Mosses

Meadow pipit, Little Woolden Moss
One of those "The best you can hope for is a small bird in a large landscape" days.

I wasn't sure of the weather today, it was to be warmer than it has been and might or might not involve rain depending on which forecast you chose to believe. I was sure that I wanted a good walk and didn't want to spend much time travelling for it so I got the train to Glazebrook and set off for Little Woolden Moss.

I'd worn the combination of big coat and Summer gilet yesterday. The gilet's a recent purchase and I'm still disorganised with it but I'm lost without an inside pocket so it comes in useful. There was a cooling breeze yesterday so the combination worked well. I took the coat off almost as soon as I left the station today. The entire afternoon felt like being in an armpit.

Walking up the road the trees and gardens were full of house sparrows. Blackbirds, blackcaps, dunnocks, wrens and woodpigeons sang and starlings whizzed to and fro to meet the demands of hungry mouths. The blue tits were in stealth mode and even the goldfinches had no time for drama.

Glazebrook 

Skylarks sang in the fields just outside town. A pipit-like call caught my ear and I managed to catch sight of the yellow wagtail that made it before it disappeared into the depths of barley. That's the first one I've seen this side of the motorway round here.

Over the motorway I crossed the road and walked down towards Little Woolden Hall. I had to stop at the bridge over the Glaze, the riverside was buzzing. Canada geese loafed either side of the river bank; magpies, woodpigeons and pheasants rummaged about in the fields and meadow pipits fussed about the bridge. The main action was in the air. Swallows and swifts swarmed low overhead. More swallows, and dozens of sand martins hawked low over the river and passed to and fro over the bridge. All that action and the odd thing was that I wasn't aware of there being all that many insects about. Perhaps there weren't anymore, they'd all been hoovered up. 

The River Glaze from the path to the nature reserve

Yellow wagtails flitted across the barley fields on the other side, occasionally stopping to bicker with each other on telephone lines, flitting off at the sign of a camera. I walked the meandering path past the hall to the nature reserve, tiptoeing past pied wagtails and flinching as swallows zipped close by at shoulder height.

Little Woolden Moss 
The reserve is behind the trees on the left.

The path along the Western edge of the reserve was noisy with mostly invisible songbirds. Some of the willow warblers popped up into the tops of saplings to have a quick song before diving back into cover with a squeak. There were dozens of willow warblers singing on the reserve today. The blackcaps, wrens, robins and even the blackbirds were, at best, retreating shadows and the rustle of leaves. A couple of whitethroats singing at the field margins made brief song flights and pairs of linnets and goldfinches flew over the fields. And somewhere in the vegetation by the pools, screened from view by thickly-planted birch and willow scrub, reed buntings and a sedge warbler sang from afar.

Green tiger beetle

The smaller critters were no end more forthcoming. There were green tiger beetles all over the shop.  Between them and the peacock butterflies I had to watch every step along the way lest I trod on them. I'm not good at wolf spiders and they were all too fast for me to try and get any better at identifying them. The electric blue sparks jumping out of the bracken were pearly green lacewings on the hunt.

Pearly green lacewing
These look electric blue in flight as the light catches them.

Little Woolden Moss 

Chiffchaffs and a garden warbler joined the chorus from deep in the trees at the corner of the reserve. And large whites and orange tip butterflies fluttered about the bracken and heather by the path. I slowed down as the path and the trees diverged and I entered more open country. I still haven't seen any reptiles here and I didn't today either. Oddly, I haven't seen any lizards anywhere since I decided to start recording seeing them.

The lapwings and black-headed gulls on the Eastern pools were fidgety, made more so as the carrion crows chased a buzzard off their patch and the buzzard then flew back to make a point. A pair of oystercatchers were noisy but took a surprising amount of finding. The coots and mallards were self-effacing and the usual Canada geese nowhere to be found. Overhead black-headed gulls, swifts and swallows wheeled about and way higher above them half a dozen lesser black-backs circled round.

Little Woolden Moss 

I had been hoping that the return of the warm weather might be a turning point after a dismal start to the dragonfly season. I was coming to the conclusion that it wasn't when a stubby black pencil of a thing shot past and out of sight. No idea. I had more luck with the large red damselfly dancing about some willow scrub. Large red damselflies are actually quite small, small red damselflies are almost flights of fancy. I was nearly out of the reserve when I saw another stubby black dragonfly hawking over one of the pools. It's the first time I've knowingly seen a hairy dragonfly and I only made the identification from a process of elimination on the Dragonfly Society website. While I was puzzling this out a male stonechat hopped up out of the cotton grass on the banks to see off a magpie that was making intrusions.

Little Woolden Moss 

Blackcaps, chiffchaffs and a song thrush sang in the trees along Lavender Lane and whitethroats sang and churred from bramble patches. Skylarks sang in the fields and a curlew called as it flew over. There were a lot of painted lady butterflies flying about. I had a few moments of confusion trying to work out what a pair of butterflies rushing about a hawthorn bush were then realised it was a painted lady in hot pursuit of a red admiral. Ooh matron, as they say in Hamlet.

Chat Moss, the new pond

A little way along Twelve Yards Road a small pond has been made in the corner of a field of rough. The Canada geese I hadn't been seeing on Little Woolden Moss were here, in the company of mallards, shovelers and moorhens. As I passed this corner a pair of lapwings distraction-displayed me out of their territory.

Twelve Yards Road 

Swallows and swifts zipped about overhead and skylarks sang low over the fields. Whitethroats sang in the brambles and land drains, willow warblers from the field of willow scrub, chiffchaffs and blackcaps from the hedgerows. I almost missed the stock doves amongst the woodpigeons in the long grass. The grey partridge disappearing to join them almost missed seeing me.

Cutnook Lane 

Cutnook Lane was awash with song. The only titmice showing were the couple of blue tits flitting about in a Rhododendron bush. I was glad of the shade for that last stretch of the walk.