Carrington Moss

Collared doves, Sinderland Brook

It was one of those muggy days like a teenage armpit and I wasn't altogether sure I wanted to go for a walk. I dragged myself over to the Trafford Centre and got the 18 bus to Ashton on Mersey, thinking I could walk back home via Banky Meadow and Cob Kiln Wood. As I got off the bus I remembered that I've not walked across Carrington Moss yet this year. 

Carrington Moss 

I took the footpath that starts at the corner of Carrington Lane then doglegs across the fields to Isherwood Road. The stretch of path through the trees was busy with speckled woods and squadrons of woodpigeons passed overhead between fields. The jays and magpies were very conspicuous, and very noisy, the smaller birds much less so. I suspect I wouldn't have heard or seen the robins, wrens and great tits had there not been a ginger tom walking up the path ahead of me. His disappearance off in the direction of the houses was accompanied by a lot of bad language from a couple of squirrels.

Woodpigeons, Carrington Moss

There were literally hundreds of woodpigeons feeding on the stubble fields with three carrion crows. Scanning round I could see quite a lot of juvenile woodpigeons with their grey necks, looking like over-inflated stock doves, but no actual stock doves. The complete absence of any finches or buntings was marked, too. A female kestrel hunted the length of the drain beside the path before trying her luck on the field margins by the main road.

A flock of swallows arrived as I came to the electricity substation, feeding high on their approach then descending to feed low over the stubble. Over on one of the electricity pylons a young buzzard called noisily to another buzzard over by the riding school.

I walked down Isherwood Road onto Carrington Moss. There was too much vegetation to see much of the Shell Pool though I could hear coots, moorhens and mallards. There were more woodpigeons in the fields and swallows hawking low over the stubble.

Carrington Moss 

I walked along the path through the wooded field margins. Wrens muttered, great tits called and robins sang. A couple of common hawkers lurched about in one of the clearings and common darters patrolled the bracken. I accidentally disturbed a buzzard perching at the crossroads. It loped off towards the industrial estate, as I was watching it on its way a flock of sand martins flew in and joined the swallows.

Carrington Moss 

At Sinderland Brook I joined the old Irlam to Altrincham railway line and walked down to Broad Heath. Another common hawker patrolled the hedgerow while speckled woods flitted about the trees growing between the sleepers. Small birds were heard but very few actually seen; blue tits, great tits and long-tailed tits called quietly to each other from the undergrowth while chiffchaffs called from the treetops.

The old Irlam to Altrincham railway line 

I got to Broad Heath with ten minutes to wait for a 247 to the Trafford Centre. I'd had a fair walk and although the birdwatching had been unspectacular there was still plenty about to be seen and heard with a bit of hard work and a lot of luck.