Risley Moss

Magpie, Risley Moss

After another wild and woolly night the wind calmed down a lot and the sun assayed a bit of shining. I'd had a very bad night's sleep so I thought I'd take the new camera for a walk but stick relatively near to hand. I've not been round Risley Moss since Adam was a lad, I keep going past it, I decided I'd go and have a nosey.

Waiting at the station I watched as the clouds rolled in from the West. The sky was a blank grey as I got off the train at Birchwood, turned right from the station, walked a little way then joined the path through Birchwood Forest Park.

Birchwood Forest Park 

Robins sang in the hedgerows and blackbirds rummaged round in the leaf litter by the path. A mixed tit flock was mostly blue tits and great tits with a couple of goldcrests and a coal tit. One of the goldcrests sat for this camera's first "There was a warbler there a moment ago" photo. I tried and failed to get portraits of a flock of siskins bouncing through the alders, the only times they stayed still enough for a photo they were in silhouette with a lot of twiggy stuff behind them. I was already learning just how much muscle memory I would have to unlearn: groping for handholds that aren't there, reaching forward to zoom a lens that wasn't there, compensating for front-heavy weight that wasn't there. I was still using the camera as a point-and-shoot but soon decided to change a couple of the settings. Switching off the automatic ISO setting really made a difference: I was finding it impossible to manage the depth of focus of any of the photos. I'll be taking a lot of ropey photos over the next few days as I get to grips with the new toy.

Great spotted woodpecker, Birchwood Forest Park

A bit further along I bumped into another mixed flock of blue tits and chaffinches and another, very skittish, flock of siskins. A great spotted woodpecker flew over and started drumming in the treetops by the path. I've been thinking it's been a quiet Winter for redwings so it was nice to see a flock fly low overhead. I've no idea where the five mallards flying through the park came from.

Birchwood Forest Park 

The sun came out as the path turned and followed the perimeter fence of Risley Moss. Magpies and jays chased each other through the trees, I suspect they were reinforcing pecking orders within the pirate class. A flock of blue tits and long-tailed tits bounced through a stand of trees half a dozen bullfinches were busily disbudding.

It was quieter inside Risley Moss than it had been in the trees along its perimeter. There were plenty of robins and blackbirds but it took a while to bump into the first tit flock. Chaffinches skittered about in the undergrowth away from passing dog walkers, nuthatches played hide and seek in the trees.

Risley Moss 

There was literally nothing doing at the Mosslands Hide, not even any passing woodpigeons or carrion crows.

I walked round and sat at the hide by the feeders to see what would be coming in for supper. For a while it was only a squirrel and a couple of chaffinches. Eventually a couple of great tits came in, they were the vanguard of a large mixed flock — blue, coal, great and long-tailed tits — that kept a surprisingly low profile. One or two birds at a time would fly out, grab something from one of the feeders and retreat back into cover. The long-tailed tits and a great spotted woodpecker favoured a dead branch that had been loaded with suet.

Risley Moss 

I dawdled round for an hour or so, completed the circuit as the sun set and had a twilight walk back through Birchwood Forest Park to the station. There were a lot of robins — I counted twenty-six singing birds — and blackbirds. Overhead small groups of carrion crows flew in to roost. There were so many of these small groups I became sure I was misidentifying a flock of rooks but when I got to the tree they were roosting in there they were, thirty-two carrion crows and not a rook or jackdaw among them.