Moses Gate Country Park, Bolton

Moses Gate Notice Board and Site Map

As it was still sunny when I got home from work tonight, I decided to go out to Moses Gate Country Park in Farnworth because I hadn't been for a while.  When I got there the trees were clearly entering their Autumn phase and many were covered in red and golden leaves.

Sycamore Autumn Colours

There had been some reports of a Gannet there although I was not holding out too much hope for it still being present, especially as some birders seem to think it was not at all well.  I also combined my trip with some geocaching in the nearby Farnworth Park.

Grey Heron posing on fence

On this visit I managed to get really close to a Grey Heron, which just appeared only 15 metres away on the boardwalk in front of me as I walked round one of the rear lodges.  It jumped up onto a fence and hung around for over ten minutes whilst I took several bursts of photos and then crept slowly closer after each batch.  Eventually it flew off and my only disappointment was not managing to get any decent flight photos - but I'm really pleased with some of the others I took.

As close as I've ever been to a Grey Heron

The other highlight of the trip for me was getting fairly close to a solitary Great Crested Grebe, which was happily mingling with all the usual ducks, swans and geese being fed by the visitors.  I'd never seen this before and was amazed by how close it actually came.

Great Crested Grebe on main Crompton Lodge

I did have one problem whilst out and about which was saved from being an absolute catastrophe by my darling wife Sarah - My glasses spontaneously sprung apart and both lenses fell out whilst I was using my binoculars to view the Heron - I always take them off when using my bins.  It seems that both screws which keep the lenses in place had worked loose. Without my specs I'm pretty useless and I certainly wouldn't be safe to drive home - some say I'm not even safe with my glasses on!  So I phoned Sarah and asked if she would drop my spare pair off which she duly did despite being full of a cold - what a dear!

Great Crested Grebe

So what's surprising is that I took most of tonight's photos without my glasses, just relying on the autofocus to do it's job, which it seems have done OK.  Good stuff!