Leighton Moss

Redwing

It was a cool, grey day. I got the morning's errands sorted and set out for a day out, using one of my Delay Repay compensatory return tickets for a visit to Leighton Moss.

As has become a habit I stayed on the Barrow train up to Ulverston and got the train back to Silverdale so I could check out the estuaries on the Cumbrian side of Morecambe Bay.

There was plenty of ice on the pools by the coastal hides at Leighton Moss though there was plenty enough free water for a few mute swans to cruise about. A buzzard sitting in one of the trees made a change from the usual marsh harrier.

The tide was fairly low so the birds were spread out over the estuaries. For once there weren't any black-headed gulls on the Kent at Arnside, which must be a bit like the ravens leaving the Tower of London, a sign or portent of something. There was just the one pigeon on the viaduct and a redhead red-breasted merganser swimming up one of the channels. There were some redshanks with the teals in the land drains on the Meathop side of the estuary.

There were plenty of black-headed gulls at Grange-over-sands and they all seemed to be on the ornamental lake in the park. A couple of curlews fed in a damp field between Kents Bank and Cark. The land drains beyond Cark were thick with mallards though the salt marsh was barren. There were more mallards, together with a dozen redshanks and thirty-odd wigeon on the Leven as the train passed over. I'll have to wait another day to add eider to the year list.

As ever, Ulverston Station was busy with herring gulls and they seemed to be warming up for the breeding season just as much as the rooks and jackdaws inspecting nests in the treetops. The usual robins were notably absent.

On the way back I picked up a curlew with more mallards, redshanks and wigeons on the Leven and a little egret on the frozen salt marsh. Another was on the salt marsh at Kents Bank, which is usually bouncing with them. It was a relief to see half a dozen black-headed gulls as we crossed over the Kent into Arnside.

Ivy and spleenwort, Silverdale Station 

The hedgerows at Silverdale Station were busy with blackbirds and redwings feasting on hawthorn and ivy berries. I still haven't seen any fieldfares this year and I didn't today either.

Chaffinch

After the frenetic activity at Amberswood yesterday the feeding station by the Hideout was a sedated affair though there was no shortage of birds. Chaffinches, blue tits and coal tits dominated the feeders with great tits and greenfinches bathing in every so often. Robins and dunnocks were always about, either on the ground under the feeders or the bushes by them, or else begging for scraps from old blokes who didn't have any bird food in his pocket. As the day progressed I felt increasingly guilty I didn't have a bag of mealworms with me. The mallards were nearly as bad but they shuffled back to join the pheasants and moorhens tidying up on the floor under the feeders.

Blue tit

Chaffinches and coal tit

At Lilian's Hide 

The paths were surprisingly good given the recent weather, they were dry and the ice was can't. Which couldn't be said of the pool at Lilian's Hide which was completely frozen over. I headed for the reedbed hides, passing through mixed tit flocks along the way. I had no luck — again — with marsh tits but the treecreepers in the flock showed very well, right up to the second the camera got them into focus. Pairs of robins ganged up to demand food with menaces as I walked along.

Walking into the reedbeds 

Moorhens skittered about on the paths and there was a constant squealing of water rails in the reeds. Every so often a rail could be seen dashing across the ice in a gap in the reeds before disappearing from view and letting out a gut-wrenching squeal. When I first started birdwatching I was told that a water rail sounds like a pig with its balls caught in a mangle and I imagine that's not far wrong.

The treecreepers were showing well but were very camera shy

The pool at the Tim Jackson Hide was also froozen over and deserted. 

The robin relented and hopped back into the trees by the path. 

Walking back I was trying to take some photos of fungi on my 'phone when a robin flew over and perched on it. It took some persuasion that I was walking round empty-handed.

Honey fungus

I passed by Lilian's Hide and headed for the visitor centre, yet more robins making themselves available for feeding.

When you have to switch to your camera's macro setting to get a photo of a robin

Robin, the same bird as above

A pair of marsh tits weren't begging but they weren't unduly fussed by my presence and spent a good five minutes fidgeting their way through the brambles by the path at ankle height. It was only as I was trying to photograph them that I realised how bad the light was. Slow shutter speeds are not your friend whenever photographing small birds, and certainly not when you have to use the camera's macro setting to get them into focus.

When you have to use the macro setting to take a photo of a marsh tit fidgeting about round your ankles in murky light.

As I was leaving Leighton Moss to head to the station a flock of redwings were feeding in the hedgerow by the car park. They were indifferent to passing cars, and not much fussed by passing people. I turned the corner and round onto Silverdale Station and could easily have reached out and touched some of the redwings in the hawthorns by the wall. From my perspective it was good to see them so close. From their perspective they were too cold and hungry to be worrying about daft old men.

Redwing

Redwing

Hindley

Moorhen (and black-headed gulls), Amberswood

After a busy morning I decided I'd head out for an afternoon stroll round Pennington Flash but the 126 to Leigh didn't turn up so I got the 132 to Amberswood. It was a bright, almost cloudless day and the ice and snow of the past few days had mostly been washed away by last night's heavy rain.

Amberswood 

Walking in from Manchester Road the path was good though there were still enough patches of ice to make me watch my step. The hedgerows were busy with titmice and blackbirds, goldfinches sang in treetops, while magpies, woodpigeons and jays clattered about in the trees. 

Amberswood 

Long-tailed tit

The feeding station at the corner of the lake was heaving with small birds, very few of which took a blind bit of notice of people or dogs. I stood still on the path for ten minutes to watch the mêlée. There were dozens of great tits, blue tits and coal tits and a busy flock of about two dozen long-tailed tits. I very rarely get the opportunity to write: "dozens of coal tits," so I'll do it again: dozens of coal tits. 

Robin 

Blackbirds, robins, chaffinches, moorhens and reed buntings tidied up on the ground beneath the feeders, or got a meal on one or other of the bird tables by the path. The robins got a bit of courting in while they were there. Goldfinches made a lot of noise in the trees but didn't often come in to the feeders, unlike one of the siskins. Nuthatches made flash visits to suet feeders, treecreepers scuttled about up tree trunks. I kept an eye out for willow tits but it wasn't my day for them. It was entirely possible that they were about but I missed them, small birds were flitting by this way and that in bewildering profusion.

Great tits and blue tits at the feeding station 

Blackbird 

Amberswood Lake 

By Amberswood Lake 

A water rail squealed in the reeds near the feeding station but I had no luck finding it. As I wandered down the path by the frozen lake I heard lots of scuttlings in the reeds, most of which turned out to be moorhens. Walking past one of the gaps in the reeds I was astonished to see an otter scampering across the ice, easily the closest I've ever been to one. It quickly disappeared into the reeds, its progress marked by the bad language and panicky flurried flight of moorhens.

Lesser black-back and black-headed gulls 

There were tiny patches of clear water by the reeds. Across the lake, where the sun had caught the ice, there was enough free water to hold a pair of mute swans and two dozen mallards. A mute cygnet looked very browned off as it sat on the ice (I had to look twice to be sure it wasn't frozen in). Small parties of black-headed gulls loafed on the ice with a couple of lesser black-backs and a herring gull, rather a lot more passed overhead

Moorhens and black-headed gulls 

Herring gull, black-headed gulls and lesser black-back 

I often hear water rails here but I can't remember actually seeing one. I don't know which of us was the more surprised when I nearly trod on one as I turned a corner.

Low Hall 

It was approaching sunset so I had a twilight walk round Low Hall. Blackbirds and robins were having one last rummage about in the undergrowth. A flock of black-headed gulls flew in and settled with the crowd of mallards and teal on the free water on the far side of the pond while a pair of mute swans dozed on the bank. Great tits and blue tits flitted into the trees as the sun set.

I walked back to Liverpool Road, the woodpigeons and carrion crows gathering in the trees. The 559 bus to Bolton was due in five minutes, it's a service I use perhaps once a year, if that, because we never coincide. I didn't use it today, either. It didn't turn up. I walked into Hindley and had a long wait for the 132 back to the Trafford Centre.

 

Winter daydreams

Goldfinch

It's been a busy couple of days, even before the snow and ice came. Once that arrived I decided I wasn't going to try and slip in any birdwatching as I was more likely to slip into a supine position. I'm getting too old for that. I'm not a fan of English snow, it's nothing like the Christmas card pictures. Instead we have a day or so of thin, crisp snow becoming compacted ice that gets covered in an icy film. The side roads are the worst, they become sheets of black ice. It was a bit galling to find that when I popped over to check on my dad I was walking more freely on this rubbish with a stick than I have been walking unaided on perfectly good surfaces lately. I told friends last week that this is likely to be my last Winter walking without a stick, I wasn't asking for such quick confirmation. 

Goldfinch

The spadgers have been hammering the bird feeders, luckily I got a big load of bird food in the other day. They've had some competition from a flock of goldfinches that have become regulars as well as the usual titmice. They'll all be notably absent when the Big Garden Birdwatch comes along. I got the impression that one of the great tits had been caught by a female sparrowhawk that was barging round the garden yesterday afternoon but they were both in today. Perhaps the Pyracantha bush growing into the gooseberries (or vice versa) provided an escape route.

Blackbird

The local collared doves are paired up, the males singing at dawn and bashing lumps out of each other on rooftops. The robins and blackbirds are paired up, too, and every other chimneypot down our road has its pair of jackdaws. The cycle of life goes on.

Robin

Southport

Wigeons, Marshside 

It was another bright and lovely — and perishingly cold — morning. I headed for Southport with a view to getting the smew onto the year list and, hopefully, some of the scarcer geese. And just to celebrate the New Year the trains were on time.

Southport Marine Lake 

The smew had been showing well on Southport Marine Lake so I took a walk over there first. The wind was strong and bitterly cold and most of the waterbirds, even the great crested grebes and most of the dabchicks, were clustered about the leeward sides of the islands. Dozens of Canada geese, mute swans and cormorants jostled side-by-side with scores of greylags. A few mallards chugged across the lake, most of them lurked in the shadows of the banks. Here and there I spotted a tufted duck or two. I was seeing no sign of the smew. I checked the updates on my 'phone: the smew had been reported as being not found. Of course, not being able to find something isn't necessarily the same as its not being there so I kept looking.

Herring gulls 

Crowds of herring gulls floated in rafts on the lake or loafed on the pontoons. Black-headed gulls screeched from lampposts and the railings along the promenade. I kept looking for the smew and kept finding dabchicks. Three goldeneyes bobbed about midwater, a couple more flew in and joined them. Between the wind and the stiffness of my cold fingers camera shake became a feature of my photography. I wondered what I thought I was doing but I carried on doing it anyway. A white shape amongst the greylags on one of the islands gave me pause for thought. Was this the snow goose that's been floating round Southport the past few weeks in the company of greylags? No, it was a white domestic goose. The snow goose was six trees further along on the bank, deep in a crowd of greylags.

Dabchick

I gave up on the smew and walked over to Southport Links for the 40 into Marshside. It was nice to get out of the wind for a while. I got off the bus at the end of Fleetwood Road and walked up Marshside Road. This week the school field was covered in pink-footed geese and lapwings with ruffs and starlings skittering about between them and the molehills.

Kestrel, probably the same bird I met here last week

Rimmer's Marsh was still very wet but there was enough emergent grass for a hundred or so pink-feet to find grazing. There didn't seem to be as many lapwings and black-tailed godwits about and there were a lot more loafing herring gulls. I renewed my acquaintance with the immature kestrel which dropped down from its fencepost a couple of times to dig for worms in the mud before flying off to hover over Sutton's Marsh and put the wind up the teal and lapwings. A pair of stonechats in the roadside brambles seemed recklessly unconcerned by having a kestrel perched nearby.

Stonechat

Sutton's Marsh was awash with wigeons. There were also plenty of teal and lapwings but not many godwits.

Wigeons 

The smew had been reported at Nels Hide. I headed that way, stopping at Junction Pool as much for a couple of minutes' break from the wind as a look round. A small party of tufted ducks bobbed about near this corner, most of the gadwalls and shovelers were over by Nels Hide.

Junction Pool 

Pink-feet grazed on the salt marsh on the other side of Marine Drive. They were fairly close to the road and the people walking by so there were plenty of heads held above the long grass as birds played sentry. Every so often a cloud of skylarks and meadow pipits would explode from the marsh. The merlin causing the commotion was quite far out but quite easy to spot as it swooped beneath the flock, rose vertically then banked and stooped, the intention obviously being that what couldn't be knocked out of the sky on the way up might be caught on the way down. It didn't seem to be having a lot of luck.

Pintails and shovelers 

Junction Pool still extended to Nels Hide and beyond. A horde of herring gulls loafed on a grassy rise halfway out to the golf course. Closer to hand the pool was littered with ducks. Some of the rafts of busily dabbling ducks were pintails and shovelers, some were gadwalls and shovelers and some were just shovelers. 

Gadwalls, shovelers and coot

Teal and smew (front)

I looked through the viewing screen next to the hide and there was the smew in front of a pair of teal. I watched it having a wash and brush up before it decided to cruise about to and fro in front of the hide for its audience. It's been identified as a first-Winter drake. Watching it bathe and preen I could see why: there were hints of white plumage coming through the grey and the patterning of the adult drake plumage seemed to be foreshadowed in the shades of grey. Even so, had I found the bird myself I wouldn't be confident of identifying it as anything other than "a redhead smew."

Teal and smew

Teal and snew

Teal and smew

Smew

As I walked back to Marshside Road a steady stream of birdwatchers headed to the hide. I'd timed my visit just right, entirely by accident. I hope they all got cracking views of a very nice bird then enjoyed all the other ducks on the pool.

Teal, coot and wigeon

I had a sit down at Sandgrounders as a break from the wind. There were more wigeons and teal about than last week. The small birds scuttling about between the wigeons turned out to be a flock of goldfinches.

Reeds

Marshside Outer Marsh 

I decided I was feeling too cold and stiff for the walk round to Crossens Marsh and that if I jacked it in now I'd have the excuse for a return visit in the next week or so, so I walked round to Crossens Marsh. I don't know why I bother having these conversations with myself, I never listen.

Pink-footed geese 

The pink-feet on the salt marsh were plentiful and noisy, especially when great black-backs or harriers were flying low overhead. A ringtail hen harrier skimmed the tops of the grasses far out on the marsh. For all that they fly like they are as light as a feather hen harriers seem to fly with a greater sense of purpose than do marsh harriers. A female-type marsh harrier drifting over towards Crossens Marsh illustrated the difference.

Pink-footed geese 
This is the default view of them on the marsh 

Small flocks of starlings flitted between inner and outer marshes. Mallards and little egrets fussed about in small pools, all the more whenever the great black-backs or harriers passed by. Clouds of skylarks indicated another merlin and I found this one just as easily. It was using the same hunting strategies though I think by the sudden stoop and disappearance of the bird that this time was successful.

Crossens Inner Marsh 

Crossens Inner Marsh was awash and busy with wigeons and teal. A few hundred golden plovers glowed fiercely in the sunlight and became a thick line of white blobs on the camera. The usual crowd of black-headed gulls was over by the water treatment works, closer to hand mallards, shovelers and lapwings were busy feeding on the marsh.

Pink-footed geese 

I crossed over and scanned the outer marsh from McCarthy's. There were pink-feet all over the marsh and hundreds of Canada geese in the distance. Again, some of the first-Winter pink-feet looked small and very dark, again some of the ganders on sentry go looked tall and slim, and inevitably the strong light and shadows played tricks on shades of brown and grey. I got a bit giddy at the sight of a goose with bright orange legs until I realised that in every other respect it was a pink-footed goose. There's a small proportion of pink-feet that have orange legs and every Winter I seem to bump into one on the Ribble Estuary.

Golden plovers and lapwings

The golden plovers on the outer marsh glowed just as bright as the flock on the inner marsh but without the additional glare from a lot of low-lit water.

Pink-footed geese 

Pink-footed geese 

There were a few shelducks and little egrets, and a lot of wigeon, on the marsh with the pink-feet. A kerfuffle in the distance was caused by another marsh harrier. A wave of incoming pink-feet was caused by a pilot indulging in a bit of aeronautics above the estuary. I wandered down towards the wildfowlers' pull-in, checking out the geese as I went along and finding a couple of tundra bean geese hiding in plain sight in a crowd of pink-feet. I'd no sooner spotted them than there was a huge commotion and hordes of Canada geese flew in from the salt marsh. I quickly spotted the wildfowler and his dog striding through the distant, now empty, marsh but was beggared if I could find the bean geese again.

Pink-footed geese and shelduck

The size range of the Canada geese was ridiculous. Ordinarily a big gander will dwarf a small goose but it looked like there was something else going on out there. Some of the ganders were huge and some of the geese were tiny, even compared to the "average" Canada geese. I couldn't make any of the small geese into cackling geese, they were the wrong shape for them (in my very limited experience anyway) but a knowledgeable someone with a telescope could have spent some time scratching their heads as to whether or not there were some vagrant Canada geese out there. There were also a couple of geese that looked bigger and browner than the pink-feet which might have been white-fronted geese of one type or another. At that range I wasn't able to reliably identify them.

Canada geese 

Banks and beyond

Pink-footed geese, wigeons and teal crowded the banks of the River Crossens. I debated going on into Banks but the sun was setting on a very fine afternoon and it would be a shame to push my luck. I got the 44 back to Southport and watched the dying embers of twilight from my train home.

Crossens Inner Marsh