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St Bees Head from Netherton |
The ankle was the better for a day's rest but still wasn't quite right. I thought it wise to give it another day, especially after a phenomenally bad night's sleep, but I didn't want to waste what looked like being a very agreeable day so I got myself an old man's explorer ticket and headed North.
The Barrow train was busy but not silly so. I got myself a window seat at Bolton and took in the scarcity of trackside woodpigeons along the way. Three roe deer watched the train go by just after Lostock Station. It was thin pickings for trainbound birdwatching up to Lancaster. The coastal pools at Leighton Moss were very busy with avocets and black-headed gulls. Greylags geese dotted the fields before Silverdale. There were plenty of jackdaws about. House martins wheeled around the rooftops of Arnside.
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Kent Estuary from Meathop |
The salt marshes of the Kent Estuary were very dry, the haunt of carrion crows and woodpigeons. There was water in some of the gulleys in the salt marsh beyond Cark but not a right lot taking any advantage of it. Scores of eiders sat on the mudbanks of the Leven as the train passed over the viaduct, a few mute swans dabbled in the channels by the river.
The connection with the Carlisle train worked sweetly. I wasn't sure how far to go down the line. There's a tight but doable connection with the down train at St Bees, they can't leave the station until they've exchanged tokens for the single track. The connection at Workington was just as tight, it would be safer to change at Harrington. Or I could go up to Maryport but the problem there is that the down train is for Lancaster and doesn't connect with any Northern Rail services heading South and I'd have an hour and a quarter to wait for the next one. I decided I'd get off at Harrington, which gave me a long stretch of Irish Sea coast to enjoy along the way.
We pulled out of Barrow and passed the line of Canada geese and greylags along the path by the Lower Ormisgill Reservoir. I assume there's actually a reservoir there, we just pass a high grassy bank with geese and, occasionally, a few people dotted about it. Jackdaws and carrion crows were the main feature in the fields and towns along the line, once in a while there'd be a crowd of rooks or some woodpigeons. A hundred or more herring gulls loafed on the roof of what looks like a recycling plant near Sandscale.
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Kirkby-in-Furness |
The train passed through Askam and we approached the Duddon Estuary. Scores of black-headed gulls loafed on the emerging mudbanks. Curlews and redshanks dibbled about, pairs of shelducks huddled together, a few herring gulls flew past. The occasional swallow flashed by houses. An orange tip fluttering about Green Road Station was a nice change, every other butterfly of the day was a large white.
We left Millom and started the journey to the Irish Sea. Any train journey has its quota of unidentifiable small brown birds, it's nice when every so often you get to see a robin on a stick or overtake a meadow pipit or flock of linnets flying by the track.
The approach of Ravenglass means it's time to become extra alert. There's always something on the Esk to miss if you're not careful. Today it was fairly quiet, just black-headed gulls, lesser black-backs and redshanks and a small wader I couldn't identify as we crossed the river.
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Seascale |
The line meets the coast at Seascale and hugs it intimately all the way to St Bees. The only buildings seaward of the line are the houses on the beach at Braystones and Netherton that look worryingly vulnerable to a bad storm. On a day like today it looks idyllic. Herring gulls are almost constant companions, either flying by or loafing on the rocky beaches with oystercatchers and cormorants. More than a hundred herring gulls loafed on the banks of the Calder near Sellafield, together with three redhead goosanders. There were a score or so at Sellafield with a few lesser black-backs and pairs of shelducks and a fishing heron.
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Braystones |
We lingered a few minutes at St Bees while the drivers swapped track tokens. The local house sparrows and starlings were being kept busy by hungry mouths. Not far out of St Bees we passed a red deer hind grazing in the middle of a field. We passed more crows and jackdaws on the inland stretch to Whitehaven and then resumed the hugging of the coast.
Just past Bransty the train disturbed five whimbrels that had been loafing on the rocks, the white on their rumps stretching halfway up their backs. Here and there crowds of herring gulls loafed on the rocks. The train slows down near Lowca, today it gave me the chance to identify the rock pipit flitting about the rocks near the trackside. Near Ghyll Grove the crowds of herring gulls were liberally peppered with cormorants. I nearly missed the three smaller, skinny shags at the edge of one crowd and may well have missed more.
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Near Bransty |
I got off at Harrington and waited the ten minutes for the train back to Barrow. The sparrows and starlings were busy here, too, and a blackbird sang non-stop. When the train arrived I sat on the inland side to see what I'd missed on the way up.
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Harrington Station, seeing off the train to Carlisle |
The slow stretch near Lowca gave me the chance to find both the pair of stonechats fussing about on the steep bank above the track. There were plenty of jackdaws and herring gulls about and the occasional swallow flitted by. Nearing Bransty I noticed a pair of ravens fussing about a small crag but couldn't spot any nest.
After a long wait for the up train at St Bees we set off again down the coast. Near Howman a couple of house martins zipped about the trackside banks and a little further along I was surprised to see a peregrine sitting on a post staring down at the train. Quite a lot of the gorse scrub about Netherton and Braystones had been burnt off. A crowd of herring gulls loafed on the Esk near Braystones.
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Near Drigg |
We headed back inland, more jackdaws, herring gulls and woodpigeons along the way. The Esk near Ravenglass was unusually quiet, a couple of shelducks and a little egret. Flocks of rooks were busy in the fields between Ravenglass and Millom.
The osprey's nest on Arnaby Moss looked deserted. I hope that just means they've found a better des. res. The Duddon mosses were quiet save of carrion crows. I started to worry that the delay at St Bees would have us missing the connection with the Manchester train at Barrow but when I checked I found I didn't have anything to worry about as it had been cancelled.
The journey back to Lancaster from Barrow was more of the same. A couple of herons stalked the Duddon while fifty-odd eiders loafed on the mudbanks. A buzzard wheeled over Grange-over-sands, inevitably harassed by carrion crows. There were still wet patches on the golf course. Approaching the Kent near Meathop a young red deer stag, his single point antlers in velvet, walked along the side of a field. There was too much leaf cover to see the egretry. Lapwings, shelducks and black-headed gulls fossicked about on the mud of the Kent. There were a lot of greylags about on the stretch between Arnside and Silverdale. A flock of upwards of fifty black-tailed godwits covered one of the pools inland of the Allen and Eric Morecambe pools.
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Kent Estuary at Arnside |
I got to Lancaster and had an hour and a quarter to wait for the next Northern train South (the old man's explorer ticket is only valid for Northern trains). It made a long day unnecessarily longer. When I got into Manchester my next train home would be quarter to ten and I had half an hour's wait for the next 256 home. I got the 250, I'd walk home through the park, and struck lucky: in Hulme I caught sight of the 256 I'd missed and the 250 got to Trafford Bar as the 256 was sat at the traffic lights just before and I made the connection. A lucky ending to a very pleasant day.
It had been a bone-idle way of seeing fifty-odd species of birds.