Mosses

Spotted flycatcher, Irlam Moss

I've had a lazy couple of days so decided to have a wander towards Little Woolden Moss and thence where the spirit took me. It was a grey but mild day with a light breeze so walking conditions were quite nice.

I got the train to Irlam and walked down Astley Road. The first stretch was very quiet and it came as a relief to be mobbed by the Zinnia Drive sparrows. Further on there was a constant stream of woodpigeons flying overhead, mostly in ones and twos, and a few chaffinches and great tits in the hedgerows. 

Spotted flycatcher, Irlam Moss

I stopped and scanned the fields by the entrance to Prospect Grange, which are generally good for a flock of greenfinches and the odd yellowhammer. Not a sausage. I'd taken a few steps down the road when I heard a wren and a dunnock deep in the hedge and something else in the small tree by my side. I stopped to try and catch the call again and a spotted flycatcher bobbed out of the leaves and started hawking for insects from a lookout post in a fork in the branches. It was about six feet away, at head height and didn't take any notice of me whatever so I risked getting my camera out of the bag and getting a few photos. It only flew off when a car drove past.

Irlam Moss

Once again, once I'd crossed the motorway the hedgerows got busier. I heard a goldcrest, tried to find it and instead found a mixed tit flock made up mostly of long-tailed tits, blue tits, coal tits and chiffchaffs with a very bright yellow juvenile willow warbler tagging along. It took about ten minutes to find the goldcrest. By then most of the other birds had bobbed over into a hawthorn bush that was already busy with feeding blackbirds. One of the juvenile blackbirds had a particularly bright russet head but wasn't for being photographed.

Waves of swallows passed over and fed low over the turf fields, joined by the house martins from the delivery yard.

I was no end happy to find myself escorted past the farmyard gate by the usual Jack Russell.

I turned at Four Lanes End and headed towards Little Woolden Moss. This stretch of path was littered with ruddy darters.

I bumped into a few chaffinches and a bullfinch in the trees by the entrance. A flock of a dozen lapwings and a couple of starlings flew low overhead.

Black darter, Little Woolden Moss

It was dead quiet on the water, not so much as a pied wagtail on the bunds. A female kestrel flew in for a quick drink of water before heading off beyond. The usual female marsh harrier floated low over the bushes a bit further on in the distance. 

What this stretch of the walk lacked in birds it more than made up with dragonflies. There were a few more ruddy darters and a lot of black darters. A few common hawkers hawked over the open water.

Little Woolden Moss

Rather than turning and heading for New Moss Lane I decided to walk down towards the path past Little Woolden Hall. Squadrons of woodpigeons flew overhead and wrens bobbed in and out of the bracken. Common hawkers patrolled the bracken tops, breaking off occasionally to try their luck amongst the birch saplings. There were more than enough biting midges to feed a legion of dragonflies.

Buzzard, Little Woolden Moss

I was hoping there may be a wader or two on the bunds at the Western end of the reserve but no luck, just a dozen Canada geese. The fields by the path here had just been ploughed so there were dozens of woodpigeons, crows and rooks feeding on the fresh ground. Fifty or so pied wagtails fed out in the middle in the company of a buzzard which was hunting worms. A female sparrowhawk brought all the wagtails, including three yellow wagtails I hadn't noticed, up in a panic. She made a couple of unsuccessful attempts at plucking a wagtail out of mid air then carried on on her way. Once she was safely away the wagtails settled back with the buzzard.

I bumped into the only meadow pipit of the day as it followed the tractor ploughing the next field.

Just half a dozen mallards and a moorhen on Glaze Brook today.

Over the motorway and into Glazebrook where another tractor's ploughing was accompanied by fifty-odd black-headed gulls and a few lesser black-backs and herring gulls. I scanned through them on the off-chance but I couldn't make any of them any more exotic than that so I went for the train home.