Chat Moss

Southern Hawker, Little Woolden Moss

Today was going to be me sitting at home all day while the men who've been replacing the gas mains connect us to the new pipes but they hit a snag further down the road so I had an unexpectedly free day. So I decided on a wander across Chat Moss, starting from Cutnook Road in Irlam as there have been repeated reports of whinchats in the fields along Twelve Yards Road.

The hedges along Cutnook Road were filled with the cryptic squeaks and clicks of great tits and young robins. The paddocks by Raspberry Lane had a flock of woodpigeons, a couple of juvenile black-headed gulls and a flock of swallows. Brown hawkers patrolled the ditches by the road. 

Chat Moss

I had a chat with a chap coming down the road. We swapped "Quiet today," anodynes and bemoaned the farmer who grubbed up the hedges along Twelve Yards Road and it's impact on the number of whitethroats we've seen this year. He showed me some barn owl photos he'd taken just down the lane (I'd assumed that was a kestrel box abandoned because it was too close to the successful nest in the barn we were standing by). No joy seeing barn owls today but I know to keep my eyes peeled thereabouts in future. Ironically, as we were saying how quiet it was a large family of long-tailed tits and a family of chiffchaffs flew into the tree behind us.

Walking on, the barley fields were being patrolled by black darters and brown hawkers. Chiffchaffs called from the trees but there were no whitethroats whatever. There were plenty of small birds around but very few could be seen. The yellowhammers took pity on me, there was one singing on every field boundary.

Little Woolden Moss

I'm still finding Little Woolden Moss hard work but I'll keep persevering because it's so often rewarding. The goldfinches and linnets were easy enough to see and willow warblers sang in the birch trees but out in the open birds were few and far between. It was teeming with dragonflies, however: scores of black darters, dozens of brown hawkers, a couple of common hawkers and a dozen or more southern hawkers. I was surprised not to see a hobby. A kestrel came in for a quick drink and went away to terrorise the voles of Four Lanes Farm.

I eventually got my eye in and confirmed that there wasn't much on, just a small family party of pied wagtails and a moorhen. I saw something white bobbing up and down behind some sedges and looked for the rest of a moorhen to come into view and it didn't happen. Instead, out popped a female white wagtail! I've never seen one in Greater Manchester and certainly wouldn't have expected to see one this time of year. But there it was, silvery grey back, clean white underparts, looking like it had come straight out of the laundry. She was accompanied by a pale juvenile but I haven't knowingly seen a juvenile white wagtail and I wouldn't feel confident logging this as anything but: "Pied/white." A family of carrion crows bounced in on the other side of the boggy ground then noisily capered over into the fields over the way.

The walk from Little Woolden Moss to Moss Lane was very quiet. I imagine skylarks must have been around somewhere but they were neither heard nor seen. A buzzard floated overhead and carried on in the direction of Astley Moss. Small family parties of linnets and goldfinches fed on the thistles in the field margins. One of the fields that had been full of salad crops last time had been cleared and was being very quietly worked over by a couple of dozen pied wagtails. I'd checked out the potato field for yellow wagtails with no joy so it was a relief when a juvenile flew in and spent a couple of minutes feeding on the path before flying off with some goldfinches. A large flock of swallows were feeding quite high over the ripening barley.

A couple of dozen juvenile starlings were squabbling over the bird feeders by one of the farmyards I passed and a goldcrest was singing from a beech tree by one of the gardens. Glaze Brook was significantly lower than usual, there were no ducks but a heron lurked in the reeds further on.

There was the prospect of a pot of tea singing my name in Stretford. I had ten minutes to wait for the bus into Warrington then ten to wait for my train home but that bus got cancelled so I had to wait half an hour for the bus into Leigh and thence home.