Mosses

Yellow wagtail, Chat Moss

The first severe hay fever attack of the year, coinciding with an enthralling test match, had kept me at home for a couple of days. The first proper attack of hay fever is always the worst because I'll have had months to forget it's not just the sniffles and the occasional sneeze (it's actually like being hit by a sack of spuds). It's manageable, if distinctly uncomfortable, thereafter so by the tea break of the Third Day I decided I should get some exercise in while the weather's fine. There was a fair breeze to keep the temperature at a nice point for walking and the copious amounts of vaseline I smeared round my nostrils to catch any pollen did the intended trick and I had a good four hours' pottering about on the Salford mosses.

I'd missed the train to Irlam and the bus connections would have me just miss the 100 to Cutnook Lane so I decided to try something new, getting the bus from the Trafford Centre into Eccles and getting the 67 into the Glaze Estate at the far end of Cadishead. A hop over the bridge and I was in Glazebrook walking up the main road  over the motorway to Little Woolden Moss.

Pied wagtail, Little Woolden Moss

Things were looking good even as I approached the entrance road to Little Woolden Hall. A pair of buzzards floated overhead, one harassed by a pair of crows, the other keeping well away. A flock of house martins fed over a field of sheep and a couple of pied wagtails collected food for a brood somewhere nearby.

Buzzard, Little Woolden Moss

Buzzard being mobbed by a kestrel, Little Woolden Moss

The flock of house martins coalesced with a mixed flock of swifts and swallows over the Glaze, the martins favouring the river and the sheep field, the swallows favouring hawking low over a field of barley and the swifts being everywhere. As usual I was tempted to try and take photos of this mayhem and as usual I failed miserably. I was surprised to see a goldcrest fly through the crowd and off towards the trees by the hall.

The crows had flown back to the woods beyond the fields so the buzzard flew back in, flying in low with the sun on its back. It was promptly seen back on its way by a male kestrel. There's obviously a back story to all this but it wasn't evident.

Lapwing and juvenile oystercatcher, Little Woolden Moss

There were a few waders on the western pools of the reserve, mostly pairs of lapwings with a couple of pairs of oystercatchers, all with youngsters. The oystercatcher chicks were half-grown already but still not above taking earthworms off their parents. There had been reports of a sanderling on here earlier in the week, if it was still about I couldn't find it even though I spent a good two minutes trying to turn a redshank into one.

Goldfinches and long-tailed tits bounced around in the birch scrub and there were a couple of dozen or more willow warblers singing and foraging in the bushes. They paid no heed to me save to call if I accidentally got within six feet of them then carry on with their business.

An unco-operative willow warbler, Little Woolden Moss
The pale legs are a useful ID feature: chiffchaffs have very dark, almost black legs

I stopped for a chat with a lady walking her dogs who wanted to know what the white fluffy flowers were. The open ground was a sea of white with the last of the hare's tail cotton grass still in flower, the cotton grass proper in full bloom and any open spaces littered with seed heads of the hare's tails.

Hare's tail cotton grass (left) and cotton grass, Little Woolden Moss
Hare's tail cotton grass flowers about a month earlier of the two.

There were meadow pipits everywhere, which was a nice contrast to my last visit. Conversely there wasn't a lot of wildfowl, just a pair of gadwalls and a couple of pairs of mallards. There weren't any wagtails on the pools either and it was evidently too late in the day and too cool for dragonflies. A few black-headed gulls loafed on the banks and both reed buntings and linnets skittered about in ones and twos.

I met a lady who'd just been to Risley Moss to see hobbies and had been told Little Woolden Moss was an excellent place to get a good view of them. I agreed, though I said she'd get better luck midday when there'd be dragonflies about for a hobby to feed on. Still, you never know so I wished her luck and carried on on my way.

I walked round the path to Mosslands Farm. There'd be no point carrying on into Glazebury because I'd have two hours to wait for the next bus, I just wanted to see if I could find any yellow wagtails on the usual fields and I was sort of hoping for a quail singing in the barley but had no luck with either. I was consoled by the sight of the female marsh harrier floating over the field with the wind turbine.

I'd warned that lady there wasn't much chance of a hobby here this time of day and I was dead wrong. I hadn't gone far retracing my steps along the path when one whizzed overhead almost within arm's reach, towered over the peat moss then dived and shot through and over the trees towards Astley Road. I dearly hoped she'd seen it. I bumped into her later on and we couldn't be sure if the bird she'd filmed chasing a lapwing was the hobby or not. I definitely couldn't say it wasn't and she went home enthused enough to come back another day.

Hobby, Little Woolden Moss

Hobby, Little Woolden Moss

I walked down Twelve Yards Road through Chat Moss. The fields were full of lapwings, woodpigeons and starlings with a supporting cast of mallards, stock doves and pheasants. The trees and bushes were filled with the sounds of singing blackbirds, robins, wrens and warblers — whitethroats in the thin hawthorn hedges by the road and blackcaps in the copses by the farmyards, willow warblers to the North in the birch woods, chiffchaffs to the South in the poplars by the horse paddocks. Chaffinches sang in the treetops, reed buntings in the hedges by the field drains and yellowhammers in the hawthorns on the field boundaries. It was all a bit full-on really. A flock of swallows hawked low over the fields and were joined by half a dozen sand martins. A kestrel hovered high over the field by one of the farmyards. Approaching the junction with Cutnook Lane there was a small flock of Canada geese with half a dozen goslings in tow in one of the fields. As I was watching them a flash of yellow caught my eye and a yellow wagtail flew up onto the telegraph wires and started singing.

It was a straight walk down Cutnook Lane with blackbirds and chiffchaffs singing in the trees, a buzzard lumbering about in the birch scrub and a family of long-tailed tits bouncing through the hedgerows as I walked along.

I had ten minutes to wait for the 100 back to the Trafford Centre, struck lucky for the connection with the bus home and got back to find the cat sitting on the front doorstep asking what did I call this for getting back for teatime.

The late afternoon and evening walks across Chat Moss always seem to be very productive.

Cotton grass, Little Woolden Moss