Mosses

Carrion crows

Yesterday had been a long and busy day, a consolation being that it poured down so I wasn't day-dreaming about the walk(s) what I could have done. (The other consolation being that the agèd relative's eye operation went well.) Today the sun spent the morning playing peek-a-boo before descending into a day of perpetual twilight. I toyed with the idea of trying to do the visit to Leighton Moss that failed the other day but I was just too tired after yesterday and the temptation to sit in the warm listening to the cricket was too strong.

Stumps drawn I dragged myself over to Irlam to get some exercise. I wasn't convinced the weather was going to behave itself so I thought I'd just have a walk on Irlam Moss — up Astley Road and down Roscoe Road — unless the weather perked up a bit. Looking at the clouds the strong, cold wind was scudding over I didn't see much hope of that.

There were no spadgers on Astley Road. I've been told there was some unpleasantness about a lady's garden bird feeders which sounds to have been both unnecessary and inexcusable. 

Astley Road 

All told there wasn't much about until I got to the fields where a few woodpigeons and blackbirds were still finding hawthorn berries in the hedgerow. A small flock of half a dozen chaffinches twittered across the treetops. Carrion crows and black-headed gulls fed on the turf fields and a cock pheasant ran across the grass between hedgerows. A kestrel was sitting on the usual length of telegraph lines, in the murk I wasn't sure if it was a female or an immature bird. 

A mixed tit flock and two blackbirds 

I bumped into a mixed tit flock at the Jack Russell's gate, long-tailed tits and blue tits bouncing through the trees and great tits skulking in the undergrowth, which isn't the usual dynamic. Oddly, I didn't see or hear a single robin. I thought I was meeting another tit flock at the junction with Roscoe Road then I realised the flock I'd seen was doing a circuit: up one side of the road and back down on the other. A single redwing accompanied the blackbirds along this stretch. Couples of goldfinches and greenfinches passed overhead but didn't stop.

Roscoe Road 

The walk down Roscoe Road was very much quieter. A couple of carrion crows rummaged about in the fields by the road. Looking further out there were black-headed gulls and a common gull over by Springfield Lane and the police helicopter spooked a flock of gulls way over on Chat Moss.

On the hour, on the dot, it started pouring down. I headed back to Irlam Station, there'd be plenty of time for a cup of tea there while I waited for the train back. I got the buses home.