Damp Saturday

Irlam Moss

The plan was a good plan and probably would have been a successful plan but for me and the weather. The rot probably set in when I checked the tide times and concluded I'd best get the lunchtime train to Liverpool to get to Hoylake about an hour before high tide so I could catch the waders coming in and, perhaps, if I was very, very lucky, there might be the chance of a passing Leach's petrel. It was a good plan, it wasn't its fault I felt lukewarm about travelling far on a Saturday. Once I got going it would be different. On the plus side it was a sunny morning. And continued to be so right up to the point I arrived at the station. There's even less shelter at the station than there used to be as the rickety metal shelter thing with no sides fell to pieces a month ago. When the train arrived the best part of quarter of an hour late I was very, very wet and thoroughly demoralised.

I was on the train, where was I going? The good thing about having no ticket facilities at the station is that you don't have to commit yourself to going anywhere until you do. After much havering about I got off at Birchwood. It had stopped raining but still looked ominous, I'd have a quick nosy at Birchwood Forest Park and get a train back. At least that way I'd get some exercise and a bit of birdwatching in.

Woolston Moss 

As the train pulled into Birchwood Woolston Moss was peppered with woodpigeons and black-headed gulls. There were plenty of woodpigeons grazing the grass verges of Birchwood, mostly accompanied by the rattle of magpies and the songs of robins in the trees.

Birchwood Forest Park 

Birchwood Forest Park was quiet of people and busy with birds. Blackbirds scuttled about the verges, magpies and woodpigeons seemed to be everywhere and there were some fair-sized mixed tit flocks about. I was alerted to their passing by the calls of great tits but none of the birds, even the coal tits, were particularly shy. I was trying to get photos of the second, larger, flock and was being defeated by their being so busy and the leaf cover so dense when they all went quiet and hid. Overhead, at treetop height, two magpies escorted a sparrowhawk off their patch. The tit flock re-emerged and was joined by a handful of chaffinches which set about the cones at the top of an alder.

When I got back to the station the sun came out so I decided to get off at Irlam and go for a walk on Irlam Moss. If weather and mood allowed I could carry on onto Chat Moss but I was dubious of both.

Irlam Moss 

It was cool but sunny as I walked down Astley Road and there was a definite edge to the wind. A chiffchaff sang in the church garden as I passed by. The Zinnia Close spadgers muttered in the hedgerows and robins and woodpigeons sang in the trees. The fields of turf were empty, or so I thought until a cock pheasant walked into plain view then disappeared into a clump of cow parsley at the field edge. A cock sparrowhawk soared overhead and drifted over into town. His departure was the cue for a flock of goldfinches to fly up twittering into the trees.

Astley Road 

The wind got up and I was showered by conkers. It was blowing for rain and I could smell rain in the air so I had an idea it might rain. Which it did do when I got to the Jack Russell's gate. It was a sudden downpour which stopped as abruptly as it started. The male kestrel on his usual perch on the telephone wires above the field looked browned off with the weather, too.

The weather brightened considerably as the rain clouds scudded over towards Urmston. There was a passage of swallows, all of them heading West. A scan over the rough pasture between Prospect Grange and the motorway didn't even find me any woodpigeons. There were plenty of starlings on the communications tower by the motorway bridge, though, and a handful of house martins flew West over the road here.

Roscoe Road 

I decided not to cross over and walk over Chat Moss. The knees were creaking and I had a feeling I might be pushing my luck. I turned and headed down Roscoe Road. There were woodpigeons and carrion crows aplenty on the fields beyond the turf fields but literally nothing on the turf itself. A few black-headed gulls flew over, accompanied by a handful of very vocal jackdaws. I wondered why everything was flying West. The fields between Roscoe Road and Astley Road were a little better, robins and dunnocks in the rough pasture at the junction, chiffchaffs and great tits in the trees, and magpies rummaging about in the field stripped of turf, but again the fields covered in turf were barren.

I can forgive myself not spotting this grey partridge first time

I scanned all the field margins for any grey partridges and found none. I was disappointed but not surprised, there was plenty of cover for them. I'd almost reached the housing estate when I stopped to try and work out what a crowd of carrion crows and jackdaws were doing in the far corner of a field of barley stubble. It turned out they were having a bath, though they spent more time striking poses and bickering than bathing. The light was interesting so I got my camera out to take some landscape photos and in doing so I noticed a dark lump in the field about ten yards in front of me. The grey partridge looked up, looked at me and put its head down and pretended to be a rock.

Irlam Moss from Roscoe Road 

A few more swallows shot past as I reached the housing estate. I walked down to Liverpool Road and got the 100 back to the Trafford Centre and made an easy connection with the 25 for once. I'd just brewed a cup of tea when the thunderstorm started.