Mosses

Starlings, Cadishead Moss

It was a damp and overcast morning but the rain had passed so I decided to have a stroll over the Salford Mosses. I got the train into Irlam and walked over to Moss Road to kick off with a wander round New Moss Wood.

Cadishead Moss 

The fields across the road to the wood were heaving with birds — at least a hundred jackdaws, two hundred and more starlings, a few pheasants and rooks and carrion crows, a small flock of fieldfares, a mixed flock of stock doves and woodpigeons and a covey of sixteen grey partridges. The Lombardy poplars on the field margins were heaving with starlings, fieldfares, goldfinches and siskins. Winter's arrived with a bang!

New Moss Wood 

The wood was deathly quiet in comparison, just the sound of falling leaves and that quiet singing noise that damp soil makes when it's starting to dry out. Although it was lunchtime there were still wisps of mist about some of the ridings. Mixed tit flocks — families of long-tailed tits with blue tits in tow, some flocks with coal tits, some with great tits — fidgeted silently through the birch canopy. Even the magpies and jays went about their business silently. I'd lingered longer than I'd expected and I'd been traipsing around for over fifty minutes when I accidentally broke the spell by nearly treading on a wren that was rummaging about in the grass in front of me. This was the signal for a sudden eruption of singing robins, wrens and dunnocks.

Blue tit, New Moss Wood

A buzzard was eyeing up the dinner table on the motorway embankment as I passed over the bridge. I walked the length of Moss Road to the sound of pied wagtails, jackdaws and starlings and the distant croaks of carrion crows on the turf fields over by Astley Road.

Little Woolden Moss 

The sun came out at Little Woolden Moss and it turned into a very pleasant afternoon. There wasn't a lot about on the pools, just a pair of mallards and a handful of teal which flew off into the distance. There were a couple of dozen carrion crows on the bund and most of them were very interested in whatever it was the marsh harrier was eating in the long grass. Whatever it could have been wouldn't normally have attracted a couple of dozen crows, they'd congregated into a sort of adolescent gang prior to some or all of them pairing off and going their own way. It's a constant feature of Winter with the magpies round our way, I don't often get to see the carrion crow equivalent. It was just the marsh harrier's bad luck to have the hooligans readily to hand while it was having its dinner. A few common darters are my latest candidates for last dragonflies of the year.

Twelve Yards Road 

I headed down Twelve Yards Road for walking down Cutnook Lane into Irlam, a nice walk with the sun on my back. The birds were settling down for the night, woodpigeons clattering about in treetops, linnets and chaffinches calling quietly as they flew to roost, a pair of bullfinches whistling softly to each other as they passed. A kestrel prepared for the twilight shift by Four Lanes End, a great spotted woodpecker tapped at a dead willow further down the road, mixed tit flocks were silent bustling shadows in the depths of the hedgerows. As I reached the junction with Cutnook Lane another buzzard settled down in the trees to the North.

Cutnook Lane 

The walk down Cutnook Lane was a pleasant winding down. Mallards and cormorants left the fishery for the day, half a dozen blackbirds flew into the hedgerows for a late meal of haws before bedtime and a few black-headed gulls flew into the paddocks to join the carrion crows and jackdaws.

The 100 to the Trafford Centre was running very late (this has been a week full of 'The bus you've just missed was bob on time, the next one's running twenty minutes late') so I got the next 100 to Cadishead, got off at Irlam Station and waited a while for the train home. It had been a surprisingly pleasant and productive afternoon's wander.

Starlings, Cadishead Wood