Chunky Bluetit

Plastic Dinosaurs

What must they think of us? Making little effigies of long dead reptiles out of toxic materials and then putting them on our doorsteps among potted plants like we think this is somehow cute? It is quite cute though. We found the T-rex, the Triceratops and the Parasaurolophus in a box marked ‘Free - Please Take’ outside a local house, so we took them to decorate our entryway and they’re a pleasing bunch of rogues, peeking out from behind pansies. But what must our fauna think of a display like this? If dinosaurs were to come back, Jurassic Park-style, would they pause a moment and recognise themselves in the moulded plastics and think; what in the prehistoric ages? What did we do to deserve this?

We leave the house, all perked up for a run, and the dinos see us on our way, the T-Rex’s mouth permanently roaring in what looks more like a yawn than menace. 

Cackling Magpies

The cackling magpies swoop among the trees of the street, flashing their monochrome wings with the hint of blue. We’d be amazed if we saw magpies for the first time, but they’re as common as street hooligans and just as cocky. We’ve had a two-for-joy pairing of them in the ash tree opposite for a good few years, and I’ve come to learn the cycle of their habits. They’re at their most in-yer-face in the Spring with eggs and chicks to guard, spitting machine gun warnings at the neighborhood cats who, each as fundamentally lazy as the last, never actually stand a chance of getting at the magpielets.

We all feel watched by these bird bullies, I’m sure. I can’t help but wonder if there’s an avian conspiracy and they’re simply waiting for their moment. But Du Maurier and Hitchcock have got that covered.

Industrious Squirrel

We turn the corner, head to the canal, and there’s a squirrel on the council-kept grass, busying itself. It sees us, stands up, a few flickers of its tail as if charging up some teleportation device, but we don’t get close enough to warrant a panicky tree-seeking escape.

We are regarded. Perhaps it is wondering why we have to cover ourselves with so much colour. Perhaps it can’t understand why we don’t just pick one tone and stick with it. Why do we have to glow?

Nuclear Birds

The canal is the Bridgewater and we follow it up to Salford Quays as it cuts through Trafford Park. This latter is the enormous industrial estate that looms just across the way from our house. We often run through it as it is relatively free of other people and there’s not too much traffic, aside from the monstrous trucks and lorries ferrying cereal to the Kelloggs factory, or stacks of cash to the Amazon warehouse, or vats of nuclear material to the various mysterious and anonymous facilities deep in the Park depths. I don’t understand this place. There has to be something dodgy going on somewhere, otherwise what’s the point?

Everything is overgrown here, because Trafford Park is a place of boundaries and restricted areas where nature can reclaim and just exist. So, beyond the clangs and crashes of shipping containers, and the hum and whir of factories, the main sound is the twittering and cawing of birds. They dart in and out of the autumnal foliage, various finches, tits and sparrows, as if to wish us well on our daft little jog, or to say; mind how you go out there.  

A Crow of Ominous Tidings

As we approach Salford Quays, with the flat-backed Coronation Street set ahead, with its fake police station and its doors that lead nowhere, a crow makes a dramatic swoop into the road beside us. It lands, struts, regards. It is enough of an entrance for us both to notice and comment; hello, Mrs Crow. Is something afoot?

I joke it portends ominous tidings, because that’s what we’ve done with crow metaphors in our literatures. But, of course, it portends nothing, it just wanted to land on that bit of road, for no apparent reason. Behind it, a tram toots past with a few masked-up occupants who look a little lost among the pandemic. I hope they take no notice of the Crow of Ominous Tidings.

Oblivious Gulls

Salford Quays gleams as the evening light begins its slow turn towards darkness. This part of the quay is not for shipping any more but for plush waterfront houses, Instagrammable pics of slick BBC buildings, and the proud blocky architecture of the Imperial War Museum and the Lowry Theatre. Its all curved bits and sharp bits and bits that glow, set against dramatic sunset backgrounds and calm, mirror-shimmer waters. There are gulls here, and I think them oblivious, but perhaps they’re not. Perhaps their swooping flocks of flight and their water gatherings are their own ways of telling ancient tales of drama and war. 

Firework Geese

Over a melodramatically modern bridge to the other side and we pass by a basin where some hardy folk are swimming. But here with us on the land, something all together more dramatic is unfolding: a firework bangs and spits and fizzles. It is not dark yet, and there is very little to celebrate, but the leaves are in full turn through gold-and-red hues so, officially, tis the season. The culprits are a gang of youths; an actual gang of youths, hanging around, up to no good. One of them tries to rag a sapling out of the ground as we pass, while another etches some words of wisdom into a railing. Suddenly there’s panic - one of the kids spots someone taking a picture of them; perhaps because of the firework, perhaps because their number exceeds the regulation six and the distancing between each individual is barely even half a metre. We hurry by, keen not to be involved.

A little further along, there are a few Canada Geese, a common enough sight. They raise their necks as we pass, checking we keep our distance.

Too Many Swans

There are loads of swans in one particular section of the quays now. We’ve noticed it a few times. Usually, when you see a swan, there’s one or two and its remarkable enough to pass comment upon, because they will never not be fabulous creatures. But there’s like fifteen of them here, all loosely paired up and tolerant of each other. There may well be context to this, according to Hannah. There was an oil slick or spillage of some kind not far away and the birds who were cleaned up were reintroduced here. So there’s been an influx of outsider swans, a migration from conflict we might say. They seem to be getting along well enough.

Cute Coot

And then there, at the edge, a cute coot. Not a moorhen - I’ve learned the difference recently. Small and black with a white beak: coot. Red beak: moorhen. The little guy pootles along near the water’s edge, minding its own business. Just ahead of it, another Canada goose makes a right song and dance about sliding into the quay, like me when I was fifteen and couldn’t swim but all my mates were in the pool already. Just as we pass, and just before the coot draws level, the goose goes for it. The entry is less than graceful, but she gets away with it.

Designer Dog

The quays circumnavigated we retrace our route back through Trafford Park to where it meets the canal again. We hurry down to the towpath passing two blokes out walking their designer dog. Don’t ask me what kind. Akita maybe? Something in that ballpark. I’m trying not to be interested by dog breeds any more, its a falsehood against what fundamentally matters. The dog looks well looked after, well-loved, but it stares at us as we pass, in the way dogs do. Perhaps its wondering what breed we are? Whether there’s an official name for my abundantly wavy hair and what chance I might have at a human version of Crufts. 

Possible Fish

I hear a small breaking of the surface and see some perfectly circular ripples. There are fish in here, which I always find weird for canals. And sometimes people come here to fish; that acceptable pass-time of animal murder and torture which is apparently totally fine. But there are also a lot of horrible things beneath these serene waters; rusting trolleys and bike frames, old toys, and plenty of bottles and cans. I hope that fish is OK. If, indeed, it was a fish.

Jingles the Cat

Back to our street and there are a few cats around, as ever. The one we call Jingles dashes to the opposite ash and stretches up the trunk to sharpen its claws. Jingles is one of those unsocial cats who ducks and dodges and darts away from any human contact beyond the ones it owns. But we always say hello whenever we pass. And he always keeps his claws sharp.

Chunky Bluetit

And so we’re home again, and hopefully the run has done us good. The dinosaurs are still there, waiting, and beside them is a comically chunky bluetit. She sits there on the doorstep, gazing up at every visitor, as if to say; welcome to this house of animals! We don’t take things too seriously here.