Mosses

Common darter, Little Woolden Moss

Today's planned visit to Leighton Moss was kiboshed as I learned that the reason why the train's disappeared off the timetable is that the service is suspended this week because of engineering works. The backstory's a bit more complicated than that but I'll only wind myself up by the narration.

I was ill-disposed to give Northern any of my money today so I went for a walk on the Salford mosses. Astley Road was busy with lorries, the reason why I usually do this walk at the weekend. It was also gratifyingly busy with birds.

Crab apples, Irlam Moss

There was a lot of robin action in the hedgerows at the Irlam end of Astley Road with one singing roughly every twenty yards. Robins and wrens sang, chaffinches pinked, great tits pinked and chinked and squeaked, goldfinches twittered and blackbirds and dunnocks quietly got on with their business. Two grey wagtails and twenty-two skylarks flew overhead at Prospect Grange. A few pied wagtails called from farm buildings and a pair of crows kept an eye on the motorway traffic.

Chat Moss

As so often, things changed when I crossed the motorway. The hedgerows were a lot quieter, a family of long-tailed tits worked their way through the trees and a couple of robins sang. The turf fields were full of pied wagtails, roughly two juveniles for every adult. Further out eighty-odd black-headed gulls loafed on a field with some jackdaws and carrion crows. A magpie chased after a female sparrowhawk that had something in its claws. A couple of buzzards hunted noisily over the fields between the stables and Twelve Yards Road while a pair of kestrels hunted the fields between Astley Road and Little Woolden Moss. I turned at Four Lanes End and headed for Little Woolden Moss. The female kestrel flew over and landed on a telephone wire for a couple of minutes. She flew off when the sparrowhawk came barging in and landed deep in one of the trees by the path.

Kestrel, Chat Moss

Little Woolden Moss was in one of its frustrating moods, possibly because a work team was busy doing some planting at the car park end. A flock of goldfinches and a mixed tit flock that was nearly all long-tailed tits flitted about the birch scrub by the path. Common darters basked on the path or patrolled low over the bracken, there were just enough midges around to feed them and a passing migrant hawker.

Little Woolden Moss 

There weren't any birds on the pools on the Eastern end of the reserve. The usual family of carrion crows clattered around in the scrub on the far side. They disturbed a lapwing which flew off. The lapwing disturbed a male yellow wagtail which settled on one of the bunds for a few minutes before moving on. I carried on down to the end of the path. Part way down I disturbed a butterfly. At first I thought it must be a day-flying moth, I was astonished to discover it was a small heath butterfly. I would have thought it was too late in the year and the weather too dull to have one flying about.

Toadstool (not convinced which one), Little Woolden Moss

There were a dozen black-headed gulls on the pools at the Western end of the reserve. The birch scrub that was planted this end a couple of years ago obscures most of the view of these pools from the path now. I'm hoping there weren't any waders there for me to have missed.

Lapwings, Little Woolden Moss

There were more skylarks with the meadow pipits in the fields by Little Woolden Hall, some of them spooked by a buzzard that flew in low from Great Woolden Moss and drifted up the Glaze Brook. A few dozen black-headed gulls drifted between the fields and settled by the brook. Sixty-odd Canada geese grazed on the field on the other side. Further out, beyond Holcroft Lane, a cloud of a few hundred lapwings and starlings rose from the fields and wheeled around before settling back down again.

Glaze Brook 

Crossing the Glaze I noticed half a dozen teal and a moorhen amongst the mallards.

I walked down to Glazebrook. The train was just arriving at the station as I got there and it would have been rude not to. I just had time to notice a couple of siskins in the flock of goldfinches by the platform.