Black-tailed godwits, Leighton Moss

Thursday, 14 November 2024

Mosses

Kestrel, Chat Moss 

"Don't think you're going to be idling away a nice sunny day like this do you?" I asked myself, though it was evident I had ambitions in that direction. I stirred myself for an afternoon stroll across the Irlam mosses, got the late-running train to Irlam and soon found myself walking up Astley Road.

By Astley Road 

I'd hoped I'd timed my visit in the gap between the lunchtime traffic and the school run but Astley Road was very busy today. The hedgerows were fitfully busy, mostly with goldfinches.

Sparrowhawk, Irlam Moss
Often the last thing a small bird will see.

The appearance of a sparrowhawk was the cue for a lot of kerfuffle and twitterings of hitherto silent and invisible blue tits, chaffinches and house sparrows. The hawk landed in a bush to catch its breath for a moment before launching off to terrorise small birds further down the road.

Grey partridges, Irlam Moss
There are two of them here.

Astley Road being such a terrible road combining potholes and mad cambers with the stability of the Wibbly Wobbly Way I always step off onto the verge to allow vehicles to pass by with a fighting chance of not wrecking their suspension. I was standing to one side waiting for a lorry to pass and wondering why the driver had to stop every ten yards and get out of the cab (I concluded that his piles hurt) when I noticed something odd about one of the clods of earth in the nearby field. Once I spotted that one grey partridge hunkered down for cover I quickly spotted the other seven in the covey.

Astley Road 

Approaching the Jack Russell's gate 

A flock of fieldfares headed North, woodpigeons and jackdaws came and went and a couple of kestrels hunted over the fields. A hundred or so black-headed gulls loafed on the field behind Worsley View and a buzzard flew low over the field by Prospect Grange.

Chat Moss
That black line is a flock of starlings.

Sheep are grazing the turf field on the other side of the motorway. At the far side of the field a couple of hundred black-headed gulls loafed and danced for worms. A similar number of starlings stretched out like a crocodile of schoolchildren across the middle of the field and twenty-odd pied wagtails skittered and chased between the sheep.

Astley Road 

A large flock of goldfinches plundered the birch and alder catkins in the roadside trees, blackbirds sought the last of the hawthorn and rowan berries, and robins and wrens rummaged about, only stopping to tell me to be off on my way.

Lavender Lane 

I wandered down Lavender Lane checking the rough pasture on either side for short-eared owls without any luck. I didn't have any luck finding a barn owl along Twelve Yards Road either. There was plenty else about though. A male kestrel sat in a tree while another hovered over the field behind it. There were more than two hundred jackdaws in the field immediately to the North of Twelve Yards Road, accompanied by a couple of dozen each of carrion crows, rooks and magpies, a snipe, three skylarks and a covey of half a dozen grey partridges. The hedgerows were noisy with jays and magpies while robins, wrens, chaffinches and bullfinches started to settle into roost. 

Twelve Yards Road

Twelve Yards Road 

All at once all the jackdaws rose and flew over the road. I thought at first they were going to roost then I noticed the male sparrowhawk flying ahead of them. Sparrowhawks are fierce birds but two hundred jackdaws angrily pulling your tail must be a bit daunting. Once the sparrowhawk had been chased away the jackdaws returned to the field with a self-satisfied chorus of calls.

Cutnook Lane 

The sun was setting as I approached Cutnook Lane. Mallards flew from the fishery to roost in the pools to the North and woodpigeons flew to roosts on Barton Moss and Botany Bay Wood. My passage down the lane was marked by the calls of blackbirds, wrens and robins and the rattle of magpies as they settled down in the oak trees.

By Cutnook Lane 

A mist was already rolling in over the fields and I headed for the motorway bridge into Irlam and the bus to the Trafford Centre. It had been a quietly productive, and very picturesque, walk.

By Cutnook Lane 

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