Birding Group Visit to Old Moor RSPB 1st May 2012

Birding Group Visit to Old Moor RSPB 1st May 2012

Our morning out to Old Moor was really more of a day out as it took us two hours to get there. The highlight of the journey was getting a close – if fleeting – look at a male Hen Harrier as we were coming over the moors just before Stocksbridge. Although he weather had been lashing it down for days it managed to keep off largely for our day out though it was very dull and windy. This was the first time that I had been to Old Moor so I was interested in what it was like. First impressions were fairly good but it has to be said that if it had been a lovely sunny morning I think we would have seen the Whitethroats, Lesser Whitethroats and Sedge Warblers that had allegedly been seen. As it happens we didn’t see any of those birds and even hearing them was difficult due to the wind and the ambient motorway noise that is quite bad at parts of the site. We did go round all of the hides and we managed to see a few year firsts.

One of these year firsts and the most attractive aspect of our visit was the presence of a large number of Swifts which were everywhere and flying so low that you could sometimes hear the wind in your ear as they swished past. Sometimes they were less that a foot away from your face ! Over the water the Swifts were joined by House Martins and Sand Martins, though the Sand Martins did not appear to be using the newly built (somewhat brutalist and concrete) Sand Martin “bank” that has been built. We walked down the avenue to the Wath Ings Hide where there were Tufted Ducks, Gadwall and a single Pochard. On one of the gravel spits was a Ringed Plover – my first of the year. Also a Black-Tailed Godwit and a single Redshank. The hide next door to it – the Field Pool Hide – was similar with the addition of a couple of Teal and a fair number of Lapwings. We walked back down the avenue and stopped to try to identify a couple of birds that we had brief sight of. In the first case we concluded after much discussion was a female Linnet but the second which looked like a warbler of some sort we just could not identify at all. We could hear Whitethroats singing and I did think that it could possibly be a Lesser Whitethroat but no one agreed with me so I ruled that out.

We came back for lunch and then walked down the left hand avenue to the Bitern Hide – where, of course, there was no sign of a Bittern at all. I sometimes think the naming of hides like this is a bit of an advertising trick ! We did seee a couple of Reed Buntings and a Little Grebe on the water. A chap said that a Black-necked Grebe had been seen here but there was actually very little to see at all apart from Gadwall and three greylag Geese – including one on the nest. As we walked back down this path we saw a Great Crested Grebe on a nest at the edge of the reeds but again the highlight was the flyby of Swifts that swooped all around our heads. Fantastic. About three o’clock we decided that if we were to miss the rush hour traffic in Manchester we should get back soon so we headed down to the reception but we stopped briefly at the adventure play area and sparrow garden. There were no children there so it was nice and quiet and from here we could see several Tree Sparrows and three Yellowhammers – again a year tick. We could also see more activity on some feeders just beyond the stand of bushes we had concentrated on which was actually outside the grounds. On closer examination we could see that this was actually the car park and we had been so keen to get going after a long drive that we had failed to notice these on the way in. As we left we had a closer look and as well as the Tree Sparrows and Yellowhammers there were also soem Bullfinches. In fact we could have had some nice sightings just sitting in the car park.

All in all I concluded that had the weather been better we could have had a much better experience – particularly if we had been able to hear the birdsong better and if the wind had not kept a lot of birds hunkered down. Still it was a change from our usual birding group haunts. The Swifts, Ringed Plover and Yellowhammer were all year ticks for us which was fun but really the star of our day out for me was my first sighting of adult male Hen Harrier out on the moors on the way over. Like many of these first time experiences it was something I will always remember.

Bird Sightings : Old Moor RSPB

How We Got There

1. Turn right onto High Ln/A5145 – 0.2 mi
2. Turn right onto Barlow Moor Rd/A5145 – 1.3 mi
3. Turn right onto Princess Rd/A5103 – 0.6 mi
4. Merge onto M60 via the ramp to Stockport/Sheffield/Leeds/M62/M67/Ring Rd (E & N) – 8.9 mi
5. At junction 24, take the A57 exit to M67/M’cr City Centre/Denton/Hyde/Sheffield – 0.2 mi
6. At the roundabout, take the 3rd exit onto M67 – 4.9 mi
7. At the roundabout, take the 2nd exit onto Hyde Rd/A57 – Continue to follow A57 –1.3 mi
8. Continue onto Market St/A628
9. Continue to follow A628 – 13.7 mi
10. At the roundabout, take the 3rd exit onto A616 – 9.3 mi
11. At the roundabout, take the 2nd exit onto Westwood New Rd/A61
12. Continue to follow A61
13. Go through 1 roundabout – 1.2 mi
14. At the roundabout, take the 2nd exit onto Dearne Valley Pkwy/A6195
15. Go through 5 roundabouts –3.1 mi
16. At the roundabout, take the 2nd exit and stay on Dearne Valley Pkwy/A6195
17. Continue to follow A6195
18. Go through 2 roundabouts – 2.0 mi
19. At the roundabout, take the 3rd exit onto Manvers Way/A633 – 0.4 mi
20. At the roundabout, take the 1st exit onto Old Moor Ln
21.  S73 0YF

Apparently there is a Morrison’s just before the signs to Old Moor but I didn’t manage to see it. We made a bit of a mistake by coming off at the roundabout for Wombwell – there are so many roundabouts that it is quite mind-boggling.
The following map shows the last bit of the journey from the Wombwell roundabout.

Old Moor Location

And this only shows the overall journey. It took us nearly two hours to get there but only 90 minutes to get back.

View Larger Map