Discordant song and twittering filled the air as my 30 Days Wild got off to a lively start.

Today was a visit to a corner of positivity and refuge offered by people who “get it” about nature and its plus-plus-plus feelings that really can/does lift us all IF we pay a bit of attention to our “wild”.

The owners of this farmstead, now busy with horse stables, are deservedly proud of the other guests they offer accommodation to and were happy to let me observe the busy lives of their house martins and swallows. They have returned from their wintering grounds in Africa to produce the next generation of delightful birds.

The outside of one of their buildings was being diligently re-plastered by the house martin as they repaired or constructed their dome like nests, which they attach under the soffit boards. Each pellet of mud used is carried in their small beaks, a mammoth task.

Inside the stables a fizzing group of swallow sang a lively jumble of notes as they whizzed about to their nests which, because these summer migrants usually arrive before the house martin, were already holding eggs which were being incubated.

All the while the horses, not yet taken out to the paddocks, patiently accepted the excitable birds and even more me, the old man who stood as if this was my first encounter with this celebration of life.

Day one had grabbed my attention and more importantly it had proved that caring for our wildlife (many thanks to the owners of this farm and the people caring for the stabled horses) can give us all a daily chance to be uplifted IF we embrace the “wild”.

Day 3 of #30DaysWild: 

Those feet just kept on moving

Little Woolden Moss LWT NR

I tried to have a stern chat to my restless feet as they once more dictated that I keep moving (albeit at a steady pace) through the wall of song where willow warbler still cascaded notes that make this (now fraying) frame of mine shiver in the delight of their song.

A common tern added a more discordant note with its ‘kee-ar’ contact call as it alighted off the reserves Eastern Pool, whilst reed bunting ‘chip-chip-chirped’ their endearing song.

A swift tested my back and neck as I strained skyward on hearing their contact call ‘screams’, and whilst I paused to admire their zestful flight, carrion crows ‘caw-cawed’ their  vocal efforts.

A blackcap hidden in a nearby copse betrayed its presence as I passed by with its rich and exuberant song, as if to counterbalance the utterances made by the crows.

Not to be out-sung, a blackbird gave its best voice to the morn as the sun, which had played a successful game of hide and seek, suddenly showed itself as if smiling at all the song. Its emergence put a short brake in my steps as I paused to see how the sweeps of cotton grass the reserve hosts beamed in these rays.

Finally what of my ‘chat’ to my feet in which I had earlier suggested we perhaps take a break from constant wandering through the ‘wild’...well they just kept on plodding for in truth they know I love it really.

Day 5 of #30DaysWild: 

I Had a Plan

I had a plan and “weather” or not I pushed on with it. The weather kept on coming with its gusting westerly wind that could induce a sea shanty song or two to be composed if I was an Ancient Mariner...

Being a land-locked (I can’t count the nearby Ship Canal as an oceanic piece of water) Ancient Birdwatcher, I, instead of staying in my cabin (living room) set sail over to the LWT Astley Moss Nature Reserve (Special Area of Conservation) to carry out my third and final Breeding Bird Survey for 2024 on this site.

At the best of times, these days, the long stored images of a gazelle-like lad bouncing over this site (even before the LWT owned it) are but a shadow that now watches me lurch from tussock to tussock as I sort of make my way over the area.

Gone are the breeding turtle dove, summer visitors ravaged by habitat loss on UK farmland coupled with excessive slaughter by hunters on the Continent, and much more that I took for granted back in the 60s. The first bird of note was a curlew as it flew over the site. I found my first curlew nest on this very site but now they no longer breed here.

Other overflying birds included a small flock of lapwing with three oystercatchers...but back to my recording of birds breeding on the reserve...

The woodland that edges the reserve suggested to my ears that the 19 willow warbler I totalled during this two and a half hour survey were struggling to be heard in the powerful wind for their songs were easily swept from my hearing as I doggedly plodded on.

Then, as I started to believe that I would never cross the reserve, an image came to mind (it’s all that Radio Four listening that does it) of the Greek (Sisyphus), whose punishment was to forever roll a boulder to the top of a hill only for it to roll down just before he reached the top and had to start again.

Happily, this was not (yet) my fate as I reached a track which would lead me away from today’s ‘wild’ location survey successfully carried out.

Day 7 of #30DaysWild:

An erstwild wander in need of hope

The initial pace was set to ‘slow’ as a grey partridge pootled along the farm track as I wandered onto the moss.

My hope was to carry out a dragonfly survey but the strong westerly wind had other ideas, keeping the delicate winged insects deep in the vegetation.

A family party of long tailed tit then set a livelier tone as they tumbled through the air, rapidly closing a gap from one stand of trees to another all ‘long tails and chatter’.

The soundscape was then dominated by three oystercatchers as they flew onto Little Woolden Moss Nature Reserve. which today I was to leave to its own devices as I took on the challenge of wandering down one of my mossland avenues of sighs.

The farmland I wandered past is now mostly devoid of crops such as lettuce, cabbage and celery, sadly no longer grown; as economics of scale drove away their production.

The land now consists of paddocks and turf growing and of late a couple of light industrial units.

Even so I started with hope that the usual flashes of swallow wings  would offer the wild to me but none whisked by today. This set me in a  less positive mood as I recounted that once I would have noted lapwing, yellow wagtail, corn bunting and yellowhammer all now sadly gone.

This day needed rescue, hence I pushed on to the Glaze and Great Woolden Hall where this farmstead offers a home to a good number of house martin and swallow. As I arrived they were to greet me, perhaps not as many as I had hoped for BUT it was a mood lifting sight.

Then to reinforce my now ‘happy to be in the wild wander’, a blackbird perched above me and offered its rich song in celebration of the tenacity of the natural world.

Day 9 of #30DaysWild

An unwelcome or welcome intrusion

Sometimes I wander into a ‘Wild’ situation I both want and simultaneously would rather not face...

Today such a situation occurred on the farmland situated north of Little Woolden Moss Nature Reserve and this landscape was treating me quite fairly with a nice selection of farmland birds.

In fact some would say considering the dearth of wildlife on modern farmland these days this more ‘in tune’ with the natural world farming ways was being positively generous.

Skylark chased about, with a number of them as if suddenly helium-filled, rising high into the air in full exuberant song.

Yellow wagtail (these exquisite summer visitors) eyed me with caution as I imitated their contact call in an effort to bring them briefly out of the now fast-growing barley in which they are hopefully nesting.

A couple of grey partridge skimmed low and once more out of sight - I hadn’t seen them as they lump-of-soil-like had been blending into the recently ploughed field I was passing.

In the distance, flying perilously close to a wind turbine, was a buzzard, which with a few adjustments to wings and tail made a mockery of my concern and drifted on with aplomb.

Then came my positive/negative encounter with a number of ‘quite’ irate lapwing. “I was only doing a survey of the wildlife on this farmland honest!” I found myself saying to these birds and would move on asap.

Yet wings I could quite easily hear ‘whooshing’ the air about me came close, herding me away from their hidden young which I did at speed.

Then to close this encounter, where I knew that I had been unwelcome, I saw a small lapwing chick racing for cover, as best its tiny legs could carry it. This was a most welcome sight giving this wild encounter the warm glow of positivity.

Day 11 of #30DaysWild

A wander to the railway station

A walk to the station after a brief wander on the moss - for today is one for meeting old friends in Manchester, but that’s no excuse not to have the ‘wild’ in mind.

First a woodpigeon lolloped through the air as I left my garden, leaving me thinking that once such an open country bird would never visit a suburban garden. Now they have discovered we are a nature tolerant lot in our suburbs.

A blackbird dashed low across the road---not really such a safe flight path to follow with all the traffic but it was only doing what it would naturally do in its woodland habitat whereby if it was disturbed when feeding on the ground it would fly low into cover.

Next a jangle of notes came from a garden tree as a goldfinch named its territory, this was a bird I never saw in my garden as a child, now they are commonplace but still beautiful.

Then on passing the park a wren (unseen as ever) blasted out its oversized song as a carrion crow searched out in the open searching for food.

Overhead, a black headed and a lesser black-backed gull floated on by searching inland these days for any scraps of food, with this proving more plentiful than at the coast now fish stocks have dwindled over the years.

Gardens backing onto the station approach with their mix of hedges were sheltering a chattering team of house sparrow, a bird far less common than in my youth I’m sorry to note.

From the linear wildlife ‘reserve’ created by nature along the railway lines, I was offered the bright song of a blackcap, safe in the knowledge that beyond the station platforms no human will tread to disturb its summer residence.

On arrival, my list of birds noted had reached 10 proving to that you can always find the wild if such walks to such as the station are not always a dash but can as today for me be a walk in the wild with a destination to reach

Day 13 of #30DaysWild

Bah humbug said the weather

Look you are NOT wearing me down! Dear grey, cool, westerly wind-dominated day in June 2024. You, of late, were there with your clouds, as I wandered onto the moss, seeming to glower at me for turning up yet again.

Every day is precious, especially on this my final day of being ‘quite’ old before I’m EVEN older tomorrow as I swop one of my many numbers up the scale of life.

Therefore, today, as ever, I turn up to find bright spots in wherever I wander out on Chat Moss.

A meadow brown butterfly did its best to provide the first touch of bright as it flitted within the tall grasses it was sheltering in, pausing long enough to light up my camera lens.

Moths of nameless species (to me) danced away from my steps as I trundled through a fallow field, which held a plant or two that I could name with stands of bull thistle waiting to bloom, field pansy beamed up at the sky in the hope of seeing the sun. In truth they were my rays of sunshine as I moved by.

A lone swallow skimmed overhead, holding its wintering grounds, South African sunshine in its wings as yellow wagtail networked with others saying ‘just check out this old man who was showing signs of a sunlit smile’ at all this beauty under a leaden sky.

Further on a chaffinch added bright notes of song, as it defied the wind by tucking deep into the cover of a stand of birch trees, determined to deliver it bright message of almost summer.

A conversation with someone from Manchester University who had arrived to study sphagnum moss spore capsules on Little Woolden Moss then gave me the brightest part of the day, for only 12 years ago most of this LWT nature reserve was in brown desert mode from peat extraction.

Yet today after all the restoration work it is proving to be a well-respected site to visit and study---this day had become to me incandescent with hope for the ‘wild’ of our moss.

Day 15 of #30DaysWild

Sitting this one out....or was I?

The idea was to wander to an area of my early days on the Moss, for rarely do I visit it these days.

Somehow this plan didn’t work out and not because the powerful developers who own that area have done little to help this landscape heal after they profited from decades of peat extraction, for I have ALWAYS had hope for the moss in finding its way back to nature.

This returning to the wild of other areas damaged by peat extraction I must admit has been mostly through the helping hands of the Lancashire Wildlife Trust.

The reason for my change of heart was a field quite busy with wildlife which had grabbed my attention. Once I had recorded all this activity I then decided (or was I siren-like called) to sit out the rest of my morning on Little Woolden Moss Nature Reserve.

On arrival three curlews chased about the sky with excited calls of life with two kestrel having a bit of jousting session as they tried to settle a territorial dispute.

I then heard a call from my youth which is very rarely heard on the moss these days as a snipe’s  ‘wita-wita-wita’  territorial call rang out from deep within the reserve.

A sweep on wings gave a challenge as I tried to count a large flock of swift that came from the high clouds chased about briefly taking insects that had emerged from the reserve vegetation then left as ‘swiftly’ as they had arrived.

A distant cormorant flew south following the path of the Glaze, I guessed it was heading over to the now fish-supporting Ship Canal.

A large skipper butterfly then briefly took to the air as I had to have a slight wander from my  chair, these well-used legs of mine seem to lock up far too easy these days.

This was the only butterfly I had seen today which seems to reflect not only this poor run of June (really???) weather but is now a general trend as our insect world keeps on crashing.

Oh dear, my Wild was turning a bit sad at this moment but on hearing a moorhen utter its yelp of a call from a nearby pool my mind got back on course. That was to celebrate all the positives this reserve has brought back onto the moss, a restoration success.

Then as if to emphasise this a ‘chorus’ of willow warbler, reed bunting and linnet seemed to sing out their positive songs of the wild.

Day 17 of #30DaysWild

A short and ever so sweet wild encounter

It was (as ever) the blackbirds that gave it away as I drove over to my chosen ‘wild’ wander part of the moss today.

Windows wound down in my car, it’s got to be pouring down before I miss the opportunity to hear the wild, as I negotiate the pockmarked roads on the Moss.

Perhaps slightly enhanced farm tracks would be a better description of these access roads, where once a poorly installed speed bump managed to unseat me from my pushbike in the days when cycling was my transport, this fall resulting in a broken collar bone.

Anyway, moving on as they say, or not as was the case today, the extremely agitated birds were telling of one sighting I wished not to miss. Car parked up and it was a neck and back strain session that was to follow.

A male blackbird with a bill full of food led the chorus of objections with great spotted woodpecker, blue tit and great tit adding to the decibel levels, as I searched high into a stand of sycamore trees.

After a while it seemed that I was to be defeated in my quest, although the chorus of disapproval raged on without let-up. It caused me to try once more and there it was that pair of butter-wouldn’t-melt in its eyes cause of all this commotion.

Looking down from on high, this young tawny owl looking for all the world bewildered at all this fuss. Surely, it beseechingly seemed to imply within those deep pools of its eyes, how could sweet little me cause such consternation?

The birds in alarm knew only too well what its parent gets up to in its efforts to feed this youngster, as part of nature’s cycle of life.

Day 19 of #30DaysWild

A Coiled Spring and Dragonflies

There was a promise of today’s temperature rising above 15C and this ‘coiled spring’ sprung into action - hardly said my legs in more honest mode - for I could actually do three of my dragonfly surveys over on Little Woolden Moss and the Glaze.

These counts are over a measured 500metre route and by 09.30 I was treading my first 50metre section.

In truth, it was a slow start with few dragonflies to note but there was delight in seeing a few large skipper butterflies on the wing energised (at last) by some sunshine.

An hour or so later my notebook seemed quite content with my efforts having recorded azure, large red and emerald damselflies plus a few four-spotted chasers.

The second 500 metre section had far less records as there is less water along its route but it was keen to show that it was hosting horseflies which happily sought out their prey...me.

Then a pause in recording as the third survey was along the (River) Glaze some distance away.

My route took me past a silage crop, which was being harvested, proving to be a boost to lesser black-backed gulls and carrion crows. But it was a blow to a pair of yellow wagtail whose nest had been destroyed by this harvesting. Oh for the days of hay growing when harvesting was much later in the year.

Next, in somewhat forlorn mood at the sight of the puzzlement shown by the wagtails at their loss, my mood lessened further as I noted that quite a lot of the habitat the insects use had been ‘enthusiastically’ cut down by the farmer.

Then my first banded demoiselle came into view at the start of the survey and all seemed a lot brighter within as the Wild once more lit up my eyes and mood.

Survey over and my now weary legs carried me on homeward.

Day 21 of #30DaysWild

Present, past, present

A visit to the present where the future has been secured in being stuck firmly in the past.

A time for me to sit and become just another artefact within this LWT gem known as Rindle Site of Biological Interest.

It was approximately three to four decades ago when I ventured onto this site, which had suffered from peat cutting and, in fairly recent years, dumping and a rather too vigorous growth of birch and bracken all making negative a rare surviving example of an inland raised peat bog.

It was winter and the sections that still awaited destruction held snipe, lesser redpoll, and yellowhammer with the odd woodcock crashing out from beneath the birches as I wandered this sadly neglected and unpolished gem of habitat.

At this point I so wanted this land to be saved and if possible restored as close as it could to being one of my favourite landscapes (if not favourite.).

Time passed leaving the off road bikers and further dumping to chip away at it causing the birds to give up leaving a sad ‘wild’ (less) story for me to tell, well not really.

For finally the Lancashire Wildlife Trust (I didn’t mither them honest) gained the land and what I (we) now have is as close as I can see a revived inland raised peat bog working its way back to set itself FIRMLY in the past.

On this visit as I sat on a pile of logs placed carefully for wildlife to do what it does when it finds hidey holes such as these and it was plain to see from this my rustic seat that the birds were back.

Reed bunting sang their slow paced song, willow warbler seemingly more in a hurry being summer visitors projected their delightful notes over the site, a couple of yellowhammer painted their summery song onto the breeze and a blackcap enthused its way through its rich catalogue of notes.

Four-spotted chasers and azure damselflies danced over this re-wetted site over which a little egret flew leaving me to my musings about today’s wild ruminations.

Day 23 of #30DaysWild

Just a day in the wild and why not?

Small flashes of blue darted about the marshy vegetation keeping a low profile because of the westerly wind. A young teal took fright on encountering one of ‘us lot’ for the first time and swam as fast as its tidy webbed feet could paddle. It was entirely the other direction than the one her hidden mum was calling it to do.

A family of gadwall, even though at a good distance from this intruder upon their tranquil scene scurried away out of sight.

A couple of young lapwing less aware tootled in and out of view.

Lapwing flipped briefly into the air at ‘all’ this disturbance whilst several male mallard just kept on dozing, no doubt having seen all this activity before and by now were assured that this lumbering form offered no threat.

A movement in the tall vegetation and up flew a little egret ,not quite as assured as the mallard at my sudden appearance and moved off to someplace else to put a good distance between it and me.

Yet all I wanted to do was to be a part of their peaceful wild morn.

Calm then quietly returned and I was able to move my attention back to the blue strips of life that were determined to get on with their one and only summer of flight.

Azure damselfly in lesser number than the other winged delights of summer posed long enough for my camera with the more restless contingent of ‘blue’ the blue tailed damselfly chased and joined one another in creating the next generation that will light up such days next summer.

Some rested, photos taken and I left this marsh to its own devices with it and me happy once more to celebrate another day of the wild.

Day 25 of #30DaysWild

Childhood wonderment

Recently I noted in my not-too-tidy front garden, which might have to be tamed soon according to Mrs S, as I find coping with its unruliness an increasing challenge to my ‘getting up from kneeling’ time of life, three blue tailed damselfly.

It was on my arrival back from one of my ‘daily’ Chat Moss wanders and it was another of those childhood wonderment moments that have frankly never changed, seeing the beauty of our wildlife.

This put me straight back to a couple of years ago when on a similar arrival home I noted my first grasshopper in said unruly garden which too gained that childhood thrill of noting something new in nature - a first in my garden.

A week or so before a brimstone butterfly flitted through this same jumble of growth and, again, after several hours on the moss I was still gaining so much simple joy from noting the comings and goings of the natural world.

Then as more of these at home encounters flooded back into my memory it emphasised that I have been so lucky to see the natural world as something to grab my attention and delight me.

Home-based viewing including that osprey which drifted overhead, the hobby that chose to fight with a kestrel, the first swifts of summer, pipistrelle bats taking insects over the back garden and to perhaps curb my aged enthusiasm the frogs and toads that once moved through the garden -now none appear.

Oh dear does this last comment remove my childhood thrill in my natural world encounters?

It certainly confirms my records that there has been a massive decline in the wildlife I have known all my life yet today there is hope.

For now with such dedicated organisations as the Lancashire Wildlife Trust in working hard on Chat Moss - Astley Moss Special Area of Conservation, Rindle Site of Biological importance, Little Woolden and Cadishead Moss. All have been purchased in my lifetime by the LWT for wildlife conservation therefore to me hope is now growing for nature.

Leaving me still in wonderment at each encounter I have or gain when I wander in the wild. I hope with the LWT efforts more and more of us will re-find our childlike wonder in our Wildlife.

Day 27 of #30DaysWild
A 'tamed' wild?

The wild seemed less so today as I wandered with an old friend for our monthly meet up and chat...it wasn’t Chat Moss, but a popular area that takes in the Bridgwater Canal to the edges of Worsley returning via the route of the old Roe Green Loop line.

There is a BIG positive for this land obviously beloved by many people had been wrestled from the profits of a very rich and powerful ‘development’ (read: concreting over nature) company by the will of people who see more value in our open spaces than ‘just another profit gaining building plot'.

Blackcap rang out their clear song/chiffchaff repeated their notes and a goldcrest spun out its high pitched and with less young ears, less audible song.

A field busy with dairy cattle had drawn in an enthusiastic ‘crowd’ of jackdaw and starling all finding food within the well trodden soil by the cows as they ruminated about this grassland.

Edge of Worsley Woods reached and it was our return along the old railway line that I clearly recall watching from my distant childhood bedroom window the fireman stoking the fires of the Steam Trains that ran along it.

The ring-necked parakeets that we had noted in our early spring walk were keeping a low profile, unlike the nuthatch which was dueting with me as I copied its voice back to it (those long lost days of my youth of tuneless whistling that I just knew would be of use one day!)

A 'sort the world out' chat whist sat on a bench near the end of our walk in the perhaps tamed wild ended our meet up...a robin bid us a fond farewell!

My return home then took its usual detour of the Moss where Little Woolden Moss offered a jumble of life over which swift scored the sky on truly wild tame-less wings.

Views and birds offered but silhouettes for my camera to capture but did this lessen my enthusiasm to wander?

Certainly not for with effort I managed to find some light filtering through with a family party of Nuthatch/a resting Kestrel and a couple of Yellow Wagtail in alarm (photo blurred but at least it held yellow within it).

Day 29 of #30DaysWild

Sullen Skies, Silhouettes and Showers!

Barton Moss drew me today with my first stop to check out how the wild was doing at an old farmyard which now stables horses whilst playing host to House Martin/Swallow/House Sparrow and more!

All seemed to be doing ok on this dark damp morn with the House Martin, due to there being no facia board to attach their domed nests onto were actually nesting under the eaves—only ever seen that here.

The Wild checked chats finished with the farmyard owners and off into this day’s canopy of grey.

A newly ploughed field brought home to me how the moss is evolving to cope with the modern world for usually by now there would have been crops.

Economics making it making it hard to compete it seems but soon a crop will be sown but just not cereals.

Certainly not for with effort I managed to find some light filtering through with a family party of Nuthatch/a resting Kestrel and a couple of Yellow Wagtail in alarm (photo blurred but at least it held ‘yellow within it).

Further on a field was still being prepared to grow Reedmace (Typha) as this it seems once harvested will be used to stuff jackets for insulation---a green approach to farming here on the moss!

On such a day even mentioning the word green was an exception to this day for so far the only shade of colour of note was a dominant Grey....although as the morning moved round the clock some colour came back to the landscape.

Views and birds offered but silhouettes for my camera to capture but did this lessen my enthusiasm to wander?

To close a young Rabbit although not over imbued with other than the colour brown with its bouncing in sheer delight at this brave new world it was exploring brightened my inner day.

Then to light up the world on my way home I paused to watch a young Swallow restlessly waiting for its parent to bring its next meal.