Amberswood

Sketch map of Amberswood

Amberswood is one of the many pieces of wet woodland and subsidence flash in the Wigan area. It borders Hindley and Ince to the North and Platt Bridge to the South. Liverpool Road is the boundary between Amberswood and Low Hall, yet another piece of wet woodland and subsidence flash. 

There is a network of paths around Amberswood well worth an hour or more's walk. Much the easiest way in for a first visit is via the entrance on Manchester Road. A few buses call at the Gregory Street bus stop including the 7 between Bolton and Wigan, the 8 between Leigh and Wigan and the 132 between the Trafford Centre and Wigan. The entrance takes you into a long straight greenway into the reserve. Keep your eyes and ears open for willow tits in the hedgerows.

Amberswood, the path from Manchester Road

The path leads into the woodland surrounding the lake. If you didn't see any willow tits in the hedgerows they might be rummaging round in the undergrowth. Or you might bump into some roe deer.

Roe deer

The paths on this side of Amberswood all lead to the lake. It's a compact lake with enough reedbed fringe to support a Cetti's warbler. 

Amberswood Lake

The waterbirds are typical of Greater Manchester lakes: mallards, tufted ducks, great crested grebes, mute swans, small rafts of gulls — mostly black-headed with a few herring gulls and lesser black-backs. Winter ducks may include pochards, goldeneyes or scaup. It's always worth looking for snipe or water rails, I suspect there'll be jack snipe passing through in Winter.

Black-headed gulls and scaup

Moorhen

There is a choice of paths leading from the Lake. The shortest takes you across the field to Liverpool Road. The 559 bus between Bolton and Ashton-in-Makerfield stops here, it's an hourly service except in school terms when the mid-afternoon service is skipped because the buses are on school runs. Alternatively you can walk down to the end of the road and into Platt Bridge where the buses running down Warrington Road between Wigan and Warrington, St Helens and Leigh are pretty regular.

If you've time and fancy a bit of exploring, Low Hall local nature reserve is literally across the road, if time's short you could take a stroll around the pond, if you're feeling energetic there are paths providing good walks down to Bickershaw and Westleigh.

Amberswood 

The other paths on Amberswood take you though wet woodland peppered with small pools and clearings. There's the usual selection of finches in Winter and warblers in Summer. Redpolls work the alders around the pools and I'm told to keep an eye out for crossbills in Winter and cuckoos in Spring. Depending on the paths you take you'll end up on Warrington Road either in Spring View or Ince with the same choice of buses as at Platt Bridge. I think there's a path that ought to take you up to Ince Green Lane and thence to Ince Station but I've not found it yet.