Mosses

Stonechat, Chat Moss

It was another warm but overcast day and after feeling dog-rough last evening I had a lazy morning and had an afternoon potter about on the Salford mosses.

I got the train into Irlam and walked up Astley Road. Pigeons, woodpigeons, lesser black-backs and black-headed gulls passed overhead. A young robin squeaked from a hedge. Goldfinches twittered in treetops. Where were the house sparrows? No idea.

Black-headed gulls 

The sun was poking through the cloud cover as I left town and carried on walking up the road. Squadrons of woodpigeons passed overhead in all directions. Greenfinches and goldfinches sang in the trees. Blackbirds, great tits, chiffchaffs and robins rummaged quietly in the depths of cover, the blackbirds occasionally breaking cover to cross the road or the fields of turf. Wrens popped up out of nowhere, tutted and vanished like pantomime demons. Way, way over, probably over Barton Moss, a buzzard was putting the scares on a flock of woodpigeons. And the hedgerows were bustling with gatekeepers, large whites, red admirals and peacocks.

Irlam Moss 

Passing the Jack Russell's gate a great spotted woodpecker took exception to me from somewhere in the canopy of the roadside trees. Speckled woods and small whites fluttered about, the speckled woods chasing off any passing large whites. (I have speckled woods in my back garden. A whip and chair is a sensible precaution.) Swallows and swifts circled overhead and one of the lesser black-backs flying North, perhaps heading for Pennington Flash, turned out to be a subadult great black-back. 

Mugwort

I scanned the fallow field by Prospect Grange, all that thistledown and scarce a goldfinch to be seen. As I stepped back onto the verge to let a car go by a brown hawker zipped over my shoulder and followed in the car's wake.

Chat Moss 

The turf fields North of the motorway were green deserts, save the occasional swallow hawking low over the ground. A few fields distant a field had been turned over and was carpeted with over a hundred black-headed gulls and dozens of lesser black-backs and herring gulls. A bit further along a couple of strips of turf had been removed from a field and a dozen carrion crows were raking over the spoils. I looked in vain for any flavour of wagtail and was mightily relieved that house martins were still hawking over the farmsteads.

By Lavender Lane 

The walk down Lavender Lane felt quiet despite there being lots of woodpigeons and magpies about. The pair of kestrels were hunting over the fields either side of the lane but didn't look to be having much luck. I muttered to myself that I hadn't seen or heard any whitethroats and almost immediately a family of them popped up out of a bramble patch, hurled some filthy abuse my way and, having done what they had set out to do, retreated into cover. It was a warm, muggy day, I had every expectation of seeing a few dragonflies and saw not a one.

Juvenile stonechat

The first stonechat I spotted was a juvenile bird fussing about in a stand of mugwort in a thistle patch. The male stonechat spotted that I had noticed and made a point of looking very conspicuous as it hissed at me.

Stonechat

Willow warblers squeaked and one sang in the trees by the entrance to Little Woolden Moss. A stand of hemp agrimony in a corner was heaving with butterflies: peacocks, meadow browns, gatekeepers, large whites, speckled woods and — outnumbering the rest put together — red admirals.

Red admiral on hemp agrimony 

Walking in through the trees a wren sang as I passed by while blue tits and willow warblers ignored me and carried on with their business. A lot of gatekeepers fussed about the grasses and heather by the path as I emerged into the open. I hadn't gone far when a brown butterfly that wasn't a gatekeeper or a meadow brown fluttered past. Even though I knew what it was I needed to convince myself, I'm lucky if I get to see a large heath here once a year. "Large heath" suggests a big butterfly but these things are relative, they're about the same size or perhaps slightly smaller than a gatekeeper but are big compared to small heaths. Whereas the gatekeepers and meadow browns will occasionally stay still for a photo the large heath was an utter fidget, not stopping anywhere longer than a second or two.

Gatekeeper

Lapwings

I worried that the pools on the reserve may have dried out completely. They hadn't but they were very much reduced and for the most part only ankle-deep to a pied wagtail. As one demonstrated. A family of oystercatchers made a lot of noise, a couple of curlews slept and about a dozen lapwings loafed about, taking occasional snaps at passing insects. The pied wagtails were much more active, dashing about and catching insects in mid-air. A mystery bird was asleep on a log. Round and brown and lapwing-sized with dark legs. I was baffled until the oystercatchers woke it up and it fell off the log. A very young black-headed gull still not quite ready to be a master of the sky.

Curlews

A couple of black-tailed skimmers zipped about over the water, Southern hawkers patrolled the willow scrub. And for once there was not a single darter of any type to be found, very unusual in high Summer. I couldn't blame today's weather, the sun had come out and it was warm and muggy.

Stonechat

Stonechat

Walking back down Lavender Lane painted ladies, common blues and a large skipper joined the butterfly ball. The female stonechat joined the male in watching me on my way. It took me a while to find the young kestrel noisily begging for food, it had perched close to the top of a telegraph pole, a couple of poles away from where the female was keeping an eye on it.

Kestrel

Twelve Yards Road 

I headed down a rather quiet Twelve Yards Lane. A few swifts circled overhead, more squadrons of woodpigeons passed by, a dozen stock doves almost sneaked past my notice. The little pond that had formed in the corner of the fallow field was bone dry and deserted. Painted ladies and red admirals basked on the road. All the red admirals were pristine and new, the painted ladies split fifty-fifty between faded individuals almost grey and transparent and bright salmon-pink ones fresh from the production line.

There were a lot of these ghostly painted ladies about

After debating whether or not to take a detour up to the fringes of Croxden's Moss in the hopes of finding more dragonflies I decided against. I didn't have the legs for it.

Twelve Yards Road 

The lighting effects became impossible to ignore. Fields full of straw glowed against a backdrop of thunderous navy blue clouds. Yet the thunder never came, not a drop of rain. For which I was profoundly grateful but we do desperately need the rain.

There was a lot of activity in one rowan tree, more than there had been in all the hedgerows along this road so far. A family of whitethroats chased each other about, goldfinches twittered, a greenfinch sang, a chiffchaff squeaked and a blackcap hopped onto a perch to glare at me before flying into the neighbouring hawthorn. It turned out to be more activity than all the hedgerows for the rest of the walk down Twelve Yards Road and Cutnook Lane into Irlam for the bus back to the Trafford Centre.

Cutnook Lane 

I'm going to have to come back soon and look for darters on Chat Moss. There's something seriously wrong with the scheme of things in their absence.

Mosses

Juvenile long-tailed tits

It was a mild, grey day. Swift numbers locally have been a bit underwhelming so it was nice to see twenty-one of them hawking low over the school playing field. The first black-headed gulls were back from their breeding grounds, a sign of high Summer.

Cutnook Lane by the motorway bridge

I decided to have a wander over the Salford mosses, getting the 100 from the Trafford Centre and getting off at Cutnook Lane. I was barely over the motorway bridge when I bumped into my first mixed tit flock of the season. A pair of great tits and their youngsters bounced through the trees in the company of a blackcap and a family of long-tailed tits. A wood mouse hopped across the road while I was watching them.

Cutnook Lane 

It was rather quieter for the rest of the length of Cutnook Lane. The woodpigeons and magpies were away on the fields. A few blue tits, wrens and robins fidgeted through the hedgerows. Chiffchaffs, blackbirds, dunnocks and more wrens sang in the trees and hedgerows but only sporadically, we're approaching the quiet times of the post-breeding moult. A couple of swallows passed overhead, a buzzard floated towards Barton Moss. As I approached the junction with Twelve Yards Road willow warblers joined the chiffchaffs and a whitethroat sang in the hawthorn on the corner.

Walking up to Croxden's Moss 

I crossed the road and carried on walking North. Blackbirds, blackcaps and willow warblers sang, robins were shy and skulked in the undergrowth. Blue tits, long-tailed tits and goldfinches bounced through the trees. A pair of coal tits bustled through, the male stopping to sing at me before hurrying after his mate. The parents and adult helpers in one long-tailed tit family were busy hunting in the birches intergrowing with a stand of Scots pines, returning every so often to feed their very young fluffy lollipops sitting bewildered in the top of a Rhododendron, almost certainly fresh from the nest.

Juvenile long-tailed tits

I had a quick look over Croxden's Moss. The weather's suited the birch scrub on the open moss, there wasn't much bare peat to be seen. Carrion crows were heard but could not be seen. 

I took the usual path parallel to Twelve Yards Road, accompanied by singing willow warblers nearly all the way. Every so often a reed bunting, a wren, a blackbird or a blackcap would join in. A couple of little egrets fossicked about one of the pools behind the trees while a few lapwings loafed and preened nearby. The mild and muggy weather brought out the meadow browns and speckled woods but the only dragonflies were a couple of common blue damselflies. The weather also brought out the horseflies but I got away without being bitten. My usual sun block seems to attract horseflies, after getting burnt in Wales I've changed to a higher factor one and it doesn't seem to have the same effect, a double win for me.

Brambles
This starry flowered form is one of the dominant varieties in the area.

I broke cover from the trees as a kestrel hovered low over the field by the path. It shifted position then decided I wasn't anything to worry about and got back to its business. Whitethroats sang in the hawthorns at the field margins, skylarks sang in the fields and woodpigeons clattered about all over the place. Typical English countryside noises.

Lavender Lane 

It started to rain. I was midway to anywhere so I carried on walking. The rain stopped when I got to Lavender Lane and it was replaced by sweaty armpit weather. A yellowhammer singing from the top of one of the trees at Four Lanes End was a welcome sight, I'd nigh on given up on them here.

Yellowhammer 

Blackbirds, whitethroats, wrens and skylarks sang. Somewhere to the South a curlew was calling but I couldn't see it. A family of young wrens bundled about the roots of a drainside hawthorn like a barrel load of monkeys. On the field a family of lapwings included two nearly full grown youngsters. Both of the pair of stonechats were very busy, almost too busy to stop and churr me on my way as I passed by. I had to look twice at the male, he was almost black. I don't recall his being that dark before, perhaps he's started to moult and he has black skin under his feathers like titmice do.

Stonechat

Large red damselfly 

I decided I was going to walk through Little Woolden Moss and over to Glazebury. Partly because I didn't want to walk down Astley Road during the school run, partly because I was hoping to see yellow wagtails. Little Woolden Moss was in one of its quieter moods, or would have been if a couple of dozen willow warblers hadn't been in song. Lapwings, black-headed gulls and an oystercatcher fussed about on the pools. Meadow pipits skittered about the heather and birch scrub, a couple sang and one of these performed a parachute song, rising above the bushes and slowing spiralling back down into cover. 

Little Woolden Moss 

Common blue damselflies, large red damselflies and red admirals flitted about the pathside bracken and my first large skippers of the year fluttered about the low brambles. Despite the muggy weather there was a distinct lack of swifts or hirundines. Which was a pity because there were plenty of horseflies and mosquitos for them to be having to eat. I got away with only being bitten a couple of times, both times the last meal of a large bloodthirsty clegg.

Cotton grass 

Barley

The barley fields were ripening. Linnets, reed buntings and skylarks were heard far more often than they were seen, occasionally breaking cover to fly between fields. As did the only yellow wagtail I got to see today, a female that disappeared into the depths of the barley stalks in less than the blink of an eye. Any hopes of seeing a Channel wagtail in the mix today were disappointed. (Channel wagtail is the name used for males showing signs of both the continental blue-headed subspecies and our yellow wagtail in their ancestry, typically they have a lavender blue head. One's reported from here every year.)

Small tortoiseshell 

Most of the butterflies along the wayside were red admirals and small tortoiseshells, there were a few peacocks and a couple of painted ladies. Greenfinches, chaffinches and linnets joined the songscape. Sand martins buzzed about high above the bridge over the River Glaze but the house martins usually found over the fields by The Raven and Fowley Common Road weren't anywhere to be seen.

By Moss Road 

I didn't have long to wait for the bus to Birchwood where I got the train home. It had been one of those walks where there was a lot about but nowhere did it feels busy with birds. They don't all have to be crowd scenes.

Mosses

Blackbird, Irlam Moss

The regular reader will not be remotely surprised to hear that I left the house on a sunny day and it was raining when I got to the station. They might be more surprised to hear that it stopped raining as the train got into Irlam and it became a fine, if muggy, afternoon which seemed to bring out all the songbirds.

For once I didn't complain about late-running trains, my first swift of the year flew high overhead Humphrey Park Station three minutes after the train was due.

Dandelion 

Blackbirds, a blackcap and a coal tit sang in gardens as I turned into Astley Road from Liverpool Road. I hadn't gone far before adding great tits, dunnocks, robins, blue tits and house sparrows to the songscape and an oystercatcher called loudly as it flew past. The woodpigeons were busy feeding and couldn't be bothered joining in. Jackdaws and pigeons flew hither and thither and half a dozen lesser black-backs circled noisily, keeping two schools' playgrounds in view.

Astley Road 

The songscape got louder and more varied as I walked down Astley Road. Goldfinches, chiffchaffs, blackbirds and wrens joined in. The calls of pheasants, lapwings and carrion crows came from the fields where blackbirds and song thrushes rummaged on the turf and grey partridges bustled about the field margins. A pair of kestrels flew low over the Jack Russell's gate, they would turn out to be the only kestrels I saw all day.

Irlam Moss 

Swallows hawked over the junction with Roscoe Road and greenfinches bounced about in the hawthorns. Over the way half a dozen black-headed gulls danced for worms in the grass.

Pied wagtail
The disruptive black and white plumage works best on damp mud.

Over the motorway and the turf field was awash with black-headed gulls, woodpigeons and blackbirds. Out in the middle a couple of lapwings did a display flight. A few pied wagtails, starlings and a mistle thrush hunted along the field's edge. A pale shape fidgeting about in the mid-distance was a female wheatear. There were far more pied wagtails and starlings flitting about the horses' fetlocks in the paddocks across the road. Further down a flock of rooks had the big turf fields all to themselves.

Chat Moss at Four Lanes End 

The songscape resumed on the approach to Four Lanes End. Great tits churred and squeaked as they saw me on my way. Dunnocks, chiffchaffs and robins sang from the depths of bushes, blackcaps and blackbirds struck poses as they sang in trees.

Whitethroat 

The walk down Lavender Lane was punctuated by churring whitethroats and wrens. Mallards flew over to the wet field to the South, joining a Canada goose that seemed at a loose end. To the North, pheasants and woodpigeons rummaged about the rough grazing. Kestrels were notably absent. The chiffchaffs in the trees by the field edges gave way to the willow warblers singing in the willow scrub by the entrance to Little Woolden Moss.

Winter Hill from Little Woolden Moss

I had an aim in view in today's visit. A whinchat's been on the ploughed barley field North of the reserve and I hoped to see it, as well as check to see if the yellow wagtails are back yet. I walked round, tiptoeing past peacock butterflies and getting the raspberry from willow warblers and great tits. The usual family of carrion crows were romping over the moss, upsetting black-headed gulls, lapwings and a curlew. I looked over the field. The rest of the usual crowd of crows in the far corner, check. A handful of lapwings, check. A bunch of jackdaws upsetting the lapwings, check. And in another corner, way over, a few stones. Except one moved. Was it the whinchat? All I was seeing was a head-on view of a bird with an orange chest and a bandit mask, possibly a pale eye stripe though it may be a pale crown to the head. A good ten minutes' worth of puzzlement ensued. Then I did the thing where you look away and look back to find it, just in case it really was a stone. It was twenty yards away to the right and still unfathomable. I shifted along the path a bit to see if I could position myself for a sidewards look at the bird. It was back where it started. Then it got a fit of the fidgets and showed the silvery grey back and bright white rump of a male wheatear before flying off. I started again and found I'd been looking at two birds all along, the second was still where I found it. Five excruciating minutes later it decided to hop about a bit and I established that it had a brown back and — crucially — no white arse. It was also a dumpier bird with less back end than a wheatear. I've never worked so hard to add a whinchat to the year list.

Hares-tail cotton grass

Little Woolden Moss 

I glanced at the time. I had places to be in a couple of hours so I dashed back down Astley Road, in so far as I have a dash left in me, and caught the train to Manchester by the skin of my teeth. It was that time of day where I can get home by getting the train from Liverpool into town, stay on it and get off at my station on its way back to Liverpool. Had I missed it I'd have had to do a complicated sequence of buses and hope for the best. Can't complain too much, though, for large parts of the day the buses would be the only option. And I got to the places to be after a surprisingly pleasant and productive afternoon walk.

Mosses

New Moss Wood 

What to do on a sunny Bank Holiday Monday? A couple of ideas didn't survive bus schedules and a horror of city centre bank holiday rail mayhem. I got the first train to Irlam that wasn't affected by an incident in Liverpool and went for a walk on the Salford Mosses.

A medley of birdsong was the almost constant backing track for the day. As I walked to Moss Road, woodpigeons, robins, dunnocks and blackbirds sang in the gardens and street trees. At the allotment they were joined by great tits, goldfinches, chaffinches, a blackcap, a chiffchaff, a coal tit and a drumming great spotted woodpecker. 

The path to the old railway junction 

I crossed Moss Road for a nosy at the hedgerows along the path to the old Wigan to Altrincham line. Blue tits, wrens and a song thrush joined the songscape. Everything went quiet as a female sparrowhawk circled over, a chaffinch calling the alarm,  and then it drifted over to New Moss Wood. The all clear lasted a minute, she powered back and headed into Cadishead. The singers paid not a jot of notice of the buzzard that floated low overhead and into the wood.

New Moss Wood 

The songscape in New Moss Wood was the same but quieter, more spread out, and the singers that much harder to spot. Unlike the three buzzards spiralling round each other over the wood, calling all the while, before going their separate ways. Most of the green in the wood was provided by nettles and it didn't take long before I met the first of an army of peacock butterflies. There were plenty of nettles to go round, which didn't stop one of the peacocks attacking any small tortoiseshells that drifted into its territory. There were quite a few brimstone butterflies and my attempts to photograph them gave me a selection of out-of-focus photos of dandelions. Pheasants, carrion crows and jackdaws called from the fields, jays and magpies from the woodland canopy and a willow warbler sang in the birches by the car park.

Dryad's saddle

New Moss Wood 

Goldfinches and house sparrows sang in the hedgerows along Moss Road and lapwings were setting up territories on newly-sown fields. The flocks of rooks, jackdaws and carrion crows rummaging about the fields didn't help the lapwings' nerves any.

Little Woolden Moss 

Little Woolden Moss was quiet, in a Canada geese, mallards and black-headed gulls having a doze sort of way. The reserve was phenomenally busy with cyclists, which is a bit challenging on such narrow paths but we coexisted amiably enough. The chiffchaffs in the trees by the Moss Road entrance were replaced by the willow warblers of the birch and willow scrub.

Little Woolden Moss 

The Eastern pool on Little Woolden Moss 

A kestrel hovered over the field by Lavender Lane, ignored by a cock pheasant escorting his lady over the open ground. I didn't expect a male stonechat to bob up out of a bramble patch, it was a nice surprise. A pair of stock doves were more predictable but still very nice to see.

Astley Road 

The walk down Astley Road into Irlam was fairly quiet. Chiffchaffs sang broken calls as they wound down for the day while blackbirds, robins and a mistle thrush got their second wind and started singing ready for evening. A curlew called as it flew low overhead. Chaffinches, goldfinches and greenfinches quietly rummaged about in the hedgerows and treetops, linnets bustled about in the trees. A singing yellowhammer by the motorway came as a lot of a relief, they're very few and far between these days. 

I had a while to wait for my train home. While I was waiting I was serenaded by songbirds. A blackbird, robins and a wren were the key vocalists with contributions from chaffinches, goldfinches and great tits and a constant backing throb supplied by collared doves and woodpigeons. Which was nice.