Mosses

Long-tailed tit, Chat Moss

Seeing as it was a bright, fine Saturday morning I went for a walk across the Salford mosses. 

I got the train to Irlam and headed off up Astley Road. I'd barely gone two steps when I bumped into the first of many mixed tit flocks of the day, mostly blue tits and great tits with chaffinches and goldfinches. There weren't so many berries left on the hawthorns so there were only a few blackbirds about.

The stretch just before the motorway is one of the most reliable places I know for yellowhammers and sure enough there were a pair sitting on the telegraph wires near the farmhouse at Prospect Grange. A mixed flock of goldfinches and chaffinches bounced about in the hedgerow and more chaffinches bounced in from the trees on the motorway embankment.

On Astley Road

I'd barely got past the bridge when I stepped aside to make room for the particularly noisy pair of vehicles approaching from behind. Instead of the expected combination of a quad bike and a track back with a bust exhaust that had been tooling up and down the road a chap in a Norfolk jacket and deerstalker passed me on a penny farthing. The others followed a few minutes later.

Goldcrest, Chat Moss
(The other photos are even worse)

As I recovered my composure another mixed tit flock hove to, a large family of long-tailed tits and a couple of goldcrests in the vanguard with half a dozen blue tits and a pair of great tits.

There were more blackbirds and a couple of song thrushes in the trees up near the stables and another mixed tit flock bouncing through the hedgerows. It had clouded over by this stage and I was wondering if it might not rain after all. As it happened I needn't have worried, it stayed fine all day.

Chat Moss

A flock of nearly fifty starlings shared a tree with a couple of very noisy buzzards in the field by Twelve Yards Road. They all rose like a cloud when the quad bike passed by, which gave me the chance to notice three stock doves I hadn't spotted in the crowd. Oddly enough there weren't any woodpigeons (it turned out they were all over by Moss Road). The male kestrel that's usually lurking by the car park at Little Woolden Moss was hovering by Four Lanes End. A few crows foraged on the turf fields. I wasn't altogether surprised there weren't any dragonflies. 

Yet another mixed tit flock — long-tailed tits, blue tits and chaffinches — were busy in the birches by the car park at Little Woolden Moss.

Little Woolden Moss

Aside from the usual mob of carrion crows and a couple of lesser black-backs flying overhead Little Woolden Moss was dead quiet, albeit very picturesque.

Little Woolden Moss

I wandered down to Moss Road, passing a few pheasants and carrion crows along the way. The gardens were busy with blackbirds and song thrushes. I had a chat with a dog walker and his amiable Brussels Griffon, we talked about starling murmurations and I identified a bird he saw last week as a female merlin, all the while having blackbirds flitting about us.

Lesser redpoll, Cadishead Moss

I hadn't gone far when I noticed a lot of finches feeding in the trees by one of the farmhouses. One bunch at the far end of the copse were goldfinches but the birds in the closer trees were a mixed bunch. A couple of linnets were easy enough to spot but there were a lot of dark birds feeding deep in cover. They were startled by a passing van, flew out of cover and settled out in the open, foraging in the top branches of some birches and alders. A couple of dozen lesser redpolls, looking nice but not sitting still for the camera.

Cadishead Moss

Over the motorway there were seven buzzards feeding on worms alongside a flock of about sixty black-headed gulls.

Map showing nature reserves in the area

I had a wander round New Moss Wood seeing as both the weather and the light was good and my knees weren't making any complaints. There's a new notice by the car park which nicely puts the area into the wider perspective with Warrington, Wigan, Leigh and Salford.

New Moss Wood

There were a few goldfinches and chaffinches about, together with a small tit flock that mostly involved blue tits. A bit further in I accidentally disturbed a buzzard which loped off into the depths of the wood. On the way back to the road I bumped into a great spotted woodpecker and a pair of bullfinches. I could hear a skein of pink-footed geese going over but couldn't see them for the trees.

Thence into Irlam via Cadishead allotments and a couple of buses home.