Mosses

Grey partridges, Irlam Moss

The weather had calmed down considerably and the morning had been fitfully sunny. I needed some exercise and the knees badly needed some movement getting back into them so I headed for the Salford mosses for a walk. I headed out late lunchtime, the idea being to be at Little Woolden Moss late in the day to see if any owls were about.

Irlam Moss

Robin, Irlam Moss

Astley Road was busy with both birds and traffic. It was good to see the Zinnia Drive spadgers out in good numbers again. Small mixed tit flocks bounced through the hedgerows but there weren't many finches about, just a couple of goldfinches and a chaffinch. Robins and blackbirds quietly got on with their foraging, and just as quietly checked me out to make sure I wasn't anything to worry about.

Grey partridge, Irlam Moss

A flock of sixty-odd black-headed gulls landed but didn't settle on the freshly tilled field over by Roscoe Road. At any given time there were more in the air than on the ground. A couple of lesser black-backs came in, landed and were off again in minutes. As I was watching the gulls I became aware that the line of molehills in the grassy field in front were moving. It took a couple of minutes before the first orange face of an adult bird reassured me that I was right in identifying them as grey partridges, the stripey-faced young birds puzzling me a bit. There were ten birds, at least three of which were adults.

Grey partridges, Irlam Moss

Grey partridge, Irlam Moss

Grey partridge, Irlam Moss

It's always nice to get a good view of a covey of grey partridges as they're going about their business, I don't get to see them nearly often enough. It came as a surprise, then, to look across the other side of the road and see, a couple of fields away, another thirteen partridges feeding with a couple of carrion crows and some woodpigeons.

The black-headed gulls eventually settled and were joined by more birds until in the end the flock was more than a hundred strong. They were still very skittish, no more so than when I had to pass close by near the Jack Russell's gate.

Black-headed gulls, Irlam Moss

The field by Prospect Grange was littered with pheasants and yet another covey of partridges, just four birds this time, were dozing over on the far side.

I'd barely crossed the motorway bridge when I bumped into another mixed tit flock, this one apparently all long-tailed tits and great tits. Flocks of black-headed gulls and starlings fed on the fields behind Woodstock Farm, the fields by the road were deserted.

Chat Moss 

Turning at Four Lanes End I could see a group of birdwatchers in the trees near the car park by Little Woolden Moss. I couldn't work out what they were looking at, I could see a couple of crows, some lesser black-backs passed overhead and a great black-back steamed over and headed towards Pennington Flash. Then I noticed the marsh harrier floating over one of the distant fields and assumed that was what they were looking at. It was only when I was nearly on them that I spotted a barn owl rise from the rough grazing on the other side of the field by the path and billow its way towards Olive Mount Farm before suddenly going to ground. It was a good three minutes before it floated back up again and followed the line of the hedge beside Astley Road before disappearing again.

Little Woolden Moss 

Up til now there had been a few showers of rain but nothing major and they had quickly blown over even if the clouds were dark. Walking into Little Woolden Moss the sky darkened and there was a good twenty minutes of filthy weather. The quickest escape route was to walk through the reserve and on into Glazebrook so that's precisely what I did. The rain came and went as the wind blew and it was sometimes the heaviest when hints of sunshine were showing through. I couldn't see any birds on the pools except the usual family of carrion crows. Possibly the same marsh harrier I saw earlier flew far over the reserve and drifted over the fields on Mosslands Farm. After another burst of filthy weather a buzzard flew low overhead heading towards the trees by Little Woolden Hall, pursued by mobbing meadow pipits and linnets.

Little Woolden Moss 

Little Woolden Moss 

The unfamiliar squeak I heard as I walked past the birch scrub turned out not to be the branches in the wind but the flight calls of fieldfares. There was a steady flow of small groups of fieldfares, none more than a dozen birds, heading from all points to the woods by the motorway.

By Little Woolden Hall 

As the sun disappeared I heard buzzards and mallards by the Glaze and only saw the Canada geese I kept hearing because they decided to fly over the river to the field behind Little Woolden Hall.

Glazebrook 

I walked down Holcroft Lane into Glazebury in the gloomy twilight. The walk would have been fine had all the drivers remembered to dip not dazzle, as it was I had to stop every so often to reset my night vision. I just missed the train from Glazebrook to Irlam so I got the next train to Birchwood and from there caught the train home.

It hadn't been the most productive walk across the mosses but the highlights had been splendid.