Mosses

Little Woolden Moss 

It was one of those days where it's sunny right up to the point where you put your coat on. I put my coat on anyway and went for a wander over the mosses, Irlam to Irlam via New Moss Wood, Little Woolden Moss and Chat Moss.

I got the train to Irlam and walked through the allotments to Moss Road. Spring was definitely in the air, with goldfinches, greenfinches, great tits, robins, starlings and house sparrows in full song. Overhead a dozen lesser black-backs milled about and made a shocking racket doing so. They spent at least the next hour drifting around this way over Irlam and Cadishead and I've no idea why unless it's their equivalent of the teenage magpie disco fevers you see in school playing fields and parks this time of year.

The redpoll was not for cooperating with the photographer

There was more birdsong coming from the hedgerows along the path on the other side of Moss Road so I wandered down as far as the bridge over the old railway junction to see what was about. Greenfinches and dunnocks were doing the singing in the hedgerows with backing vocals from blackbirds, robins, goldfinches and woodpigeons in the trees and wrens on the railway embankment. A small flock of siskins fidgeted through the treetops with the goldfinches. The blue tits, great tits and goldfinches working their way through the hedgerow were accompanied by a pair of bullfinches and a redpoll.

By the railway

By Moss Road 

I walked back, crossed over the railway and had a wander round New Moss Wood. As I got to the entrance gate a lot of noise across the road behind me turned out to be a flock of fieldfares rising from the field into the line of trees at the side. This came as a surprise: I hadn't seen any fieldfares anywhere in February.

New Moss Wood 

One of the dragonfly pools

Chiffchaffs, Reed buntings, song thrushes and goldcrests joined the songscape in New Moss Wood. Robins chased each other around brambles and wrens stood atop log piles and had singing duels across the rides. The usual buzzard made a cameo appearance, floating low across the treetops before drifting out towards Glazebrook. It was too cool yet for butterflies or dragonflies but I was eyeballed at two feet away by my first hornet-mimic hoverfly of the year and there were lots of bumblebees about.

The long-tailed tits were even less cooperative about having their photos taken

Walking up Moss Road I could see that the annual tussle between the lapwings and carrion crows over territorial rights to the barley fields was well underway. The hedgerows were busy with finches, the farmsteads busy with titmice, wrens and robins. A pair of kestrels were keeping an eye on a field of sheep, snacking on beetles between meals. As I approached the motorway I disturbed another flock of fieldfares which had been sitting in some wayside hawthorns. There was another flock of them about a hundred yards beyond the motorway and I'd barely passed them when I was angrily rattled at by a pair of mistle thrushes.

By Moss Road

Little Woolden Moss 

It was my first visit to Little Woolden Moss this year. I've not been actively boycotting it, I just haven't got round to it. Black-headed gulls, herring gulls and lesser black-backs loafed on the pool. There were about fifty lapwings though it was only when they took flight to see off the carrion crows that number became apparent. I could also see a pair of oystercatchers but couldn't find the redshank and curlew I kept hearing. Mallards cruised the pool but there was no sign of any Canada geese, which is unusual. What was even more unusual was the Egyptian goose that shot by at shoulder height and headed for the other side of the reserve.

Lapwings and a carrion crow

Cladonia pixie cups 

Little Woolden Moss 

As I walked through the trees to the car park I kept eyes and ears peeled for willow tits — I've had no luck yet this year — and got nearly the full complement of everything else instead, it's a few weeks early for blackcaps, willow warblers and whitethroats.

Lavender Lane 
(The brown bit on the right, by the conifers)

Magpies, carrions crows and mallards fossicked about in the fields either side of Lavender Lane. Something disturbed a tawny owl over by Astley Road and I caught it as it changed trees. I was made up, I keep being told there's tawny owls on these mosses, this is my first here. It might have been a lady horse rider as disturbed the owl, she put up a couple of grey partridges a few minutes later. Scanning round I noticed there were a lot of agitated jackdaws and black-headed gulls a couple of fields beyond and eventually found the female marsh harrier causing the fuss. If it's the same bird I keep seeing round here she must be at least three years old now.

Twelve Yards Road 

Walking down Twelve Yards Road I couldn't decide whether it was four or five kestrels flying about, which is a nice problem to have. There were skylarks, magpies, jackdaws and pheasants in the fields, titmice and finches in the fields. A pair of stock doves inspected an old kestrel nest box by a farmhouse. A bit further along a buzzard skimmed the treetops and pairs of Canada geese flew in to the pools to the North. I assumed the movement in a puddled corner of a field of willow saplings was another pair of mallards and was surprised to find it was a pair of oystercatchers being unusually quiet. Yet another flock of fieldfares rattled out of the hawthorns at the roadside. I saw more fieldfares today than I've seen all year previously.

Oystercatchers

Along Cutnook Lane the songbirds were busy bouncing through the trees to get their suppers and only the robins were singing. A great spotted woodpecker made noises at me from a birch tree, everything else couldn't be bothered. 

Cutnook Lane 

I crossed over the motorway and walked down for the bus back to Irlam Station. The legs were feeling what I'd made into a four-hour walk but the fifty-strong tally for the day made it worth the effort.