Cob Kiln Wood

Buzzard

I didn't want to not do anything with a fine Autumn day but I didn't want to trust much to public transport so I thought I'd bob over and have a wander round Irlam Moss just to get a bit of exercise and see what's about. So the train to Irlam was cancelled. I could wait two hours for the next one, I could give up or I could just drift somewhere, which is how I ended up at Cob Kiln Wood.

By Old Eeas Brook 

The wood was livening up for the Autumn with robins and woodpigeons singing and great tits calling at the Torbay Road entrance. Long-tailed tits bounced around in the willows by the bridge over Old Eeas Brook with a couple of blue tits. The brook was high after the recent rains and somebody had taken a strimmer to a long length of the bank. If they were intending to eradicate the Himalayan balsam they've left it twenty years too late. 

Cob Kiln Wood 

The path was muddy but negotiable and I passed blackbirds and wrens as they fossicked about in the dogwoods and elders. I stopped and tried to pick out the runners and riders in a mixed tit flock working its way through the willow scrub. The great tits and long-tailed tits made themselves known quite readily, the blue tits were quieter and it took me an age to find the treecreeper working its way up and down the birch saplings behind the willows.

The path through the clearing is lined with comfrey

Passing through into the electricity pylon clearing I was surprised to see large whites skittering about the balsams and speckled woods sunning themselves as best could in the grey light. Needless to say, the first sign of my camera and they were away. There was a steady traffic of woodpigeons and jackdaws overhead, a great spotted woodpecker flew across the clearing and a couple of ring-necked parakeets called from the trees by the fields beyond.

Buzzards

I could hear a buzzard calling but wasn't sure if it was just the one bird or two. As I got to the middle of the clearing the three buzzards slowly wheeled overhead. One was distinctly smaller than the other two, at first I thought it was just higher up but then it swapped places with one of the others and was still smaller. Presumably a small male with two well-built ladies. I negotiated the very muddy stretch of path to the exit and looked back to see if I could get all three of the birds into the frame for a photo without their just being small dots and found it was now four buzzards slowly wheeling high over towards Urmston.

Cob Kiln Wood 

The joints were aching and I didn't like the look of the clouds rolling in so I decided to mollycoddle myself and just wander down Cob Kiln Lane into Urmston. Woodpigeons and magpies clattered about, robins and chiffchaffs sang, a couple of chaffinches picked and a wren scolded me off its territory. I just reached the stables when it started raining, it was heavy by the time I got to Stretford Road so I called it quits, I'd only just dried off after Thursday.

Cob Kiln Lane