Day One - A blackbird offers a fanfare to my wild month

Day one of #30DW wild wafted into my slumbers at 4am carried on the song of a blackbird. It was clearly the time for this bird to declare another day of its precious breeding season out there in the wild. As for me, so gently awoken from my slumbers by this rich and welcome song, I drifted back to sleep for a couple more hours knowing that the wild was ready to greet me when I headed off out and into the first of June.

Day Two - Mesmerised by Moths 

Today’s encounter with the wild fell into the ‘how charming’ category for me as I wandered along a track which was sheltered from the breeze. There I was halted in my stride by a small flight of yellow banded longhorn moths. This was obviously a male courtship display, in which it seemed that the sheer energy of those performing was enough to mesmerise any passing female moths. Their energy expired they then alighted on nearby vegetation allowing me to grab a photo or two before they whirled off into the air again.

Day Three - Skipping Through the Heather - LWT Cadishead Moss

The Cadishead Moss section of the Little Woolden Moss LWT Nature Reserve wasn’t quite as damaged by peat extraction as the rest of the reserve although it still needed lots of work to help it help nature to recover. Today I noted a large skipper butterfly flitting from one stand of cross-leaved heath and heather effortlessly moving through this recovering landscape. Such a contrast to me as I trundled on ancient legs, moving as ungainly as it can get, whilst I was carrying out one of my surveys of the wildlife for the LWT. It seemed to me that the Wild today was trying to average out our progress making for a harmonious balance....

Day Four - A breeze driven encounter

Plaintive calls carried on a lively westerly wind drew me into that wonder filled world of the wild out on Little Woolden Moss LWTNR. Eyes watering – it was this due to the wind playing havoc with my rheumy eyes. Or was it those three new bundles of life that paused at their parents’ alarm call but soon resumed their search for food once said parents stood close? The wild had presented me with another heartstring-tweaking treasure in these three young lapwings and I gratefully moved on.

Day Five - The dark (wings) lit up my (rainy) day

Not the best of days to wander not that the rain really bothers me…apart from reminding me that the waterproof trousers I wear are past their best. Me and my soggy knees (truly past their best!) plodded on into not-too-rich a wildlife world in the area I chose to walk today yet it did give family parties of long-tailed Tit, whitethroat, great tit and a lapwing calling to hidden young. Leaving these birds to their frenetic day I moved into an area of rough grassland which ‘gleefully’ added to my soggy leg woes but it was here that a flash of dark wings dispelled the gloom of this grey skied day. My first meadow brown butterfly of the year lit up my day.

Day Six - The Wild was kept on track...

Manchester beckoned, laser eye treatment required, therefore the moss had to manage without my scrutiny today. Yet the wild was not to be ignored at the railway station with a family party of bullfinch calling from deep within tree cover whilst a party of goldfinch were much more showy as they twittered by.

Lesser black-backed gulls rode the westerly breeze to the sound of a chiffchaff, ringing  out its familiar song.

The walk to the clinic in Manchester also offered the wild as magpie, blackbird and Canada goose made use of the habit offered by the Bridgewater Canal.

Day Seven - Dull no nay never, said the sedge warbler

Today the wild offered another of its ‘let’s keep the sky grey and, as a bonus, chuck a regular supply of rain from the heavens. Well that’s fine by me I was wearing waterproofs and I was once more looking out over Little Woolden Moss Nature Reserve. Whenever I move through this landscape it evokes a sense of peace knowing that it is owned and cared for by the LWT and that their continued aim is to bring back the wild to this and their other reserves.

The wild today was perhaps a lot less showy but willow warbler still kept up their sweet song of summer with a few now uttering their ‘hu-weet’ alarm call to their young safely tucked away in their nests. Then to counterbalance this chorus of harmonious song a sedge warbler uttered its wild and eclectic notes with an enthusiasm that denied the skies attempt to dampen down this Saturday morn. 

Day Eight - Rain stopped play, not quite

To greet me this morning there was yet another late spring sky of grey clouds which promised rain and duly delivered it. Was this a day to be a ‘match cancelled affair’? Hardly, for although perhaps a tad dampened down, activity within the wild would be out there - just getting on with the job of survival.

Swallow moved from the open into the lee of trees where insects were taking cover. Four oystercatchers chased about the air whilst meadow pipit defied the grey and flew high to deliver their song. To our 365 day Wild it was just another day of existence.

Day Nine - That withering look of disdain

A wander through farmland north of Little Woolden Moss LWT Nature Reserve with the specific aim of counting yellow wagtail. These beautiful summer visitors have crashed in number on Chat Moss in recent years. Barley crop high was giving those birds plenty of scope to hide from me,  who to them is just another predator.

A time to introduce my one and only ‘skill’ an ability to whistle their contact call and up popped a female yellow wagtail. On seeing me, this six foot-plus lolloping pied piper, disturbing its barley-clad world, turned and gave me a yellow wagtail withering look of disdain and flew off to continue with its day.

The Wild today seemed to be ‘not amused’....

Day 10 - I walked along without dilly dallying

I would guess that anyone other than this ‘Old Man’ wouldn’t know of the Music Hall song---My Old Man said Follow the Van* in which the wife offered the refrain “I walked along ‘wiv’ me old cock linnet”. Well know it or not this old man in carrying out a Breeding Bird Survey for the LWT flushed a female linnet off her cosy nest which was tucked away within a stand of heather.

A very quick photo taken and off I happily wandered hoping that the Wild be kind to this bird and that she raises all of her young. These birds are now on the Red Data List, meaning of most conservation concern.

*Also known as ‘Don’t dilly dally on the way’ written in 1919...

Day 11 - Beatrix Potter revisited

“Tap tappit tap tappit she’s heard it before,” but this time it wasn’t ‘who is that knocking on Cottontail’s Door - bedtime reading for my children many years ago. For this “tap tappit” I’ve heard before but not here on Little Wooden Moss LWTNR. Then easily seen atop a small birch tree sat an agitated female stonechat, soon joined by her partner issuing their ‘stone tapping’ sounding alarm call.

This sound telling of another ‘Wild’ success for the LWT for this alarm indicated that they had raised young here. In my memory none have bred here before and at that after a quick couple of photos taken I chalked up another LWT Wild milestone.