Golden Plover on Haslingden Moor

Checked out Haslingden and Oswaldtwistle Moor. Had a party of 10 Golden Plover (see photo left) and also found a Golden Plover feather (photo right) at one of their roosting spots. Also had a pair of Red Grouse. A Curlew singing and several pairs of Skylark and Meadow Pipit.
Behind Grane Information Centre there are lots of tadpoles which are now about 1" in length. And also at the same boggy area there is some Round-Leaved Crowfoot (Ranunculus omiophyllus) now in flower...

Common Sandpiper back at Grane.....

Common Sandpiper have returned to Calf Hey Reservoir today and could be heard calling from within the reservoir margins. There was also a single female Goosander on the reservoir. I counted at least 3 pairs of returning Willow Warblers at their usual haunts, (1 pr near Hartley House, 1 pr near Lower Ormerods, 1 pr at Grane Head. A Green Woodpecker was heard yaffling from around the Calf Hey House area.

There was clusters of Wood-Sorrel in the Grane Head area amongst the carpeted Opposite-Leaved Golden Saxifrage.

Willow Warblers are back on Territory at Clough Head

I was at Grane Info Centre yesterday (Sunday)and there were at least 3 pairs of Willow Warblers singing and I think they may have been back on their breeding territory, also there was a Peacock flying past the Clough Head Information Centre. Also yesterday, Mike Valentine was near to High Ormerods on Calf Hey and manage to get these 3 fabulous photos of "Cladonias - Lichen species....... plus whilst going around Calf Hey also managed to get these fungi, flora and moss photos below. (Click over photos to enlarge)



Click Here to see Mikes other photos of Grane's wildlife

On the left is a photo of a European Larch Flower (Latrix decidua), above is a moss called Ulota crispa, and above right are Polytrichum piliferum caps. And left is a fungi called Egghead Mottlegill (Panaeolus semio vatus)