Mosses

Chat Moss

I overslept too late for the planned outing so I put the cat out to play in the sun (she got as far as the bin and fell asleep), hurled the mop around the house for a bit and went out for a walk on the Salford Mosses.

The train to Irlam was on time and when it arrived forty minutes late (due to two late-running Transpennine Express trains) a bright sunny lunchtime had become an ominously cloudy afternoon with spots of rain. I decided to carry on regardless.

There were more small birds in the bushes at Humphrey Park Station than there were in the hedgerows of Astley Road. A stiff breeze had persuaded all but the goldfinches into deep cover and the goldfinches were only commuting between fields of barley stubble. Robins sang from the depths and the occasional great tit called from within bramble patches. A male sparrowhawk weaving through the treetops didn't help any.

Astley Road 

A filthy dark cloud brought twenty seconds of rain before the wind heaved it over unto Manchester. I'd been hearing an eerie noise that I assumed was the wind through telegraph wires but as I approached the junction with Roscoe Road it resolved into buzzard calls. Over by the farmhouse at Prospect Grange two juvenile buzzards were sitting in telegraph poles calling to each other.

Over the motorway and the turf fields looked barren of birds. Scanning them with my binoculars it quickly became apparent that the distant leaves blowing in the wind were fifty-odd linnets and a not dissimilar number of pied wagtails. A little further along a dozen pied wagtails feeding closer to the road were dispersed by a passing tractor. Swallows and lone house martin passed low overhead spending a few minutes feeding over the turf before going on their way. A huge puddle a couple of fields away had brought in sixty or more black-headed gulls with a few lesser black-backs.

A flock of about a hundred lapwings were loafing with a fieldful of busy starlings a couple of fields away on Hephzibah Farm.

Twelve Yards Road 

I decided against heading into Little Woolden Moss and walked down Twelve Yards Road with the sun in my hair not my eyes. Woodpigeons and pheasants rummaged about in the barley stubble and linnets and goldfinches took flight every so often. The road was littered with common darters and their shadows and it was a real challenge to avoid stepping on either.

Cutnook Lane 

The walk down Cutnook Lane was the quietest I have known. Just the clattering of woodpigeons in the trees and the occasional robin or goldfinch. Just past the fishery a pair of magpies disputed the ownership of a rowan tree with a jay.

I got the 100 back to the Trafford Centre. It was odd not to see any gulls at all on the vacant lot near the canal. The young peregrine was back perched on the sign of the Beyond building, sitting out of the wind on the letter Y for a change.