Mosses

Immature cock pheasant starting to get his colours
New Moss Wood

I didn't fancy starting the week at the mercy of cancelled trains, an attitude which hardened when I noticed that every other train from Humphrey Park had been cancelled (a bit suboptimal when during the day services are only every two hours). So I decided to get the 100 bus into Irlam for a walk across Chat Moss. My bus arrived half an hour late in tandem with the next scheduled bus, which departed first and nearly empty. Ah well…

Today was one of those mercifully rare days when after spending four hours walking over the mosses I see no waders, wagtails, pipits or skylarks. Luckily there was plenty else about.

Red admiral, Chat Moss

I walked up Cutnook Lane, which was even quieter than usual because the fishery was closed for the day. Chiffchaffs called and robins sang fitfully in the trees, a mixed party of long-tailed tits and great tits bounced around in the birches and bracken, and there was a constant traffic of woodpigeons overhead.

Cutnook Lane 

I carried on up the lane beyond Twelve Yards Road. There was still water on the pools that were mostly hidden by birch scrub but I couldn't see much, just a few crows and the back end of a coot. I strongly suspect there was more to be seen if only there was a way of getting a clear view. If there is a way to do it I haven't found it yet.

Chat Moss

I looked over the open area between the path and the railway. It was bone dry with just a few crows and woodpigeons picking at the peat dust.

I carried on along the path that runs parallel to Twelve Yards Road. The birds in the trees and bushes were numerous but elusive: there were sounds and glimpses of long-tailed tits, great tits, willow warblers and reed buntings. More woodpigeons flew overhead, as did a buzzard. In fact, overhead was very busy with waves of swallows feeding at treetop height and small parties of sand martins higher up.

Comma, Chat Moss

The trees and bracken were busy with butterflies and dragonflies. I'd been thinking the other day that it had been a relatively quiet year for Vannesid butterflies and here was a cartload of commas and red admirals. There were also plenty of speckled woods and large whites. Most of the dragonflies were common darters and common hawkers with a few black darters and a couple of passing ruddy darters. The hawkers were always on the move but the darters occasionally settled and I spent a while unsuccessfully trying to get photos of bright red male common darters on the glaucous green and silver stems of flowering mugwort. I bumped into a migrant hawker as I walked through the mature trees and there were a couple of four-spotted chasers and keeled skimmers on an open patch of bracken.

The pools that can be seen beyond the thin birch scrub to the North of the path were dry, what little open water there was was confined to the drains. More crows and woodpigeons picked at the peat and a family of moorhens in the drain by the path kept mostly undercover as they escorted me out of their territory.

Chat Moss 

I turned and walked past the fields to Twelve Yards Road. Collared doves and woodpigeons fed in a stubble field while a family of blue tits bounced around the margins of some standing barley. A couple of house martins passed through the crowds of swallows. I was trying to pick out any more martins when I realised one was a high-flying snipe. I'd almost got to the road when a female sparrowhawk shot past and headed for one of the farmsteads, where a flock of sand martins chased it off.

Little Woolden Moss, this is the Eastern pool

Little Woolden Moss was very dry and very quiet. The willow warblers and linnets kept to the birch scrub, woodpigeons and swallows streamed overhead and somewhere a crow barked. The paths were lively with black darters and common darters, a few common hawkers patrolled the open peat and a couple of ruddy darters hawked low over the bracken.

I walked down New Moss Road with more passing woodpigeons and a cloud of swallows and house martins over the fields. They disappeared as the rain that had been blowing in the past half hour finally arrived then passed over as fast as it came. A couple of young buzzards shouted at each other over on the far side of the paddocks by the motorway.

New Moss Wood 

I turned into New Moss Wood for a ten minutes' wander that turned into an hour. Robins and wrens sang while chiffchaffs and dunnocks called. I bumped into a large mixed tit flock: a couple of dozen long-tailed tits, perhaps a dozen each of great tits and blue tits, with nuthatches and chiffchaffs tagging along. A great spotted woodpecker called from the alders along the main drain while a couple of jays made a racket as they collected acorns.

New Moss Wood 

I got to Cadishead and decided not to get the 100 bus back to the Trafford Centre, I had time to walk over to Irlam Station, get a cup of tea and get the train home. This was a mistake: when I got there I found my train was cancelled. I was just in time to get the next train to Urmston and walked home, bumping into a ring-necked parakeet as it flew over Humphrey Park allotments. The more I think about it the happier I'll be for them not to become one of my garden birds.

Cutnook Lane