Horwich

Green woodpecker, Rivington Pike Cottage

I spent yesterday sorting out and finally receiving the delivery I'd waited all day for, which was extremely frustrating as it was a lovely Autumn day. I went out to Wellacre Country Park at teatime to get a bit of exercise and try to wind down a bit but the mood wasn't conducive to birdwatching so I limited myself to walking down from Flixton Station, saying hello to the mallard and coot on Dutton's Pond, then having a nodding acquaintance with a mixed tit flock including a nuthatch in Wellacre Wood while trying and failing to see a passing skein of pink-feet through the leaf canopy.

Georges Road 

It was another nice day today, I decided I'd do better. I've done hardly any hillwalking this year and haven't touched the Horwich moors so I got a 125 from Bolton Bus Station, got off at Georges Road and headed up the hill. The first half mile was hard work but the joints loosened up a lot and it was a good walk.

Jay

Robins sang in the hedgerows, carrion crows and magpies rummaged about in the fields by the road and jays with crops full of acorns commuted between Wilderswood and the fields, accounting for the proliferation of oak saplings in the fields not grazed by sheep or horses.

Looking up to Winter Hill 

It had become one of those days when whatever you wore it would be wrong. When the sun was out I was dressed too warm, when a cloud rolled over or the road passed onto shadow the sharp edge of the breeze asserted itself. It was warm enough for butterflies, large whites and red admirals fluttered about the wayside and a surprisingly late meadow brown played peek-a-boo in the rank grass between bilberry bushes.

Stonechat not cooperating with the cameraman

I got myself a cup of tea at Rivington Pike Cottage, saying hello to many friendly dogs in the process. It had been a nice walk up and the joints had loosened up considerably so I deserved a few minutes sat down contemplating a rather pleasant landscape. A robin sang by the café and I could hear the ticking of stonechats but couldn't see them. A few linnets were more accommodating. I finished my drink and walked up the road. I hadn't gone far when the stonechats started showing themselves, flitting up from the field to strike poses on fenceposts before zipping back down into cover. A few more linnets emerged from the heather, meadow pipits bobbed up and sat on the fence before flying over the road and disappearing into the moors.

Then I had a shock. A flash of vivid green caught my eye and a green woodpecker flew up and perched on the fence. For the first time in my life a green woodpecker sat still long enough for me to get its photo. It lurched back down again to rummage amongst the rocks and heather by the hidden stream. Knowing it was there and seeing it were three different things.

A few years back I stared in this field and was completely unable to find a wryneck. I feel a bit better about it after today. The green woodpecker in this picture is twice the size of a wryneck, is bright green and has a pillar box red cap.

Carrion crow 

Stonechats fly-catched from wire fences, mipits flew hither and thither, crows and magpies strutted about in the fields. I wandered over the county boundary to check out the plantation above the cottage, for once it was quietly deserted, sometimes there are titmice and I harboured an unlikely hope that some of the crossbills or siskins that have been passing over on migration might have stopped for a rest.

Stonechat cooperating with the cameraman 

Rivington Pike 

A kestrel hunted over the moor below the pike. I decided not to walk on over to Rivington, choosing instead to turn back and toss a coin between walking up Winter Hill and over to Burnt Edge and Walker Fold or down through Wilderswood into Horwich. Wilderswood won. As I walked down past the café a raven cronked by and drifted down the hill. There was a small passage of swallows, twos and threes heading roughly southwards, the more roughly when they skimmed over the heather and were chased off by mipits.

Wilderswood 

The depths of the wood were mostly quiet, occasional great tits or chiffchaffs calling from the canopy. The rides and the clearings where the larch trees were felled a couple of years ago were livelier, wrens and blackbirds fossicking about in the heath and bracken, robins, titmice and chiffchaffs in the trees and bushes. Woodpigeons and magpies clattered about and jay's passed to and fro.

Wilderswood 

I meandered my way round and down to Brownlow Road where long-tailed tits and coal tits bounced through the trees. The most wearisome part of the afternoon's walk was the meander down the steep streets of the housing estate into Horwich for the bus back to Bolton.

High Rid Reservoir

Greylags

It was a bone cold, wet and grey day. Gull-watching weather, I told myself. I've not had a look at the gull roost on Salford Quays yet this year but it felt like a bit of a glum sort of walk for a wet Wednesday. So I went over to High Rid Reservoir for a bit of gull-watching instead. Don't worry, it doesn't make any sense to me either.

I got the 576 from Bolton, got off at Ox Hey Lane and walked up Fall Birch Road. It was grey and wet and miserable and the robins and song thrushes were singing their hearts out.

Fall Birch Road 

Approaching the reservoir I started seeing black-headed gulls and lesser black-backs drifting by overhead, probably on their way to the roost at Rivington.

High Rid Reservoir 

Goldeneye

Mallards

Dabchick 

I was glad of the big coat on my walk around High Rid Reservoir. Grey wagtails skittered round the bank and a dozen mallards quacked and courted on the corner by the gate. A couple of pairs of goldeneyes drifted about with a pair of tufted ducks. I could only see the one dabchick and the one great crested grebe.

Greylag

A lone greylag was calling from the reservoir and getting answers from somewhere. It was only when I was halfway round the reservoir that I could pick out that they were calling from over the little hill in the field with the two trees in it. I was over on the far corner of the reservoir when the mixed flock of greylags and Canada geese flew over the brow of the hill, half of them settling in the field and the other half joining the bird on the reservoir for five minutes before they all flew over and joined the others.

Black-headed gulls 

There was a constant stream of gulls, both on the reservoir and flying overhead. The black-headed gulls loafed and preened, socialising in rafts and on the reservoir architecture. The lesser black-backs kept to a raft in midwater, most of them busily bathing and preening. A couple of the subadults were very dark indeed with sooty heads. A couple of the adults didn't have a lot of contrast between primaries and the rest of the wing but just enough to rule out intermedius. The herring gulls dropped in, bathed and moved on without lingering long. A couple of the adults looked to have relatively dark grey upperparts, I concluded it was a trick of the poor light as in every other respect they were textbook herring gulls. Similarly a couple of pale sandy first-Winter herring gulls were pale sandy first-Winter herring gulls.

Lesser black-backs 

Lesser black-backs, herring gulls and black-headed gulls 

By the time I finished the circuit all the herring gulls had flown. Overhead there was still a stream of black-headed gulls and lesser black-backs heading for Rivington. On the time-honoured basis that any lone bird that should be in a flock is worth a second look I took a quick glance at the juvenile herring gull passing high overhead. Luckily there were no small dogs about to hear my reaction when I noticed the bird had pale sandy coloured flight feathers. A first-Winter Iceland gull has been reported on an off all Winter on the reservoirs at Rivington, this was probably the same bird. I wonder where it was coming from.

High Rid Lane

I knocked on the head any ideas about carrying on down Old Hall Road into Doffcocker, it was too cold and damp to be much fun and the bird life would soon be shutting up shop for the day. I walked back down to Chorley Old Road, got the 575 back to Bolton and thence home. All the way back my knees reminded me they don't like cold, damp weather but the rest of me felt the better for a bit of exercise. And a bonus Iceland gull is no bad thing.

Winter Hill

Winter Hill 

I had a yen to go hillwalking and for once I had enough sense to not set off on the ascent in the heat of the day. Thus it was mid-afternoon when I got off the 125 bus at Bottom o'th'Moor and had a nosy at the pool in the old quarry by the road. Just the two Muscovy ducks and a migrant hawker today.

The old quarry on Chorley Old Road 

It was a cloudless day and there was a nice breeze blowing as I walked up George's Road. Carrion crows, magpies and woodpigeons fossicked about in the fields, chiffchaffs squeaked, robins sang and great tits called from the trees. A couple of swallows skimmed the tops of the fields but weren't for stopping and were quickly on their way.

Georges Road and Wilderswood 

The road skirts Wilderswood, the robins and great tits in there being joined by dunnocks and a pheasant. A couple of ravens flew in and out of the trees before flying low over the houses at Montcliffe and disappearing into the quarry behind.

The path up the moor

I took the first path going up onto the moor. This one eventually leads to the Winter Hill access road just to the South of Two Lads. At first sight there was nothing about, I soon found the moor was fizzing with meadow pipits. Any time I accidentally flushed one mipit a dozen would take to the air, fly about for a minute then vanish into the grass and heather. The ravens emerged from the quarry and were shadowed from a distance by a rival family of ravens, four in all, and they all drifted over the rise and headed towards Burnt Edge. After that I'd hear their cronking but not see them.

As a little stream crossed the path I accidentally flushed a stonechat and a party of mipits that had been having a drink. I was trying to find where the nearest one had disappeared into the grass when something orange fluttered across my line of view. I managed to find it again and was surprised to see it was a large heath butterfly, I didn't know they could be found this high up.

The Winter Hill access road 

I walked up the access road to Winter Hill. There were lots more mipits about and a couple of carrion crows patrolled the moor, one of them returning each time to the same fencepost by Hole Bottom. I was hoping for sign or sound of red grouse but it wasn't my day for them today. The scenery was wonderful, the tops golden in the sunlight and the Lancashire and Cheshire plains shades of blue. A shimmer of light in the distance was the sun glistening on the sea by the Burbo Bank wind farm. Back before the Trafford Centre was built I could see Winter Hill from my house, I can still see my house from Winter Hill.

Looking over towards Bolton and Manchester 

You only appreciate how high the Winter Hill transmitter is when you realise that for the past half mile you've been telling yourself the compound is over the next rise. They were locking up and going home when I arrived. I scanned around, this time of year black redstarts pass by and sometimes hang about a bit here. There had been reports of a couple but all I was seeing were some mipits and a carrion crow. I spent a while admiring the scenery and checking for anything flying about on the moors. Looking back over the compound I thought I saw a couple of meadow pipits flying over the wire fence on the other side. Then I realised they didn't have a speck of white on their tails — the white tail margins on a meadow pipit are very conspicuous even at a distance. These birds were a hundred yards away and had uniformly dark tails. You've got to get fairly close or be lucky with the light to see the red properly on a black redstart, flying low in bright light against the sky they were almost in silhouette. They disappeared into the compound and all I could find after that were mipits and the carrion crow.

Looking over to Burnt Edge and beyond 

Rivington Pike 

I started the wander back down. At Hole Bottom I decided, reluctantly,  that I didn't have the legs for walking over Burnt Edge and on to Walker Fold. I've never walked down the access road to Georges Road so I decided I'd do that for a change. The sun was approaching the golden hour and the scenery was magnificent though I was glad when I'd dropped down enough to no longer be able to see the Manchester developers' follies glowing in the sunlight. Lots more mipits zipped about, carrion crows called, there was the distant cronking of ravens and a couple of kestrels hunted over tracts of heather moorland.

Kestrel, Hole Bottom
The only bird I managed to photograph up tops.

Rivington Pike (right) and Wilderswood 

Dropping down into Montcliffe the horses in the fields tiptoed round jackdaws and a charm of a few dozen goldfinches fed on the ragworts on the margins.

A charm of goldfinches, Montcliffe

I joined Georges Road and walked down, resisting the temptation to go for a wander in Wilderswood. A raven flew low overhead daring me to try to take its photo and dipping behind treetops whenever I tried. Down the hill I saw the bus back to Bolton pass by but I wasn't too perturbed, they're about every twenty minutes this time of day, it just meant the connection between the train from Bolton and my train home was a bit tighter than I'd like. As it was, for once it worked like a charm and I got home to the tail end of a fiery sunset.

Chorley and beyond

Horwich moors

Stonechat, Burnt Edge 

After last week's wanders on the fringes of the Peak District I thought I'd treat my knees to a bit of a walk on level ground around Martin Mere.

Well I got that wrong.

I wanted a lazy morning and had to drag myself kicking and screaming to the station in time for the train. We got held up outside Deansgate because the Southport train was running late (the Southport train and the Warrington train both terminate on platform five; nothing uses platform one) so I missed the Blackpool train. No matter, I could get the Barrow train and still get to Bolton in time to catch the Southport stopper from Victoria and get to New Lane before lunchtime. The Barrow train was packed standing solid (the Edinburgh train had been cancelled and its passengers told to change at Preston) and I was damned glad I wasn't travelling further. Until the Southport train was cancelled. Still, I could wait ten minutes longer and get the next Southport train and walk up to Martin Mere from Burscough Bridge rather than New Lane. Except I couldn't because that was cancelled, too. I took the hint and got a refund on my tickets.

Pied wagtail, Georges Lane

I was in Bolton so I decided it was high time I went for a stroll on the Horwich moors. I got the 125 to Bottom o'th' Moor and started walking up Georges Lane. The day had started a bit chilly but it was warming up in the sunshine and a breeze was keeping everything fresh. Blackbirds, willow warblers and chaffinches sang in the trees, woodpigeons, jackdaws and a pied wagtail fossicked about in the fields, a few carrion crows flew by.

Georges Lane by Wilderswood 

As I walked by Wilderswood dunnocks, robins and whitethroats joined the songscape, spadgers and yet more chaffinches and goldfinches bounced about in the hedgerows, swallows swooped across the road and greenfinches and linnets called from the trees.

Rivington Pike from Georges Lane

Passing Wilderswood and heading for Rivington Pike Café a few meadow pipits flitted about in the fields and skylarks sang above them. I scanned the dry stone walls looking for stonechats and found myself a female wheatear sitting on a stone before she dived into the bracken. A kestrel hovered over the slopes before drifting downhill and two pairs of ravens convened to do aerial acrobatics before going their separate ways.

At the Rivington Pike Café 

Starlings, Rivington Pike Café 

I had a cup of tea by the café, trying to see if any of the lapwings had babies and watching the baby starlings begging from their parents as they ran amongst the sheep with the jackdaws. Swallows swooped around the café, a chaffinch sang in the back garden, God knows where the mallard came from. Down the slope a few black-headed gulls drifted across the fields. It was all rather pleasant.

Swallows, Rivington Pike Café 

Looking down into Horwich 

I walked up the road into Lancashire, scouring the fields below me for stonechats. Great tits and robins joined the willow warblers singing in the plantations and a pair of swifts skimmed the treetops. I was pretty sure I didn't want to walk into Rivington today, I had a yen to walk up towards Winter Hill. Any doubts I had were dispelled by the arrival of a group of young women orienteers with a strong Sing As You Go ethic. I turned and walked back to the café, along the way I discovered that the stonechats were nesting uphill of the road this year.

Rivington Reservoir and Rivington Pike 

Rivington Pike 

I walked up to Two Lads, stepping aside for a large group of young lady orienteers to descend. I bumped into some last week in Glossop, too. Evidently I've missed a trend. The weather was fine, there was a cool breeze to help the climb and the moor was chock full of singing skylarks and meadow pipits. Every so often a black-headed gull would pass by and there were jackdaws and carrion crows by the cairns.

Skylark, Two Lads 

Winter Hill from Two Lads

I walked down to the road, had a potter up towards Winter Hill just so I could say I did then walked down to Bottom Hole to join the path to Burnt Edge. Stonechats, linnets and goldfinches bobbed about in the bushes by the path and willow warblers sang in the mature trees in the hollows. A familiar unfamiliar "kyack!" made me look up as I was negotiating a steep climb and I spotted a female ring ousel flying low up the other side of the gully.

Walking between Bottom Hole and Burnt Edge 
The steps down and up this gulley are hard on the knees, not least because they end three feet above the bank of the stream.

See?

Walking between Bottom Hole and Burnt Edge

Walking between Bottom Hole and Burnt Edge

Approaching Burnt Edge 

Kestrel, Burnt Edge 

Kestrel, Burnt Edge 

The walk over to Burnt Edge was splendid. Willow warblers, skylarks, mipits and chaffinches sang. Swallows twittered by. Blackcaps joined the songscapes in the plantations, whitethroats in the open scrub and curlews over the open moor. It made a change looking down on a kestrel as it preened and surveyed the ground from a telephone pole. A tree pipit singing by the plantation at Burnt Edge was a nice find.

Burnt Edge 

Burnt Edge

Walking from Burnt Edge to Walkers Fold 

Approaching Walkers Fold

The walk between Burnt Edge and Walkers Fold provided more of the same, with a lot more singing goldfinches about in the trees. There was a passage of black-headed gulls flying up to moorland roosts. Swifts and swallows hawked overhead, and a buzzard soared over the farmland below.

The path to High Shore Clough

I arrived at Walkers Fold with every intention of walking down Walkers Fold Road to get the 125 back to Bolton from Chorley Old Road so imagine my surprise when I found myself walking along the rough footpath to Barrow Bridge with the sun on my back and the breeze in my face. Blackbirds, blackcaps and robins sang in the trees, wrens, goldfinches and whitethroats in the bushes, starlings and greenfinches muttered their disapproval anytime I got too close as I passed by.

Marsh thistle, High Shore Clough 

Willow warblers dominated the songscape as I walked across the meadow towards Higher Shore Clough, they were singing from the trees along the clough. There was a huge drift of meadow horsetail, something I don't see often enough to recognise instinctively (I'm all too familiar with field horsetail!). It provided a lacy backdrop to the pillars of marsh thistle dotted throughout. I would have expected a lot of butterflies but I saw none, and not that many bees, either.

Steps down to Dean Brook 

I thought I'd been clever and taken the path avoiding the staircase leading down to Dean Brook and I thought wrong. I considered sliding down the bannister until I remembered the dirty big stone wall at the bottom. 

Grey wagtail, Dean Brook

The brook was running fast and clear, I had a scan round for dippers or grey wagtails, just in case. I checked the buses and found I was fine for catching the 526 back into Bolton. I was just approaching Barrow Bridge Road, thinking to myself that the brook really ought to have dippers and grey wagtails when a dipper flew past me downstream. I hurried to the bridge to see if I could see it and found a grey wagtail fossicking about on the rocks by the bridge.

I walked down to the bus stop feeling pleased with myself. The first chiffchaff of the day sang in the trees with a coal tit and another grey wagtail flew up the brook by the road. Sometimes Northern's inability to provide a train service is a blessing in disguise.

Walking between Bottom Hole and Burnt Edge