Unlikely birdspotting

I was surprised enough to see a Greater Spotted Woodpecker in Moss Side last autumn, but today I got a really glorious bit of urban birdlife. Walking down the banks of the Irwell near the Lowry Hotel, I saw a rapid flash of turquoise, which zipped fast along the river, low above the water and off under Blackfriars Bridge. I thought I must be fantasising to think it could be a kingfisher, but several posts on the Manchester Birding Forum confirm that there have been a number of sightings on that stretch - right in the heart of the city. Wow.



Image pinched from some birding forum but copyright Cook Images.

Blog Action Day on climate change

Well, today's Blog Action Day on climate change, so I have a specific incentive to blog and to focus on climate change, which isn't unusual for me (see tags) but isn't the main thing I waffle on about.
There are various things I could have picked for this - including the head-exploding fatuousness of Radio4's perky little headline this morning that 'in ten years the Arctic Ocean might be open to shipping' - presented as an interesting and potentially useful bit of information rather than something REALLY FUCKING TERRIFYING. But there's the halfwittedness of BBC climate coverage for you.
But instead I'm going to harp on a bit about the secondhand bookstall outside Manchester Metropolitan University. This may not seem an obvious climate change issue, but of course given that - despite campaigning by Greenpeace on the subject - many books are still printed on unsustainable virgin-timber paper, contributing to climate-damaging deforestation, secondhand books are definitely an eco option.
But MMU's management are - after the best part of twenty years offering cheap, quality books to both students and the local community - trying to drive the bookstall out of its place at the front of the MMU student union. There's a strong student and community campaign and some unflattering coverage, though, and other organisations in the area have made it clear that they see the bookstall as an asset not a threat, so hopefully MMU's attempt to clean them off its steps will crash and burn.
This is an interesting choice of timing for MMU, since it should be busy trying to enhance its green and community credentials, given that it's attempting to stress the potential values of its massive new planned development in Hulme, on some of the few remaining green spaces within any kind of reach of Manchester city centre and a valuable biodiversity site for a whole range of interesting plants, as well as for goldfinches in the summer and migrant species like redwings and fieldfares in the autumn and winter. I'm not sure what's gotten into MMU at the moment - it also seems to be trying to shaft a few other community initiatives attached to the university, which must needs remain nameless, but I fear it's caught a bad attack of corporateness from its neighbours at Manchester University, and that bodes ill for academic freedom, community relations and Manchester generally.

More Moss Side wildlife

(No Mr Grayling that's not a euphemism, you tosser).
Not content with delivering up a lovely bat flickering around 'midst the streetlights and terraces, Moss Side's quota of interesting wildlife has gone up yet again. Hulme, with its threatened (thanks to MMU) green spaces may get goldfinches and redwings and all sorts of interesting bird life, but Moss Side is usually a bit of a desert on that front. Crows, magpies (hissssss...), scraggy pigeons, black-headed gulls, starlings and the occasional satanic little cute fluffy bluetit shredding my mint and baby lettuces.
But not once but twice in the last week, a Greater Spotted Woodpecker - a quite substantial and very handsome black and white bird with red highlights - has turned up to have a very comprehensive-looking working through of ever possible insect-bearing nook and cranny of the tree 3 yards down. Miraculously, none of the vast tribe of local cats has got it yet. That makes me happy (in a somewhat shite week).

Moss Side +/-

A bat just flew past my front window. In Moss Side. How cool is that? Never seen one round here before (except in Alexandra Park where there are big trees and the derelict Victorian mansion to roost in, and the lake to attract insects). Fingers crossed it's planning to be a local bat.
Of course, it might get frightened off by Tory descriptions of the neighbourhood. If it's stupid enough to believe anything a white upperclass Tory male has to say about anything other than moats and duckponds.
Less positive encounter today: the nasty little man at the bus stop this morning, complaining about how the Council was trying to stop the English Defence League - yet another bunch of horrible fascists trying to appropriate other people's identities as justification for their own revolting views/personal inadequacies - from marching in Manchester on October 10th. Apparently, according to my vile neighbour, it's England V Russia that day so no club matches to keep nice patriotic footie fans from turning out for a fight with the police. Great. A counter-demo on crutches, that'll be fun.