Mosses

Twelve Yards Road 

It was a busy morning and by the time the errands were completed I was ready to sit down with a pot of tea and a book for the rest of the day but it was far too nice a day to waste indoors. Needless to say the clouds rolled in as I waited for the train to Irlam but I'd put my boots on so I was going for a walk.

Irlam Moss 

As luck would have it, most of the clouds carried on rolling and by the time the train arrived at Irlam it was crisp and bright. Astley Road was bustling with house sparrows, goldfinches and woodpigeons. As I left town the turf fields were peppered with magpies. I looked in vain for partridges, if they were about they were more likely in the rough the other side of Roscoe Road, but I found a couple of cock pheasants in the field margins. The usual kestrel did its tour of the trees and telegraph poles around the fields. Overhead carrion crows and black-headed gulls commuted between mosses. As I walked along the road great tits, goldfinches and robins pottered about in the hedgerows with rather a lot of blackbirds and a mixed flock of chaffinches and greenfinches flitted about in the trees at the top of Roscoe Road. I was guilty of overlooking the dunnocks so one sat atop the high clipped hedge at Worsley View and shouted at me until I looked its way.

I crossed the motorway and found more turf fields peppered with magpies and a tiny flock of starlings while the carrion crows accompanied the horses in the paddocks across the road. Just as it occurred to me that I hadn't seen a buzzard yet this afternoon one floated low across the road, over the turf and beyond the motorway. I wish I could generate coincidences like that on purpose. A couple more crows strutted about with the sheep.

Chat Moss 

The hedgerows beyond the stables were busy. A mixed tit flock bounced about in the trees, it was the long-tailed tits flitting to and fro across the road that caught my attention. Goldfinches, greenfinches, dunnocks and robins accompanied the flock. Down on the ground the blackbirds were joined by song thrushes. I thought I heard siskins, dismissed the thought then found a flock of them fidgeting about in one of the few alder trees along this stretch.

Song thrush

Nearing Four Lanes End I could see groups of people walking up and down Lavender Lane, presumably looking for short-eared owls. The good thing is they were looking like people just having a walk and taking the time to enjoy the scenery. When the owls are about they don't mind that and will sometimes show very well. And if they're not, they won't. Today was a day when an owl was about, I hadn't even got to Four Lanes End when I saw a movement on the far side of the field as I was taking a photo of a hovering kestrel in the low Winter sun. I took a few photos of rough pasture as the short-eared owl flew a couple of feet over the ground, rose over a ridge in the field, banked then shot over Lavender Lane, through the trees and out of my sight. When I got to Lavender Lane I couldn't pick the owl up again but found another kestrel hunting over the other field.

Kestrel

Twelve Yards Road 

I headed down Twelve Yards Road as the sun set. Woodpigeons and magpies headed for roost, pheasants chunnered at each other in the fields. A steady traffic of herring gulls and lesser black-backs flew North to roost somewhere or other. One herring gull was dwarfed by the great black-back flying in tandem with it. Further along there were tantalising hints of small birds muttering in the hedgerows and a handful of greenfinches flew from the trees into the willow plantations. A couple of kestrels hovered over fields that to my eyes were shadows. Unseen mallards quacked loudly from hidden pools.

Chat Moss 

Blackbirds and robins had one last roadside rummage in the twilight as I walked down Cutnook Lane and a couple of wrens had one last song before bedtime. I was dead lucky and only had to wait five minutes for the 100 bus to Irlam Station and the train home.