Mosses

Kestrel, Mosslands Farm

The rain was my fault: I'd slapped on the factor thingy before going out.

The past couple of days my knees had ached despite only having a couple of hours' short toddle round, which shows how having the best part of a week mooching round listening to the cricket or saying: "Ooh look, it's raining," to the cat can set you back. So I decided to have a tramp over the Salford mosses to get the joints working again. It had been a sunny morning and although the clouds had started rolling in there was no rain forecast before teatime.

Astley Road 

The bottom end of Astley Road was fairly quiet of birds, even the Zinnia Drive spadgers were keeping to the depths of the hedgerows. There was a steady stream of woodpigeons overhead, mostly in ones and twos though flocks of a couple of dozen or more flew about the distant fields. There also seemed to be a passage of lesser black-backs going overhead.

Passing the Jack Russell's gate families of greenfinches and goldfinches twittered and squeaked in the hedgerow and a few swallows hawked over the field by Prospect Grange.

Chat Moss from the motorway bridge, Winter Hill in the distance

There were a couple more swallows and a couple of sand martins over the freshly -mown turf field the other side of the motorway. A juvenile kestrel sat on the chimney of the farmhouse by the Trophy Lawn Turf yard and another sat on the telegraph wires over the field on the other side of the road. The turf fields on this side were busy with perhaps a hundred swallows hawking low over the grass or landing to hunt beetles. A couple of dozen house martins hawked high over the yard and higher yet were a dozen swifts. I had been worrying about low numbers of swallows this year. A couple of pairs of pied wagtails with pale young juvenile birds skittered around the edges of the field but I couldn't find any yellow wagtails.

Kestrel, Chat Moss

The rain started a couple of hours early as I approached Four Lanes End, light but steady. Yet another juvenile kestrel was perched on the telegraph wires by the farmhouse. By this point I am halfway to anywhere — give or take a hundred yards I am as close to the bus stops in Cadishead, Irlam or Higher Irlam as I am to the ones at Fowley Common by Glazebury — so I might as well finish the planned walk.

Mosslands Farm 

I yomped through Little Woolden Moss, not having much appetite for being caught out in the open if the rain got worse (guess who hadn't brought his raincoat), so I didn't see much that wasn't obvious. Willow warblers squeaked in the birch scrub, wrens scolded in the undergrowth and swifts and swallows passed low overhead. Lapwings mooched on the pools, a couple of redshanks flew in and the oystercatchers were heard but not seen. A few of the barley fields North of the reserve had been harvested and one had been ploughed and sown, giving me the chance to see the skylarks, meadow pipits and pied wagtails that were skittering about. I'd wondered why a swarm of swallows was hawking low over the fields then I walked through a cloud of biting midges.

Kestrel, Mosslands Farm

I'd hoped to bump into some yellow wagtails along the path to Mosslands Farm (let's be honest: I was hoping the Channel wagtail had come back this year) but I had to make do with another young kestrel. A buzzard was hunting worms in the company of some carrion crows and woodpigeons on the freshly-turned field by the farmhouse.

Pied wagtail, Mosslands Farm
One of those juveniles that make you look twice to make sure it isn't a white wagtail. It's a very young bird that will darken up over the next few weeks and lose its yellow face,

The hedgerows of Moss Lane were busy with mostly invisible birds. Spadgers, great tits, chiffchaffs and blackbirds bounced about the hedges while collared doves, magpies and jays rummaged about in the trees. The small brown birds occasionally making an appearance on the flowerheads of a field of sunflowers turned out to be a family of whitethroats.

Along Moss Road 

As the road turned and the rain got heavier fifty-odd swifts hawked over the fields of clover and barley. I wondered idly if the clover was being grown as a green manure or to be cut as silage (or "haylage," which seems to have become suddenly fashionable).

I don't recall seeing the Glaze this high before

The Glaze was running to the top of its banks as I passed over it and there were no birds about.

I struck lucky and only had to wait five minutes for the 19 to Leigh, which was fortunate as the bus shelter's been removed. I was less lucky with the 126 back to the Trafford Centre which was half an hour late due to roadworks peppered pretty much the length of Manchester Road. I eventually got back home to find the cat had had more sense than I had and had kept out of the rain.