Irlam Moss

Swallows, Irlam Moss

It was a mild, sunny morning and I didn't much feel like doing anything. As I was brewing a pot of tea I counted the magpies across the road. This time of year the teenage gang of magpies on the school playing field is usually a dozen to eighteen birds, twenty being unusual. This month thirty-odd has been the norm, this morning there were forty of them out there.

I didn't want to waste a mild, sunny day, not with wet and windy on the horizon, so I sort of drifted over to Irlam for a short walk just so I could say to myself that I'd been out to play while the weather was fine. The first blackcap of Spring was singing at Humphrey Park Station. Luckily it repeated itself so I could make sure I'd got the identification right (blackcaps have robin-like phrases, garden warblers — which won't be due for a couple of weeks anyway — have blackbird-like phrases but one of the local robins has a few blackcap-like phrases in the run-up to a song that have made me stop and think a couple of times.)

Walking down Astley Road the Zinnia Drive spadgers were in full voice, as were the singing wrens and robins. The hawthorns were bristling with blue tits, great tits, goldfinches and blackbirds, a buzzard called from the trees over by Roscoe Road and the fields were busy with woodpigeons. A couple of swallows were perched on the telephone wires beside the road, a confirmation of the Spring promised by the chiffchaff singing by the Jack Russell's gate. A skylark was singing above the field opposite the gate and there were more on the field flitting about amongst the browsing woodpigeons. They took a lot of finding on the ground, they were almost invisible in the grass; the couple of meadow pipits that flew in did an even better disappearing act. Especially when the male kestrel flew by.

Magpie, Irlam Moss

Further along chaffinches and greenfinches joined the songs in the hedgerows. I kept eyes and ears open for yellowhammers but had no joy, I'm really struggling to find them on the mosses these days. I hope it's just my bad luck and not a population crash. I had more luck with pheasants, there were at least two to every field. The field next to the motorway looks to be being kept fallow and has a nice carpet of red dead nettle in flower across it. A couple of pairs of lapwings seemed to be looking it over to see if it would suit. Five mallards flew low over the field going from God knows where to who knows?

Roscoe Road

I didn't want much of a walk so I turned and headed down Roscoe Road and back into Irlam. A song thrush sang from one of the trees and a couple of long-tailed tits bounced by in the hedgerow. The birdsong was non-stop, any time one bird stopped to take a breath another would step in. Aside from the song thrush the robins and blackbirds were the main contenders with backing vocals from great tits, wrens and chaffinches.

I checked the bus times: I had half an hour to wait for the 100 to the Trafford Centre and if I walked back to the station I'd have an hour to wait for the train home. I decided to walk down to Irlam Locks and go over to Flixton for the bus home. It doubled the walk but it was better than kicking my heels while the clouds rolled in.

Walking down Cadishead Way (never a joy) I noticed a sudden eruption of pigeons rise over the locks. The cause soon became apparent: a sparrowhawk cruising by in hunting mode. I noticed three smaller birds going the other way, they turned out to be three more swallows. 

As I crossed the lock a cormorant preened as it sat on a lamppost, a mute swan cruised the canal upstream and three mallards were swimming downstream towards the railway bridge. I was barely across when a flock of sand martins came twittering overhead, wheeled around the water treatment works a few times and went on their way. The starlings and magpies on the filtration pans were joined by a couple of pied wagtails and a grey wagtail.

Walking down Irlam Road into Flixton mallards and Canada geese loafed by the canal bank, a heron flew upstream and the hedgerows were noisy with house sparrows, wrens and robins. I'd had a bit of exercise despite myself and was glad to get the bus home just as the weather started blowing for rain.

Irlam Moss