Mosses

Astley Road, Irlam Moss 

Today started bright but quickly beat a swift retreat from any repeat of yesterday's bright weather and by the time lunchtime came round it was positively dreary. I got the train into Irlam and set off for a walk across the mosses.

The bottom of Astley road was seething with small birds. The Zinnia Drive house sparrows were out in force, twenty-odd of them sitting on the top of the hedge by the road. A similar number of goldfinches were twittering overhead as they flew into the trees by Astley Court. There were more goldfinches in the hedgerows on the moss, together with blue tits and great tits, robins singing every fifty yards and a blackbird sitting in every second tree. There were plenty of woodpigeons about, nearly all in flocks, I only saw a couple of pairs. The carrion crows out in the fields were all paired up, as were the lapwings.

The hedgerows by the Jack Russell's gate were unusually quiet, just a couple of great tits and a woodpigeon. Things changed as I got to the lane to Prospect Grange. The lane is evidently the boundary between robin territories and two pairs of robins were giving each other the evil eye from the tops of hawthorn bushes. Goldfinches and greenfinches twittered and sang in the hedgerow and a few dozen woodpigeons fed in the stubble field. I was just thinking to myself that I hadn't seen many chaffinches so far this year and this could be the reason it's been a bad Winter for bramblings when a couple of dozen flew up from the stubble field, fidgeted in the trees and flew back down again. I did check them and as far as I could determine they were all chaffinches.

Astley Road, Chat Moss 

As I walked along in the light rain the turf fields North of the motorway were busy with starlings, carrion crows and rooks. Oddly enough for once I didn't see a single pied wagtail (nor any all afternoon). There were more woodpigeons in the fields beyond and a few stock doves flew by. A flock of fieldfares joined the woodpigeons in the paddocks by the turf fields and a few more pairs of lapwings indulged in flight displays over the rougher fields. I was nearly at the stables before I saw the one and only kestrel of the day hovering behind the farmhouse. Three drake mallards quacked from the pond across the road. A treecreeper on the tree by the farmhouse gate obliged with cracking views but disappeared around the trunk any time there was a danger of getting the camera focussed on it. This one has a habit of doing this to me.

I had a sit down on the bench by Four Lanes End to get over a dizzy spell (I've been having sinus problems this week and it's knocked my sense of balance a bit, if I move my head too quickly to try and catch sight of something flying by the effect is rather like putting ball-bearings into a beach ball). There was no point in giving up on the walk as I was literally two and a half miles from anywhere in whichever direction I cared to take. The rain got heavier and I felt strangely the better for it.

It only took a minute or so to get roughly right and by the time I'd walked down to Little Woolden Moss the path didn't seem quite so wobbly. All the action was in the trees: robins, wrens and blackbirds rummaged in the bracken while long-tailed tits bounced about in the birch saplings. There was literally nothing out in the open until a lesser black-back flew over and headed towards the motorway. The usual crows were nowhere to be seen. I walked around onto the path on the North side, the barley fields on Mosslands Farm had been ploughed and sown and a couple of pairs of lapwings were staking territories.

I'd joined the path between the barley fields when a heron flew overhead going who knows where. The family of carrion crows that usually haunt the reserve were fossicking round in the fields by the farmhouse. I walked down Moss Lane, the hedgerows full of spadgers, chaffinches and collared doves, and mistle thrushes and song thrushes sang from the trees.

The fields behind the houses on the Greater Manchester side of the Glaze were heaving with jackdaws, crows, starlings and curlews. It took me a while to spot the pair of oystercatchers I kept hearing, they were mingling deep in a flock of jackdaws.

Glaze Brook

I looked over the Glaze in the gloom and rain. A redhead goosander flew upstream while a pair of grey wagtails flew downstream. The hedgerows were full of the latest contender for the last mixed tit flock of the Winter, the great tits outnumbering the blue tits and long-tailed tits with a supporting cast of chaffinches and blackbirds.

I got to the bus stop by The Raven with five minutes to spare for the fast bus into Warrington. I'd then just have ten minutes to wait for the train home, or would have if it wasn't cancelled. So I got the 100 bus to the Trafford Centre and got home only half an hour late. It hasn't been a spectacular afternoon's walk but I'd got a bit of much-needed exercise and there'd been enough about to be interesting. I still hadn't added any partridges, owls or bramblings to the year list but virtue is its own reward.