Plans A—C for the day went out of the window when, after a particularly atrocious night's sleep, I dozed off at quarter past seven and woke up at ten. I set to reading a book and listening to the cricket but got a bit fidgety and decided that as it was a nice day I'd ignore the Met Office's yellow alerts for thunderstorms and go for a walk across Chat Moss, through Four Lanes End and Little Woolden Moss and thence to Glazebury to get the first of three buses home.
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| Adult and juvenile swallow, Chat Moss |
It's getting to that time of year when there's lots of bird life around but most of it has gone a bit quiet while they get on with the business of feeding chicks and getting through the post-breeding moult. A lot of young swallows and whitethroats about on Chat Moss.
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| Hovering kestrel, Chat Moss |
The usual wayside poppies were accompanied by some wonderfully blousy Papaver somniferum varieties.
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| Paeony-flowered poppies (Papaver somniferum var.), Chat Moss |
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| Papaver somniferum var., Chat Moss |
I'm still struggling to get to grips with Little Woolden Moss, I'm sure I'm missing a key part of the reserve as my sightings don't reflect anything like the ones I'm seeing people posting elsewhere. Close views of a curlew and a very distant little ringed plover were today's highlights.
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| Curlew, Little Woolden Moss |
Nice to see my first painted lady of the year while I was here.
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| Painted lady butterfly, Little Woolden Moss |
Walking through the farm towards Moss Lane and thence to Glazebury there were plenty of skylarks and yellow wagtails, which is sort of reassuring in this day and age.
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| Yellow wagtail, Moss Lane, Glazebury |
At some stage in the near future I'll get round to putting together some maps and notes on how to get to these areas.
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