Mosses and flash

Snipe bathing, Pennington Flash

The trains were back running so I hopped over to Irlam for a walk across the mosses.

Great tit, Irlam Moss

It was a bright, cold day with a brisk Northwest wind blowing the length of Astley Road. The hedgerows were awash with goldfinches. There were good numbers of chaffinches and great tits, too. A couple of yellowhammers did an excellent job of disappearing into a hawthorn bush at the junction with Roscoe Road. For once the field next to the motorway was empty of pigeons of any sort. Mind you, there wasn't much about on most of the fields: it was a fierce wind and this time of year the fields don't provide much cover. The few lapwings that were about looked distinctly unhappy.

Irlam Moss

Over the motorway and the hedgerows continued to be busy. A lone swallow hawked low over a field of freshly rolled turf. Approaching Four Lanes End the ponds and stables were surprisingly quiet. This was the point when we had the first hail of the day.

Hare's tail grass, Little Woolden Moss

A quick look round Little Woolden Moss found a dozen or so black-headed gulls scattered round the bunds. There was also a pair of lesser black-backs and I could hear but not see lapwings. A few mipits launched into their parachute songs, felt the rough edge of the wind and dived for cover. A kestrel exposed to the elements at the top of a dead tree trunk hunkered itself down. 

It was one of those strange days where the clouds seemed to be dropping their heavy loads individually: one light hailstorm aside I'd had mostly sunshine while it was looking like a mile or two away Astley was copping for some beastly weather.

Rain or worse over Astley

The barley fields were at the municipal park football field stage of growth, giving just enough cover for the skylarks, mipits and linnets to see me before I saw them. I had an optimistic scout round for yellow wagtails but only found a field full of rather smart looking male pied wagtails. A distant "is that a little ringed plover?" turned out to be a female pied wagtail lacking all but one of her tail feathers.

Pied wagtail, Little Woolden Moss

Walking up Moss Lane the hedgerows were busy, mainly with house sparrows. Some bad-tempered cawing overhead alerted me to a soaring sparrowhawk that was entirely ignoring the carrion crow that was mobbing it.

I'd got as far as Glaze Brook when it started snowing like odd bits of dandruff in the wind. The brook was quite low and there was plenty of bank for the mallards and moorhens to sit on.

There wasn't a lot happening at the water treatment works save the flock of thirty-odd rooks in the field next to it. I got the bus to Leigh and on a whim got the bus to Pennington Flash.

It started snowing again when I got to Pennington Flash. There's not a lot wrong with the world when people willingly wait in line as they queue for the ice cream van. Families of small children weren't for letting the weather spoil having a play on the swings. While all this was going on over two hundred sand martins hawked low over the flash and zoomed around the car park.

Sand martins and lesser black-back, Pennington Flash

From the side of the Horrocks Hide I could see the water was lower than last week and most of the spit was exposed. An oystercatcher fed along the water line. Further out, on the end of the Ramsdales scrape I was surprised to see a knot. 

Oystercatcher, Pennington Flash

Walking towards the Tom Edmondson Hide I was surprised to hear a Cetti's warbler singing from Pengy's Pool though on reflection it made sense as the cover here hadn't been cleared like it has been at the corner of Ramsdales. The pools by the hide had teal, tufties and gadwall and a heron flew overhead.

Snipe, Pennington Flash

I heard the pair of redshanks on the Ramsdales scrape long before I could see them, largely because of the strong low light. For the same reason I almost missed the pair of snipe bathing at the water's edge.

The weather, which had been very changeable, dug into grey murk mode and I took the hint and set off home.

Pennington Flash

Blackthorns, Pennington Flash

Pennington Flash

On another whim I got the bus to Wigan and got the train home from there. To be honest, it saved me a walk from the bus stop when I got home.

Jackdaw, Wigan Wallgate Station