Reddish Vale Country Park Stockport

I live about 4 miles from Reddish Vale, (you can read more about Reddish Vale here).  It’s a lovely walk from home to the park,  especially on a dry day.   I’d heard that there have been a few sightings of a kingfisher on the river there and whilst I have seen quite a few flying along our local stretch of the River Tame I haven’t been able to get any pics, so we checked the weather for a dry day and set off  for Reddish Vale.

An unmistakable flash of blue

We left home at around 8 a.m. and walked along the river.  When we arrived at Reddish Vale I spotted that wonderful flash of blue that could only be a kingfisher.  It disappeared as quickly as it had arrived and we thought we’d missed our chance of seeing anything more than that quick flash of blue.  Then as we were walking away my husband spotted it sat on a tree branch looking at the water.  It sat there for a while then dived down and came back up with a fish.  We watched it diving and bringing its catch back to its branch and even managed to get some pics.

Wildlife on the lake

After we’d taken our pics we left the kingfisher to his fishing and went a walk around the lake.  Although the weather was dry it was icy and the lake was frozen in parts.  The ducks and coots were standing on top of the ice, they looked quite comical trying to walk on it,  I hadn’t realised how big the coot’s feet are.

Community garden

We made another visit to Reddish Vale a few days later and had a walk around the community garden.  I watched a squirrel having fun stealing food from the bird feeders.

You can read my husband’s posts on Reddish Vale here and here.

Clicking on any of the photos will take you to a scrollable gallery.