they are so similar to our daily bread ones. One day I'll bring my kids to collect the different types and realise that there's more to grass than grass - there's yorkshire fog, and brown top and sheeps fescue and rank ones and fine ones. But they're probably not arsed so I'll give that a miss!

Each year In this neglected but fascinating field new vegetation starts to colonise. From this big stand of docks a flock of sparrows burst off the seed heads as I approach, like some savannah flock flying off millet. Obviously I couldn't capture this on camera, but it was good to see. 

Another flock gets a miss from the camera as we now head into a cow pasture field leading to the River Douglas, but their chiming musical notes give them away as goldfinches and they've been eating at the seed heads of the thistles. I love to see these rank weeds proving their worth because a flock of dainty exotic goldfinches can rarely fail to lift the spirits.

Even though, being the 9th July, it can be considered the height of summer, I'm increasingly struck each year by how the signs of Autumn creep in early. These hawthorn berries look lovely at such a young age and I can envisage the big dark red clusters making an impact later in the year, but it doesn't seem two minutes ago that I was noticing fresh lime green leaf growth on the bare branches after the long dormant winter, and of course the later swathes of creamy fragrant 'May' blossoms which give rise to these fruits.


I pause by the stormwater outflow in the river valley. A few years ago I got onto the local paper, The Chorley Guardian, about the disgusting sanitary items like feminine menstrual towels which were heaved into the river after heavy rain. It wasn't because of this newspaper effort, but a few years later the water company upgraded the stormwater holding capacity and rearranged the drainage. Their resulting press release proclaimed that it would prevent unsightly items like these entering the river. The situation has improved but I still do sometimes see these 'things' lying on the stream bed. And at a public enquiry I attended into how much the water firm had to spend in its English North West patch, the posh inspector who'd come up to see the various proposals later didn't allocate as much money to the Douglas scheme here at Harrison Farm as the Environment Agency had hoped. At least that's how the lengthy proceedings in Wigan Town Hall seemed to me - but maybe I'd nodded off at hearing one too many professionals presenting their monotone evidence. Anyway, let's get the bitch to sit and I'll peer into the outflow to see how it's shaping up.  

Oh no! As I feared some recent heavy rain has flushed out the worst. And these are the ones that got caught! Must get a record of this because earlier in the year I'd taken my camera out to take this same type of picture but someone had been and cleaned all the sanitary stuff off the grill. I don't know why. As part of my local paper campaign in the earlier part of the decade I'd moaned how I'd love my kids to paddle in the river and catch fish and shrimps - but only if they didn't have to push this type of stuff out the way first. Pity they're now 14 and 12 years of age and probably fast approaching that age where they're not interested in doing this. (Although we did go crabbing recently in Walberswick, Suffolk which they both enjoyed immensley). 


Despite the nauseous sight of the outflow, its not all gloom, there's more water weed in the river this year. And so at last there may be some fish life. A mental note to self - must contact the Environment Agency fisheries people to see how their 5 yearly biological survey results have gone for the Douglas around here. Previously in this patch their electrode stun surveys had turned up absolutely no fish whatsoever, but I've neglected to find out how the latest ones have gone. I have logged my views about the river to the Our Rivers campaign (www.ourrivers.org.uk) - which claims you "can join a movement to ensure that the necessary actions are taken to safeguard our rivers." They do contact you by email, and pass details to the Agency before river basin plans are finalised, and give tips on stirring up a media campaign - but I've little time and appetite now for a media campaign anymore (I've done a couple in the past) - getting all het up about issues and then having to have public meetings and forming committees with other angry over-obsessed people.

Heading back up the slope alongside the Aqueduct to the canal I come across a party of ducks mooching by Bridge 68. 

Although in drab attire, these mallard ducks look like males to me, whose fabulous racing car green shiny heads appear in the winter but soon fade in summer. They then hang around together in all male groups while the females hatch and raise the brood. Like the robin, the mallard can be surprisingly brutal and by strolling along the canal you can be witness to the female being molested and nearly drowned after being chased for ages through the skies by a few drakes. And the females themselves are not averse to severely beating up any fluffy little chick that strays towards their brood from anothers. However in this photo I do like the reflections of the moored up narrowboat against the water and the beastly male mallards.   

On the last leg of the dog exercising small walk back home - and with the pleasing smell of fresh cut grass from the park, and with swallows skimming evening midges off the water surface, I pause to catch a picture of a reflected tree and lovely big fern growing on the bank alongside Jubilee Recreation Ground.