Little Woolden Moss

Salford City Council took action to stop peat extraction on the Mosses years ago, and this site at Little Woolden was purchased by the Lancashire Wildlife Trust and is part of a major restoration project (and part of the larger Greater Manchester Wetlands project). 

The bird and plant life is pretty special. Breeding curlew, oystercatcher, little ringed plover, yellow wagtail and much more. As we walked along skylarks and pipits singing, and swifts, swallows and martins hawking over the area. Cotton grasses and sphagnum mosses are coming back to the bog too. 

It is difficult to believe we are in the City of Salford.

And that all of this work is locking in lots of CO2, even more effective than planting trees.

Chat Moss, the larger ares, was created at the end of the last glacial period 10,000 years ago. Scattered through the site are the remnants of 10,000 year old trees (an example can be seen here), which preceded the formation of the Moss, and were locked into the forming bog. At its peak the Moss covered 22,000 acres and was 9 metres higher than the current levels across the site. A bit difficult to imagine.

One of the features of the Moss are the long vistas and the big skies. That hill far away is Winter Hill, so I'm looking north. The city centre is 9 km to the east.