A warm cloudy August evening made me head to the West Pennine Moors near my Adlington home. I skirted the neolithic burial chamber of Pikestones and from the tussocks of sheep-chewed purple moor grass on Anglezarke, I looked down the valley flooded by the old Liverpool Corporation to form a belt of reservoirs for water for the scousers, many, many decades ago.  Just peeping round Winter Hill in the distance I could see the Bolton Wanderers Premiership football 'Reebok' stadium.

Further up the hill on wetter plateau ground the cotton grass still displayed its bobbles on red 'puby' type hair strands, but the cotton tops weren't as glorious as their peak back in July. (The grass strands are wiry, and can also seem like the fur on highland cattle or on a frost bitten dead fox or old ladies scalp with too much hairspray!). Little heather plants can bee seen trying to establish themselves in this cotton grass which maybe offers protection from the attention and nibbles of sheep because it might not be as tasty as moor grass. But this is just my idle theory - I'm no shepherd, but I do think from my observations that purple moor grass isn't the best moorland vegetation for harbouring wildlife biodiversity. In the distance is the regional TV transmitter on Winter Hill.

The bitch poses on top of an eroded peat bank used as shelter by the sheep from the westerly winds off the Irish sea some 20 odd miles away. At the base is a tumble of millstone grit rocks and pebbles. I still do pick up a few in the vain hope that one is a stone age axe or has a secret symbol inscribed. Doubtless some expert could tell me I'm completely wasting my time because they used some other type of rock traded from afar - but the area is festooned with burial chambers and sacrifices from thousands of years ago have been found in the remnant bogs such as Red Moss at the Winter Hill base. The peat preserved human remains I recall are in a museum somewhere - or did it turn out to be a hoax? 

But here's a nice bit of rock - who cares if it's been mauled by an ancient when it's surrounded by such gloriously contrasting moss! I now start to peer at the ground instead of the far landscape vistas and find interest here too. I'm also on an isolated barren-seeming plateau and so the views of the Lancashire Plain are obscured for now. 

With nose to the ground I spot a scarlet pearl shaped gem in damp ground among the cotton grass strands and drying wisps of sphagnum moss - it's some type of berry, not the usual dark purple billberry found on these moors. Crowberry comes to mind - I make a mental note to look this up and also see if it's rare. Still not done it.

Nearby something else lurks in the grass and in time might usefully fertilise the 'crowberry'. But for now it identifies itself to me as red grouse excretement - recognizable by the shape and the white endings to some of the droppings. There's a small population of grouse round here, and they seem to like the areas of vegetation that have variety other than the monculture acreages of purple moor grass - I don't see any grouse muck there!

But you do see plenty of this around and about the old tussocks of moor grass. Does it need an introduction? This one, among cotton grass, has provided a nice home for the lovely delicate mushroom though.

Still peering at the ground I'm little surprised to see this! Sheep skulls turn up more frequently than either crowberries or grouse poo!

Climbing onto a higher drier ridge, the conditions seem right for heather to flourish. With a scenario like this it's easy to see where the inspiration for garden rockeries comes from.

As me and the bitch reach the ridge summit, we pause to take in the view westwards across the conifer capped Healey Nab hill in front of Chorley town and the West Lancashire Plain, Morecambe Bay and Irish Sea beyond. Although I might not rate purple moor grass when it dominates a landscape to the exclusion of other plantlife, it's not done so here and, by heck, you can't beat it for gorgeous shininess when it absorbs an evening light. 

Back to the little layby where I parked the car I have to take my camera out the pocket again because young sheep were rubbing their bottoms and flanks with gusto against the gate. Perhaps the moments lost on a still picture, but it made me smile. 

Driving back home for my tea, the sunset over Anglezarke Reservoir was the cherry on the cake for an extremely satisfying local moorland walk.