New Moss Wood

New Moss Wood 

It was another muggy day, I decided on a wander on the Salford mosses because I really couldn't be bothered with going further afield. 

The local mistle thrush hasn't been much in evidence lately so it was a surprise to have it in full song by the station. I got off the train at Irlam and walked through the allotments to Moss Road, accompanied by the songs of robins, blackbirds, wrens and dunnocks. The clouds were rolling in and as I got to the dry duck pond on the allotments it started to rain. And stopped almost immediately. The blackest cloud sped to the East, I was walking westward, I kept my fingers crossed that the dark grey clouds ahead would behave themselves. Which they did.

As the allotments met the railway line blackcaps and chiffchaffs started singing from the embankment. All the warblers have given up on the stretch of line back home. Allotments on one side of the line and a tree nursery on the other probably makes for an easier living.

It got warmer and muggier and my hayfever started kicking in as I crossed the railway bridge. A sneeze startled a song thrush into song. The robins, wrens and blackbirds were already busy singing and the screeching of swifts added to the background music. Swallows hawked low over the barley fields and skylarks rose and sang  I hadn't walked far when the first whitethroat sang from a bush by the roadside.

By Moss Lane

The hayfever was hitting me hard for the first time this year and I was completely unprepared for it. I'd only brought an orange drink with me — take the word of one who knows, you don't want to rinse out gummy eyes with orange juice. That lesson was learned many years ago. I decided that a walk around New Moss Wood might give me a bit of respite from the barley pollen and a chance to regroup and get my act together.

Walking into the wood

Walking through to the wood every bramble patch had its whitethroat and a couple of them had hungry mouths to feed judging by the beakfuls of caterpillars they were carting round. 

New Moss Wood 

Hogweed 

Blackbirds, blackcaps, chiffchaffs and wrens sang in the trees. Dunnocks sang along the rides, goldfinches twittered and sang in the birch scrub. The movements in the trees by the rides were mostly robins about to burst into song, every so often they would be a great tit silently gleaning from the leaves. Magpies and woodpigeons clattered about and there was a constant traffic of jackdaws overhead, each one sounding like a crowd scene. There was a sudden silence as a kestrel flew by at treetop height.

Red admiral

There weren't many butterflies about and they all red admirals and brimstones. A few common blue damselflies zipped about at ankle height, a couple of four-spotted chasers shot through nettle patches. As I passed a stand of alders with a thick hawthorn understory a garden warbler broke into song. A willow warbler singing was the cue for the path I was following to turn the corner to meet the boggy open patch near the road. The reeds and cotton grass were evidence that most of the time this is a boggy patch, there wasn't a lot of wet mud about.

Cotton grass

I sidestepped the passing swallows and walked back to the road. The skylarks were still singing over the barley and woodpigeons were doing their display flights. A passage of lesser black-backs heading for the Mersey at Woolston Eyes was just picking up. Way over the fields a kestrel was hovering over Astley Road.

Can't think why I'd be troubled with hayfever

Much to my disgust I gave up and walked into Cadishead to get the bus back. The first big hayfever attack of the year is always the worst. For the next month or so if you see me I'll be the one with the nostrils full of Vaseline.