Cutacre Country Park

At the end of the day, and taking a rather long diversion home, I joined a group of Bolton residents for a tour by developers Harworth of the work going on to create a new country park at Cutacre, between Little Hulton in Salford and Over Hulton in Bolton.

At one time this was (according to the Guinness Book of Records) the largest spoil heap in Europe, and not a pretty sight. Then permission was given for open cast mining and coal washing. And following all of that this huge site is being developed as a huge commercial site ("Logistics North"), with Aldi and Lidl the biggest tenants. It is being taken up by occupiers far more quickly than anticipated - a real success story.

As part of the deal a big - 600 acre plus - country park is being created. A  major operation is currently ongoing to translocate all the great crested newts from the part to be developed to new swales and ponds in the country park. The site ecologist is spending 90 days touring the 4.5 km of amphibian fences each day to collect the little beasts before the breeding season.

The views from the site are wonderful. In this blip the distant Trafford Centre could be an Italian hill village. Almost, and with the eyes half closed.

As we walked past one swale  a bird shot up and careered around the side of an incline. Sand Martin I thought at first. But a prominent white rump meant a House Martin. But a bit too big and wader like (and brown) meant not. Looking at my ID book the nearest I got at first was a Collared Pratincole - but that's ridiculous. This is Bolton, not Andalucia, Peter Kay not Sergio Garcia country. So it had to be ..... a Green Sandpiper, passing through. Still quite a find in this part of the world.