Winter Hill

Winter Hill 

I had a yen to go hillwalking and for once I had enough sense to not set off on the ascent in the heat of the day. Thus it was mid-afternoon when I got off the 125 bus at Bottom o'th'Moor and had a nosy at the pool in the old quarry by the road. Just the two Muscovy ducks and a migrant hawker today.

The old quarry on Chorley Old Road 

It was a cloudless day and there was a nice breeze blowing as I walked up George's Road. Carrion crows, magpies and woodpigeons fossicked about in the fields, chiffchaffs squeaked, robins sang and great tits called from the trees. A couple of swallows skimmed the tops of the fields but weren't for stopping and were quickly on their way.

Georges Road and Wilderswood 

The road skirts Wilderswood, the robins and great tits in there being joined by dunnocks and a pheasant. A couple of ravens flew in and out of the trees before flying low over the houses at Montcliffe and disappearing into the quarry behind.

The path up the moor

I took the first path going up onto the moor. This one eventually leads to the Winter Hill access road just to the South of Two Lads. At first sight there was nothing about, I soon found the moor was fizzing with meadow pipits. Any time I accidentally flushed one mipit a dozen would take to the air, fly about for a minute then vanish into the grass and heather. The ravens emerged from the quarry and were shadowed from a distance by a rival family of ravens, four in all, and they all drifted over the rise and headed towards Burnt Edge. After that I'd hear their cronking but not see them.

As a little stream crossed the path I accidentally flushed a stonechat and a party of mipits that had been having a drink. I was trying to find where the nearest one had disappeared into the grass when something orange fluttered across my line of view. I managed to find it again and was surprised to see it was a large heath butterfly, I didn't know they could be found this high up.

The Winter Hill access road 

I walked up the access road to Winter Hill. There were lots more mipits about and a couple of carrion crows patrolled the moor, one of them returning each time to the same fencepost by Hole Bottom. I was hoping for sign or sound of red grouse but it wasn't my day for them today. The scenery was wonderful, the tops golden in the sunlight and the Lancashire and Cheshire plains shades of blue. A shimmer of light in the distance was the sun glistening on the sea by the Burbo Bank wind farm. Back before the Trafford Centre was built I could see Winter Hill from my house, I can still see my house from Winter Hill.

Looking over towards Bolton and Manchester 

You only appreciate how high the Winter Hill transmitter is when you realise that for the past half mile you've been telling yourself the compound is over the next rise. They were locking up and going home when I arrived. I scanned around, this time of year black redstarts pass by and sometimes hang about a bit here. There had been reports of a couple but all I was seeing were some mipits and a carrion crow. I spent a while admiring the scenery and checking for anything flying about on the moors. Looking back over the compound I thought I saw a couple of meadow pipits flying over the wire fence on the other side. Then I realised they didn't have a speck of white on their tails — the white tail margins on a meadow pipit are very conspicuous even at a distance. These birds were a hundred yards away and had uniformly dark tails. You've got to get fairly close or be lucky with the light to see the red properly on a black redstart, flying low in bright light against the sky they were almost in silhouette. They disappeared into the compound and all I could find after that were mipits and the carrion crow.

Looking over to Burnt Edge and beyond 

Rivington Pike 

I started the wander back down. At Hole Bottom I decided, reluctantly,  that I didn't have the legs for walking over Burnt Edge and on to Walker Fold. I've never walked down the access road to Georges Road so I decided I'd do that for a change. The sun was approaching the golden hour and the scenery was magnificent though I was glad when I'd dropped down enough to no longer be able to see the Manchester developers' follies glowing in the sunlight. Lots more mipits zipped about, carrion crows called, there was the distant cronking of ravens and a couple of kestrels hunted over tracts of heather moorland.

Kestrel, Hole Bottom
The only bird I managed to photograph up tops.

Rivington Pike (right) and Wilderswood 

Dropping down into Montcliffe the horses in the fields tiptoed round jackdaws and a charm of a few dozen goldfinches fed on the ragworts on the margins.

A charm of goldfinches, Montcliffe

I joined Georges Road and walked down, resisting the temptation to go for a wander in Wilderswood. A raven flew low overhead daring me to try to take its photo and dipping behind treetops whenever I tried. Down the hill I saw the bus back to Bolton pass by but I wasn't too perturbed, they're about every twenty minutes this time of day, it just meant the connection between the train from Bolton and my train home was a bit tighter than I'd like. As it was, for once it worked like a charm and I got home to the tail end of a fiery sunset.

Chorley and beyond