Mosses

Female common darter, New Moss Wood

In contrast to yesterday today was very Late Summer, and so was the birdwatching on the Salford mosses. In fact it was so quiet it could have been July, for large parts of the afternoon it was just me and masses of dragonflies and woodpigeons.

It hadn't been the original plan. I was aiming for Pennington Flash but as my bus was pulling into the Trafford Centre bus station the Leigh bus was pulling out and I didn't fancy hanging round for at least half an hour for the Wigan bus or messing about getting onto a Bolton bus and trying to make a connection to Leigh. So bus station bingo got me on the 100 to Irlam and I was soon wandering up Cutnook Lane on a very pleasant sunny afternoon.

Cutnook Lane 

There were plenty of carrion crows and magpies in the paddocks and turf fields by Cutnook Lane. Nearly all the woodpigeons — and they were many — were in the stubble fields along Twelve Yards Road. The hedgerows were dead quiet, a couple of robins singing to set up Winter territories, a couple of squeaky chiffchaffs and the slightly more upbeat call of a willow warbler. The mallards and coots on the fishery could be heard but not seen. As I neared Twelve Yards Road a small flock of goldfinches twittered through the birches by one side of the road and a buzzard drifted across the rough pasture on the other.

Black darter, Chat Moss 

Reaching open country at the junction with Twelve Yards Road coincided with a crowd of black darters fluttering round and jostling for basking spots in the sun. There'd been a few common darters patrolling the bracken tops along Cutnook Lane and there were a good few here, too, but they were very outnumbered by the black darters. The differences between the two beyond their colouring was striking: the common darters looking robust and tending to zip about, the black darters looking small and delicate and tending to flutter. When the light caught them the male black darters were rich, dark steel blue to the common darters' coppery reds; the females were less dramatically different, the black darters coppery olive greens and the common darters bright shades of russet and straw yellow.

Chat Moss

Walking down to the end of the path I looked out over Croxden's Moss. A family of carrion crows fossicked about on the moss. High overhead lesser black-backs and a buzzard soared and a couple of house martins flew by. For a long time it looked like they were going to be the only hirundines for the day.

Chat Moss 

I turned onto the path that runs parallel to Twelve Yards Road and walked in an eerie quiet. At first there was just the distant calls of crows and clattering of flying woodpigeons. It was so quiet I could hear dragonflies landing on nettle leaves, which was a bit disconcerting at first. I could have hugged the first squeaking chiffchaff. Speckled woods and large whites fluttered about, a wren and a great tit added to the variety in the trees. A scan over the pools was disappointing, where a month ago there was a carpet of lapwings today there was a moorhen and a little egret. A common hawker was the only large dragonfly here today and it spent most of its time hunting in the canopy of the trees by the path.

Chat Moss 

I walked round onto Twelve Yards Road and down to Little Woolden Moss. A flock of a dozen stock doves flew in very tight formation to join the woodpigeons in the field by the road. The kestrel family was in residence at Four Lanes End, the female on the telephone line one side of Lavender Lane, the male on the other and the juvenile a bit further behind him sharing a telegraph pole with a woodpigeon. A young buzzard was given a crow escort out of their territory.

Chat Moss 

Robins sang, chiffchaffs squeaked and I had to tiptoe round the darters by the car park at Little Woolden Moss. The moss was in one of its quieter moods, there was literally only the one mallard and nothing else on the pools. Even the usual lunatic posse of juvenile pied wagtails was not to be found. A few woodpigeons and carrion crows passed overhead. It's only as I'm writing this I realised no gulls did.

Little Woolden Moss 

I looked over into the bit of heathland between the pools and the fields along Astley Road, hoping to spot a hobby sitting on a dead tree they seem to favour. A woodpigeon sat on the tree but behind it, a field away, a hobby flew low over the trees before descending into the fields behind. A few minutes' walking later I looked back and saw the hobby evict the woodpigeon so it could land and eat a large dragonfly before flying off on the next hunt.

This chap was walking across the road. I think it's Poecilus cupreus.
  

New Moss Road was busy with robins, goldfinches and woodpigeons and half a dozen swallows hawked about the roadside stables. As I was checking out the swallows I noticed, very high overhead, a passing great black-back heading towards the Mersey.

New Moss Wood 

The chance of a sit down was much of the attraction of New Moss Wood and I shared a bench with half a dozen common darters. I keep forgetting the macro setting on this camera's dead straightforward, I remembered to give it a try this time.

Male common darter, New Moss Wood 

Female common darter, New Moss Wood 

Male and female common darters, New Moss Wood

Female common darter, New Moss Wood 

Chiffchaffs, wrens and great tits called and goldfinches and greenfinches twittered overhead. The usual buzzard lumbered through the ride I was sitting in before heading for the field beyond the wood. A Southern hawker was patrolling the path out of the wood.

New Moss Wood 

I walked past the allotments to Irlam Station. The mixed tit flock in the trees by the allotment outnumbered the small birds I'd seen or heard in the wood. I had half an hour to wait for the train home. A sparrowhawk put the fear of God into the local great tits but left empty-handed.