Mosses

Marsh harrier, Chat Moss

It was a bright Spring day in early February so I went for a walk on the Salford mosses. I got the late-running lunchtime train to Irlam and set off up Astley Road. It was a bright, sunny day but there was a keen edge to the wind blowing in from the West.

Irlam Moss 

The hedgerows were mostly quiet, most of the action was in the big trees by the bend in the road where a small flock of goldfinches coincided with a mixed tit flock. A dozen black-headed gulls flew about the field over by Roscoe Road but didn't settle. A few woodpigeons clattered about in the hawthorns and a female kestrel pounced on something in the field margins and evidently missed, returning back to its tree to start looking for the next meal.

Along Astley Road 

The hedgerows by the Jack Russell's gate and Prospect Grange were dead quiet and the fields empty of birdlife. I got to the motorway and looked over the fields behind Worsley View Farm. A dozen lapwings loafed in the middle of one of the fields with a few woodpigeons busily feeding around them.

Long-tailed tits, Chat Moss

Over the motorway and it was more of the same, largely empty fields and hedgerows and large trees busy with goldfinches, long-tailed tits and blue tits. A pair of mistle thrushes sat in the tree by one of the farmhouses. One flew down onto the field margins and I reminded myself I'm still learning how to use the new camera as I tried — and failed — to persuade it to focus on the bird out in the open not the foliage in the foreground.

Just the one pied wagtail on the turf field was unusually thin pickings.

Can you spot the short-eared owl? Chat Moss

I got to Four Lanes End and walked down Lavender Lane. A lump on the ground over on the other side of the field caught my eye and turned out to be a short-eared owl. A chap walked up and let on (hello Colin) and we scanned the field together. It wasn't long before we found a second short-eared owl sitting in the middle of the field and we spent a while watching the two owls going about their business and occasionally sparring when they got too close to one another. My inexperience with the new camera really came to the fore, I couldn't get a single photo. I'm going to have to go back to the manual and re-read the section on manual focussing.

Further out we found out what had kept disturbing the flock of jackdaws in the birch scrub as a male marsh harrier drifted into sight. A second harrier was further out near the wind turbine. Further yet a small skein of pink-footed geese took off from the fields and headed towards Glazebury.

I took my leave and headed off for Twelve Yards Road, I didn't fancy heading for the crowd watching the owls from the parking spot by Little Woolden Moss.

I hadn't gone far when a female marsh harrier flew over the road and flushed a dozen pheasants from the stubble by the Lombardy poplars.

Chat Moss 

At first sight the open fields looked fairly empty. A few carrion crows and magpies worked the margins and a pair of mallards dozed in a big puddle. Looking more closely into the stubble I could see there were fieldfares and starlings about and I could hear skylarks. Suddenly a cloud of small birds shot up from one of the fields and wheeled about. The cause was a female merlin which barrelled its way across the field and exited stage left empty-handed. There were a couple of dozen fieldfares and perhaps a dozen each of starlings and skylarks. The flock of about eighty linnets separated from the rest and settled in a patch of taller stubble down the field. None of them were much fussed by a buzzard which had been patrolling the field margins over on the far side before drifting over to the woodland.

Buzzard, Chat Moss

Twelve Yards Road

It had been an insanely picturesque afternoon and the low light shining from behind me lit up the hedgerows and hawthorns and made up for the fact that the birds seemed to be shunning them. A young kestrel was hunting the coroner by the junction with Cutnook Lane.

Kestrel, Chat Moss

Chat Moss 

I turned left and walked up through the bit of woodland to have a scan over the pools through the birch scrub. I couldn't see anything on the pools but could hear coots somewhere over that way. A song thrush started singing in the scrub next to me as I was looking round.

The walk down Cutnook Lane was fairly quiet. Goldfinches, long-tailed tits and great tits settled down for the night in the hedgerows, coots squabbled on the fishery and carrion crows came in to roost in the treetops. It had been a very agreeable few hours' dawdle.

Chat Moss