Mosses

Goosanders, Glaze Brook, Little Woolden Moss

It was business as usual in the garden, the spadgers giving the feeders a bit of hammer all morning. It's interesting watching the male blackbirds having their territorial spats, for such noisy birds they go about it very quietly. The song thrush crept in very quietly and disappeared somewhere in the undergrowth at the blink of an eyelid.

The weather forecast was cloudy but dry so I decided to get a long walk in before the foul weather we're promised for the rest of the week. The schools are staggering their kicking-out times, which is eminently sensible but makes it tricky if you want to avoid bumping into a crowd of kids giddy on escape; I got caught twice yesterday. Getting round any of our local green spaces without coming close to a school is a challenge to say the least so I decided to go a bit further afield. It's much less of a risk to take a ten minute ride on a nearly empty train to Irlam for a long walk away from crowds. In a five and a half mile circuit across the mosses I passed eighteen people (six of them were Lancashire Wildlife Trust volunteers working on Little Woolden Moss) and I missed the crowds at kicking-out time, which is a pretty good bit of social distancing.

Stock doves, Irlam Moss

As I walked down Astley Road onto Irlam Moss the hedgerows were thick with chaffinches and goldfinches (try as I may to turn some of the former into bramblings they were all chaffinches). Pairs of blue tits and great tits fed in the birches and alders and there were plenty of singing robins, dunnocks and wrens. There were a lot of magpies and carrion crows on the fields and just the one cock pheasant. Further on the farmers were already cutting and rolling the turf fields so there weren't many birds out on there. A pair of mallard dabbled in a big puddle next to one of the farm buildings. Strangely there wasn't a sign of any raptors, I could usually rely on a couple of kestrels and at least one buzzard on this stretch.

Yellowhammer, Irlam Moss

I crossed over the motorway and headed towards Four Lanes End. Halfway down a couple of the farmhouses have ponds, one had a couple of moorhens, the other a singing reed bunting. Further along there was a flock of stock doves in one of the fields which seemed to be mixed stubble and grasses. A small flock of yellowhammers fed on the field margins with a few blackbirds and song thrushes.

Little Woolden Moss

Little Woolden Moss was fairly quiet. I could hear oystercatchers but it was a while before I found them, sat on one of the bunds with half a dozen lapwings. A curlew called and was answered by a moorhen. Some LWT volunteers were working over the other side of the reserve, accompanied by a noisy flock of black-headed gulls. A couple of buzzards soared high over the fields onto Chat Moss. 

Oystercatchers and lapwing, Little Woolden Moss

I'm pretty sure this is a foliose lichen but I don't know which one. An example of the the small plants and fungi covering the tree stumps and fallen branches round the moss.

At the far end of the reserve, just before the path turns sharply to the right, a female stonechat hunted in the sedges by the pools. Other than that and a couple of meadow pipits there wasn't anything on at this end. The new path was a delight, last Summer walking along here involved being ankle-deep in peat. A curlew flew low over, wheeled a couple of times and headed North.

Restoring the carbon storage capacity of peatlands

Goosanders, Glaze Brook

I passed Little Woolden Hall and took the path to Holcombe Lane. There was a flock of Canada geese in one of the fields behind the hall, where the cackling goose was in January. A pair of teal whistled from a big puddle in the field with the horses by the hall. A pair of oystercatchers and a mute swan stood on the bank of Glaze Brook North of the bridge. Looking South there was another flock of Canada geese on the bank, two pairs of goosander close to the bridge, and further out there were more teal, a few mallard and a pair of gadwall.

I walked down Holcombe Lane into Glazebrook. Yet again I was surprised by how many collared doves there are down Glazebrook Lane. Thence into Irlam and back home on the train. Five and a half miles and I encountered fewer people than I would have done wandering over Stretford Meadows for an hour, and considerably fewer cyclists. I should have done this before, it's much safer.