Chat Moss

Chat Moss 

After two very damp days without enough exercise my joints were begging for a walk. It had been a busy Friday and a busier Saturday morning and I really just wanted to go to sleep but I didn't want to waste a splendid Autumn day so I dragged myself out for a walk around Chat Moss. We had a rash of cancelled trains so I had to go over to the Trafford Centre to get the 100 into Irlam and it was gone two o'clock when I set off up Cutnook Lane. I was glad of the walk afterwards, despite my old man's aches and pains.

Cutnook Lane 

It was one of those Autumn afternoons when the scenery comes straight out of a Ladybird picture book. A loosely-knit mixed tit flock made its way along the trees either side of the lane. I noticed the long-tailed tits first, then a couple of goldcrests. The great tits and blue tits were further along and surprisingly hard to see against brightly golden beech leaves. They were joined by a small flock of chaffinches that made sorties onto the roadside looking for beech mast. There were a few stock doves amongst the small flock of woodpigeons and collared doves scattered by a car going down one of the farm drives.

Cutnook Lane 

Chat Moss 

At the crossroads with Twelve Yards Road I decided to carry on North along the rough path beside the pools. Now the birches had shed their leaves I could see how close the pools really are — there's about twelve feet between the path and the bank most of the way along — and how thick the vegetation, with birch saplings just a foot or two apart. Needless to say, now there was a clear view there was nothing on the pools.

Chat Moss looking North to Winter Hill
The line of trees runs parallel to the railway line between Patricroft and Newton-le-Willows

After a chat with a chap walking his dogs and a mad encounter with a giddy whippet pup that had slipped its leash and was giving its owner a run around the moss I turned onto the path running parallel with Twelve Yards Road. Out on the open peat the only birds about were magpies and carrion crows. Goldfinches, chaffinches and great tits fed in the saplings by the path and linnets twittered by between fields. I had a small sense of elation when I found a pair of mallards on one of the small pools. The sun slipped below the low clouds near the horizon and I could see my breath in the air. Squadrons of lesser black-backs passed silently overhead to roost while black-headed gulls squawked and cawed as they skittered by in twos and threes. I don't think black-headed gulls are capable of flying in a straight line.

A whiff of honesty in difficult times 

I reached the end of the path and headed down to Twelve Yards Road. A — literally — steaming mound of political promises provided warmth and a hunting ground for a pied wagtail and a wren. Dunnocks, great tits and blackbirds worked the hawthorns and a buzzard called incessantly from distant trees.

Great black-backs

The sun set as I got to Twelve Yards Road and headed back for Cutnook Lane. I'd missed the finches and buntings going to roost though the occasional movements in the long grass and sedges across the fields suggested where they might be. A couple of pheasants made a closing time racket while a rather vocal kestrel had one last hunting foray before retiring to roost in the poplars a couple of fields away. Three great black-backs steamed past low overhead in the same direction as the lesser black-backs. I was rather hoping to see an owl, barn owls breed here and short-eared owls are occasional Winter visitors. No joy again this time. (Ironically, a short-eared owl was reported over on the other side of Little Woolden Moss about then.) I did get to see a small flock of fieldfares fly off to roost, which was some consolation as it's been a quiet year for them.

Twelve Yards Road 

I headed back down Cutnook Lane, stopping every so often to puzzle over tiny silhouettes going to roost in the rhododendrons. The robins sang their twilight songs and I headed for the motorway bridge and the bus home.

Bracken