At last it has stopped raining and with the sun shining and clear blue skies, I had a nice afternoon's walk around my local nature reserve in Rivacre, Ellesmere Port. The nature reserve used to be a huge outdoor swimming pool from 1934 until 1985. Due to indoor swimming facilities in the area, the baths shut in 1981 and were demolished and filled in in 1985.
The Rivacre is so named because of the Rivacre brook, which runs through the area, and it is known locally as Rivacre valley because of the beautiful valley through which the stream runs.
On arrival, I soon connected with a stunning Kingfisher and up to 4 Grey wagtails were seen along the stream.
Kingfishers breed on the stream
Grey Wagtail
The area had a good variety of woodland birds, which I managed to get a few photos of, and a fly over Little Egret was a bonus, heading towards the River Mersey.
Nuthatch
Song Thrush
Blackbird
Other birds of note were Siskin, Lesser redpoll and Bullfinch.