L.O.S. Founder Member Leads Bickershaw Rucks Walk

Dave Wilson, the man who wrote the book on Pennington Flash and founder member of the L.O.S. led a very interesting walk around the brownfield site which used to be Bickershaw Colliery last week in conjunction with Red Rose Forest.

The trip was organised by Jessica Thompson at Red Rose and a party of sixteen people turned up to be educated and informed about this reclaimed industrial landscape. Good weather favoured us as can be seen in the photos below.

We started off on the 'Road to Nowhere' as it has become known locally - this is tarmaced road leads down into the Rucks from Bickershaw Lane and which was originally intended to lead to a number of new community facilities and resources on the site, but these schemes have stalled or perhaps even been abandoned completely now.  Fortunately for us, this now provides excellent access to the Rucks.

Dave was very keen to stress the different grassland areas which are now home to many species of birds and other animals and which, if not carefully managed, will quickly revert to Birch, Willow and Alder woodlands thus destroying this valuable habitat and reducing the biodiversity in the area.

For example Cuckoos breed here most years because of the availability of suitable 'donor' nesting birds such as Meadow Pipits - if the Meadow Pipits can't nest in the area, the Cuckoos won't come anymore.

There are three main flashes in the area, Diggle, Fir Tree, Tinker Joe's and we could see them all although we didn't approach them closely.

Dave informed why the flash named as Nevison's Flash on the map is known locally as Tinker Joe's due to a resident who used to live by it making cans.





The area does have a problem with 4x4 vehicles, quadbikes and motorbikes causing severe erosion and rutting as well as driving at high speeds and being a danger to walkers and animals.

Although we didn't go out intending to record birds in particular more than 30 species were noted, including a pair of Stonechats, a hovering Kestrel, a Buzzard, many Meadow Pipits, Lapwings and Skylarks and a Water Rail which was heard but not seen.

L.O.S. member Bernard McGurrin regularly records the birds seen at Bickershaw and his reports can be viewed on the Manchester Birding Forum (see web link below).

Several species of fungi were also seen including Fly Agaric, Birch Bolete, Common Earth Ball, and three Cortinarius species.

We had a great morning out and we encourage everyone who has never been to Bickershaw Rucks to go and have a look for themselves - it's well worth it.

No doubt Dave Wilson will be leading another similar trip in the spring when there will be a lot more birds about hopefully including Cuckoos.

Our thanks go out to Dave and Jess.

Photographs (C) David Shallcross 2014

Useful Related Links

• Bickershaw South and Bickershaw North
• Red Rose Forest Facebook Page 
• Bickershaw Rucks Sightings Page on the Manchester Birding Forum
• Bickershaw Flora and Fauna Facebook Group
• Wigan Brownfield Sites Video Slideshow
• Bickershaw Colliery History
• Wigan Greenheart

Friday Night's Speaker Produced The Goods

Ian Newton's show "ALASKA" was absolutely brilliant. He was very clearly spoken and he presented an hour and fifteen minutes worth of information, humour, and stunning photography.

Ian described himself as a photographer not a birder, but listening to him you wouldn't have thought that for one minute as he was very knowledgeable of his subjects. His photography is superb in every way, the images being crisp and clear.

Thanks Ian for a memorable evening's entertainment.

The L.O.S. Young Birders' Club Presentations Begin

Today three members of our Young Birders' Club team visited Gilded Hollins Primary School in Leigh for their first presentation of the 2014-2015 season. 

The pupils were very responsive and enthusiastic and so the session went really well - you can read all about it here:

The New Season Kicks Off at Gilded Hollins Primary School

AGM - Friday 3rd October

Tomorrow night's meeting at the 180 Club in Railway Road, Leigh is our Annual General Meeting. Items for the agenda should be passed to our Chairman David Shallcross as soon as possible.

This will be followed by a DVD-based presentation entitled 'A Bird for All Seasons" by our friend Gordon Yates. The bar will be open throughout our stay.

LOSYBC Visits Leigh Rotary Club

Martyn and George were both very proud and very honoured to be invited to give a talk about the work of our Young Birder's Club to the Leigh Rotary Club today.  Unfortunately Tony was in Crete and Brian was still in France, so they couldn't make it.

After having lunch and completing some Rotarian business, George began the presentation with an explanation of how Leigh Ornithological Society was formed in 1971, largely as a result of the work going on at Pennington Flash at the time.  A photo of our founder members and a map of the Flash were used to illustrate the talk.

After this Martyn explained the aims of our Young Birders' Club and described the work we have been doing with local primary schools and youth groups over the last 18 to 24 months.  Lots of photos were shown of children engaged in outdoor activities including guided walks, wildflower planting and birdwatching.  Here's a short video (which we also used at the Wigan Greenheart Awards) showing some of our best photos:


The talk was finished off with this slideshow entitled 'The Beauty of Birds', which consisted of a number of photographs taken mainly in the L.O.S. recording area by our chairman David Shallcross and Martyn Jones.


The presentation seemed to be very well received by the Rotarians and they generously donated £50 to our Young Birders' Club to help continue the work we do. Thank-you.

Fieldtrip to Hilbre Island and Burton Mere Wetlands

Whilst we are awaiting Jeff's full report on this fieldtrip, just a short note to say that we had a successful trip to the Wirral where we walked over to Hilbre Island from the marine lake at West Kirby and saw Whimbrel, Rock Pipits, Bar-tailed Godwits, Curlew, Teal, Redshank, Oystercatchers and various gulls. But perhaps the highlight here was around 50 seals basking on a sandbank whilst the tide was out, with one or two closer sightings in the sea near the tip of the island.

Some members went on Burton Mere Wetlands RSPB where they saw a variety of waders including Greenshank, Little Stint, Lapwing, Black-tailed Godwits and a Hobby.  A good day was had by all.

The New Season Kicks Off

We began our 2014-2015 season with a presentation by John Barlow about birds around the Turton, Entwistle and Wayoh Reservoirs. This was the first of our Friday night presentations in our new home at the 180 Club on Railway Road in Leigh.

As usual John gave a very interesting talk about the birds on his local patch with some excellent photographs and details about how they were taken. We look forward to seeing him again next year.

The new venue seemed to work quite well and has the added attraction of a bar being available throughout the presentation without the need to leave the premises at 9:30pm. Although we had some 30 or so members present, it would be good to see a few more at the next event.

Leigh's Brownfield Sites Nature Video Slideshow

There have been many references to “brownfield” sites in Leigh, sometimes with bewildering regularity. Rather than singing the praises of these places by the written word, this audio-visual presentation (with the majority of photographs from Bickershaw and North Leigh) will surely give a more accurate picture of what we already have and, tragically, what we might well lose if there's no resistance to plans to develop our green spaces.



Video slideshow produced by Dave Wilson and David Shallcross (2014).

Two Greenheart Awards for the L.O.S. Young Birders' Cub Team

The L.O.S. Young Birders' Club Team won two awards at the Wigan Greenheart 'Big Thank You 2014' event held at St. Peter's Pavilion in Hindley on Friday 27 June. Various presentations were given by a number of local volunteer groups and other organisations such as Natural England and the GM Ecology Unit.

Martyn Jones, Tony Bishop, George Pike and Brian Fawcett were presented with the 'Overall Winners' award for the work they and the extended team which includes Joan Disley, Jeff Hurst, Roy Rhodes and Dave Wilson have been doing with young people in the Wigan and Leigh area over the last 18 months - his came as quite a surprise to us.


George Pike, Martyn Jones and Tony Bishop receiving their Greenheart awards for the LOSYBC

Unfortunately Brian couldn't be present at the award presentation as he is on his annual summer migration in France, but he was emailed the details and photos from the ceremony.

Martyn Jones also received a Wigan Greenheart 'Community Champion' Award following a nomination by the other members of the LOSYBC for the work he has done in helping organise 27 events involving around 900 young people in local primary schools, Cubs, Beavers and Boys' Brigade packs. Here's a short video slideshow showing some of the things we have done.


These Greenheart awards reward the hard work that has been done by all the LOSYBC team members and give us the inspiration to continue our work with more young people in the future.  To read about the sort of work we've been doing with LOSYBC visit our website: www.losybc.blogspot.com

 

All Change for the L.O.S. Friday Night Presentations

Due to rising costs, ease of access and other issues, from September 2014 the L.O.S. Friday night meetings will be held at the 180 Club (formerly the Conservative Club) on Railway Road in Leigh.

The 180 Club is near the Leigh Town Hall car park where members will still be able to park free of charge on Friday nights and, as the room is on the ground floor, no stairs or lift are needed. Society members and visitors will have dedicated access from the car park to Back Salford Street.

As well as having comfortable seating and no pressure to leave at 9:30pm, various beverages will available from a bar which will be open next to the room during the meetings.  We hope that these new facilities will enable our members and visitors to have more time to mingle and chat in a more convivial atmosphere at all our future indoor meetings.

The full address of the 180 Club is:

180 Club

Railway Road

Leigh

WN7 4AX

 

Please note:  Any references to L.O.S. indoor meetings being held at Leigh Library in the Derby Room on this website will be updated in due course.