Mosses

Fieldfares, Chat Moss

According to the Met Office today's the last day before all Hell breaks loose so I thought I'd best get a walk across the Salford mosses under my feet.

I made sure to refill the feeders in the back garden before I went out, the crowd scenes are taking their toll of supplies. When the spadgers and starlings aren't hogging the feeders a bunch of goldfinches are slipping in and staying awhile until the crowds return.

I got the 100 from the Trafford Centre and got off at the corner of Cutnook Lane by the motorway.  The mixed tit flock by the lane on the Irlam side included a very noisy coal tit. Over on the Chat Moss side it was all great tits.

By Cutnook Lane

Cutnook Lane was busier with cars than usual, I must have timed it ride for kicking-out time at the stables and the fishery. The roadside vegetation's been pretty much flattened, I think there's been work done to clear out the drainage ditches. A couple of trees look to be missing, too. All in all the landscape along the first half of the lane looks a lot more open. A dozen magpies feeding on one of the scalped turf fields were being watched by a tabby cat until a couple of crows flew in and scared them away (the cat wasn't much fussed). The hedge by the fishery has been ruthlessly trimmed so for once I could see the mallards, Canada geese and moorhens instead of just hearing them. A heron flew in and flew back out without landing.

By Twelve Yards Road

The fields along Twelve Yards Road were very wet. Here and there the field banks were cut through to drain into the ditches, the remaining pools testament to the recent heavy rains. There wasn't much about: a crow disturbed a charm of a couple of dozen goldfinches in the bushes over by the fishery; a couple of skylarks made heavy weather of flying over the road in the wind and a flock of black-headed gulls flew over and headed down to the flooded fields by the railway line.

The farm with the barn owl boxes was having some work done, I think one of the barns is being demolished. This meant there weren't any small birds in the nearby hedges. A little further along a pair of buzzards called and chased each other in the corner of a field of sheep.

Starlings and lapwings, Chat Moss

I was nearly at Four Lanes End when I saw a flock of starlings and lapwings rise up in the air, form a cloud and, after a couple of minutes' wheeling round, settle back on the ground. From where I was standing I couldn't tell if the cause was a predator or somebody walking along one of the turf fields.

At Four Lanes End the first small birds finally broke cover. A mixed tit flock — great, blue and long-tailed tits broke from the shelter of the hedgerow to visit a bird feeder hanging by a window on the farmhouse.

Redwing and fieldfare, Chat Moss

Lavender Lane, the little stretch from Four Lanes End to Little Woolden Moss, had been churned up something rotten by turf-cutting vehicles. The consolation was the flock of a couple of dozen fieldfares and a few redwings feeding on the newly exposed earth. I've only seen dribs and drabs of fieldfares this Winter so it came as a relief to see them in double figures.  The fieldfares were very skittish, rising up into the trees by the path when they spotted me, then panicking and flying back into the field when they realised they were nearer to me than when they started. I took a few bad photos then picked my way through the mud to leave them in peace.

Little Woolden Moss

Little Woolden Moss was dead quiet save for the usual family of carrion crows which seem to keep on making a living even when the meadow pipits disappear for greener pastures.

I took the path to Moss Road. The trees around Little Woolden Moss and over on Great Woolden Wood provided some shelter from the wind. Chaffinches, house sparrows and blue tits bounced around in the bushes by the farmhouses, a jay commuted between copses and a couple of pheasants made a lot of noise over at the back of one of the fields.

Lapwings, Cadishead Moss

The further I walked down Moss Road the more small birds could be seen by the road: more spadgers and blue tits, blackbirds foraging in the hedge bases and singing robins in the trees, a pair of collared doves and a flock of starlings. A couple of dark lines in one of the fields turned out to be a mixed flock of starlings and lapwings when I got close enough to see them properly.

New Moss Wood

I had a nosy round New Moss Wood for the first time this year. Oddly, all the action was around the margins of the wood, inside there was just the calling of a couple of buzzards and a lot of singing robins. There was a small mixed tit flock by the car park entrance together with a couple each of magpies and jays. I emerged further down the road and bumped into a charm of goldfinches which kept being disturbed by a male great spotted woodpecker while another buzzard was digging for worms on the ground.

I carried on down into Cadishead for the 100 bus. It had been a good three hours' wandering around, though I'd spent at least as much time fruitlessly scanning fields and hedgerows for birds that weren't there as I had actually walking. At least the weather behaved itself.