Bits of Birdwatching Stuff

Wednesday, 4 March 2026

Marshside and Crossens Marsh

Wigeons, Marshside

The seasons are a-changing. On Monday the host of gulls parked on the school playing field included ten common gulls. Today there was just the one black-headed gull.

Seeing as it was going to be another nice, sunny day I thought I'd see what the other side of the Ribble Estuary had to offer. Yesterday Marshside recorded its first little ringed plover of the year; I didn't think that would still be around, they tend to be in a rush to get where they're going, but there may be other signs of Spring.

One of the signs of Spring was the deserted rugby pitch on Marshside Road. No waders or geese picked their way through the molehills. The marshes either side of the road were green sward with large puddles, the wigeons were in their scores not their hundreds and teals took some finding. I had worried I was dressed too warmly but the wind was brisk and cool though it had no edge to it.

Just a bit different to my last visit

Something, I know not what, sent clouds of wigeons and golden plovers up from Sutton's Marsh. This was to be a feature of the afternoon and on the rare occasions I could find the culprit each time it was a passing great black-back.

Junction Pool

Approaching the end of the road I looked over at Junction Pool, which was still extensive. Pintails, shovelers and tufted ducks drifted about. A hare disappeared into an impossibly small patch of sedges on the bank, I have no idea how no part of it poked out at the sides. Black-headed gulls clamoured and took turns with the lapwings to harry any passing large gull. Yes, Spring was in the air.

I debated whether or not I would have the legs to walk down to Hesketh Road to see if the smew was still on the pool at that end and still being able to do some goose-watching at Crossens Outer Marsh. Before I made a decision either way I had gadwalls to find and the drains at the corner of Sutton's is usually a good place to try. No gadwalls, just mallards and a something diving at the edge of the reeds. It bobbed back up in the middle of the drain. I wouldn't need to go over to Hesketh Road to find the smew.

Mallard and smew

Mute swan and tufted duck

A first-Winter drake pochard with the tufted ducks on the pool by Sandgrounders had me scratching my head for a minute or two. It was underwater more often than up top so its fleeting appearances just let me register that it was something different without giving me a lot of help as to what it was. Half a dozen gadwalls loafing on the far bank added to the day's tally.

Black-headed gulls

Sandgrounders was slightly busier than it has been. Unpaired mallards tried to rectify that situation. Small groups of wigeons grazed and shovelers dozed. Further out, redshanks and ruffs joined the starlings and lapwings rummaging about on the marsh. Way over on Polly's Pool a thick white horizontal line turned out to be avocets, tightly packed. Avocets are not notable for being laid-back and I puzzled what could be bringing clouds of wigeons, golden plovers and handfuls of black-tailed godwits up into the air but leave them unmoved. Come to that, the lapwings and black-headed gulls didn't seem unduly bothered either and they looked to be gearing up for the breeding season. As I left the hide two kestrels, the immature bird and an adult female, gave every impression of hunting in concert though it may just have been the older bird looking to pinch prey from the younger.

Avocets

I walked by Marine Drive. Looking over to the outer marsh there were few ducks on the pools. Little egrets and pink-footed geese poked their heads out of the long grass and skylarks sang when they weren't chasing each other across the marsh. Out at the tideline a cloud of knots hurried upstream to roost. On the inner marsh pairs of black-headed gulls courted, wing shoulders out, wing tips in and beaks down as they mirrored each other's head movements.

Teal

Little egret

A water pipit had been reported along this stretch so I kept an eye out for it. Reed buntings skittered about in the grass on the banks, starlings on the islands but I was seeing no pipits. I'd given up on it and was sat down watching the avocets breaking ranks and starting to feed when I found it. I was idly scanning round looking at the wigeons and tufted ducks on the nearest drain when I noticed some movements in the grass on a tiny patch of mud. The water pipit was hidden deep in the grass while it had a good preen and it seemed to be making a very thorough job of it., feathers fluffed up and beak going like a jackhammer in amongst the back feathers.

Pink-footed geese

Pink-footed geese were making use of the bathing facilities in the pools on the boundary of Marshside and Crossens Outer Marsh. I entertained hopes that something other might be among them but I was asking a bit much. A female marsh harrier floated by in the background and generated no response from within the marsh.

Crossens Inner Marsh

I scanned over Crossens Inner Marsh, at first sight it was wigeons all the way but I started to pick out handfuls of teal and shoveler, a mallard or two, some pintails, a lot of golden plovers and a few lapwings, and the usual crowd of black-headed gulls. I wasn't seeing the snow goose that somebody had reported, which doesn't mean it wasn't there, only that I didn't see it. And sometimes you can look so hard for something you don't see it right in front of you.

Crossens Outer Marsh
There are thousands of geese out there.

Pink-footed geese and Canada geese, at least

Lytham Lighthouse

Pink-footed geese

There was a gap in the traffic so I crossed the road and sat down at McCarthy's to check out the geese on Crossens Outer Marsh. There were parties of Canada geese and pink-feet close to hand but the crowds were hundreds of yards away. The odds against my picking out anything as not being a Canada goose or a pink-footed goose with just a pair of binoculars were considerable. So I spent a while giving it a go. Way out, probably on Banks Marsh, two whooper swans mingled with Canada geese, their white necks sticking out from the dark mist of black heads and necks. Relatively closer there were geese that looked taller and browner than the surrounding pink-feet that were probably pink-feet stretched out on sentry-go catching the sun. Two dark, high contrast, geese at the edge of a group of pink-feet were definitely barnacle geese, something that was confirmed later when I walked down a bit and the change of angle let me see their white faces. Oddly, there was just the one meadow pipit and no wagtails. Beyond the wildfowlers' pull-in the Canada geese and pink-feet were closer to the road and were joined by wigeons and teals on the banks of the River Crossens. As far as I could see, any white-fronts or bean geese would have needed a telescope to find so I was out of luck. Well, not entirely: a great white egret stuck its neck out from behind a bush next to the river then slowly disappeared as the bird walked out of sight down the near bank.

Canada geese and pink-footed geese

Pink-footed geese

I called it quits and walked into Crossens for the bus back to Southport. The weather had been good, there had been plenty to see and the year list had been kept ticking over. I deserved a cup of tea.

It was a daffodil sort of day

Tuesday, 3 March 2026

Lytham

Linnets

It was threatening to be a fine, sunny day and I had far too many options for doing something with it, and the very real danger I might not do anything at all. I got the train into town, bought an old man's explorer ticket and decided I'd head for the Fylde coast. I keep passing through Lytham without stopping to look at the Ribble Estuary here, today seemed like a good day to rectify this. I could spend an hour or so there and then move on in a dawdly sort of fashion.

The trains behaved beautifully and I was surprisingly soon walking down to the promenade. The tide was high and the marsh was wet and filled with skylarks and linnets. Every so often a cock linnet would strike a pose on a bit of driftwood and sing, the skylarks were only practise singing, rarely going above head height.

Lytham Jetty

There looked to be a lot of gull and wader activity on the river so I walked down to the end of the jetty to see what was about. Most of the gulls in town had been herring gulls, most of the gulls on the river were black-headed gulls. The tide must have been on the turn: parties of a dozen or so redshanks were starting to fly down stream. There were lots more of them, plus a handful of curlews and some little egrets, with the gulls on the muddy nearside bank. The heat haze made most of the masses of birds on the far bank indistinguishable. I could pick out a few cormorants, mistake a few bits of tree as cormorants, and mistake cormorants for bits of tree. The white shapes were gulls and, using the cormorants for scale, most of them were probably black-headed though I shouldn't like to swear on it. The lines of silhouettes fringed brownish grey could have been any number of things. A skein of pink-footed geese that flew low overhead and out into the estuary were mercifully dead easy to identify.

River Ribble
Redshanks, black-headed gulls, curlews, herring gulls and little egrets

Walking back up the jetty I stopped to watch a reed bunting singing from the top of a stick. As I turned to resume the walk a small bird shot from under the jetty, flew down a few yards and disappeared under the jetty and out of sight. It repeated the trick a few minutes later when a dog romped down the jetty. From such brief glimpses I couldn't be sure of its identification, instinct said rock pipit but it had to have big question marks against it. Unlike the pied wagtail bouncing round the windmill just down the way.

Reed bunting

Lytham Windmill

As I walked past the windmill a handful of linnets and a couple of meadow pipits flew past. For some reason I glanced down and there was a rock pipit at my feet. It noticed I'd noticed and was off like a shot. I checked to make sure it hadn't tied my bootlaces together.

Winter Hill over the Ribble Estuary

Little egret

I walked down and dropped onto the path that runs by the Main Drain. It was squelchy underfoot but not terribly so and the worst stretches were pools of cleanish water in grass. Linnets and reed buntings flitted about and sang in bushes. A little egret shrimped in a little pool by the path. The tide was definitely ebbing now and the muddy banks of the drain were lined with teals and redshanks. A couple of times I had to apologise to them as the path approached the drain too close for their comfort. It was warm and sunny but even so I was surprised to see a peacock butterfly, my first butterfly of the year, fluttering about the rough grass.

Teal

Teals

I'd been seeing shelducks, carrion crows and a couple of buzzards on the marsh beyond the drain. They were easier to see as I walked back along the path on the terrace above the marsh. Way out, over towards Warton Bank I think, a couple of long white necks could be seen poking out of the marsh. At that distance I couldn't be sure if I was looking at the neck of a great white egret or a whooper swan until one bird obligingly walked out into a patch of open water, the long white neck trailing a feather mattress behind it.

Main Drain and, beyond, the River Ribble

I'd bumped into a couple of birdwatchers on the jetty and I bumped into them again here. They were looking for some avocets that had been reported on the river. By this stage they'd found them but looking at them through the heat haze through their telescopes was being challenging. They told me where to look and I could definitely see a small group of white shapes on the far bank and they definitely looked smaller and more graceful than the gulls — black-headed gulls? — to the side of them. I couldn't definitely identify them as anything until they flew a few yards down the bank. Heat haze or no heat haze, the black markings on the white wings jumped out even at this distance.

I wished them luck and walked on until I found a bench and had a sit down. I had a decent view of the marsh and it occurred to me that there are worse ways of spending an hour or two than sitting on a bench in Spring sunshine scanning a stretch of salt marsh. So I did. There were a couple of groups of geese, a handful each, a few hundred yards out. The group of Canada geese were unmistakable. The balance of probability was that the grey geese were pink-feet but at this distance with the light behind them I couldn't be sure they weren't tundra bean geese or Russian white-fronts, groups of both of which have been kicking about the Ribble Estuary lately. A buzzard drifted in and sat on a tree trunk. A female marsh harrier floated over the distant upstream marsh, it's surprising how that golden splash on the forehead catches the sunlight even that far away. I hoped to see the ring-tailed hen harrier the other chaps had seen but I had no luck. I couldn't feel sorry for myself as I spotted a merlin perched on a tree trunk downstream from where I was sitting. The birdwatching was unspectacular but quietly productive and there are worse ways of spending an afternoon.

I asked myself if I wanted to walk down to the station and wait for the train to Blackpool South with a view to a bit of sea watching at Starr Gate or the Preston train with a view to getting off at Poulton-le-Fylde for a nosy at Skipool Creek. I checked the train times and decided against. I got the bus into Blackpool and took a circuitous route home. Watching a Pennine sunset I reminded myself I haven't done any hill walking yet this year.

On Lytham Windmill
Spot the starlings.

Monday, 2 March 2026

Pennington Flash

Courting mute swans

The blackbird started singing at twenty to six. I wondered what we were both doing being awake at that time and had another go at trying to fall asleep. I emerged, blinking, into a second day of Meteorological Spring that was dismal, dreary and downright dreich. I reviewed the day's plans and headed for Pennington Flash where at least there is plenty of cover in the hides.

Primroses

This turned out to be a wise move: as the 126 made its way to Leigh the rain started. Walking into Pennington Flash from St Helens Road I stopped to admire the primroses and dog violets. Robins and great tits sang, blue tits and blackbirds moved like shadows through the hedgerows. A mistle thrush burst into song and this mingled with a background hubbub I couldn't identify until I started to see the redwings in the treetops near the brook.

Tufted ducks

The car park was quiet of people and I got a lot of expectant stares from black-headed gulls and mallards as I splashed my way along. The mandarin duck that's usually on the canal had tagged along with a pair of mallards. Out on the flash there were perhaps a dozen pochards dotted about in ones and twos and tufted ducks drifting about in rafts of a dozen or so. A redhead goosander drifted out from the brook. There wasn't a lot of large gulls on the flash and they roughly equal numbers of herring gulls and lesser black-backs. This gave the common gulls and black-headed gulls the opportunity to lord it on the buoys while the big boys were playing elsewhere. A couple of oystercatchers were very wary of my passing by and made sure there was a bench between they and me.

Mandarin duck and mallards

Pennington Flash

I took shelter in the F.W.Horrocks Hide and let on to the birder already there. He'd been hoping for a repeat appearance of yesterday's sand martin but the weather had turned dead against it.

From the F.W.Horrocks Hide

There were more oystercatchers at the end of the spit, with the usual assemblage of lapwings, herring gulls, cormorants and coots. There weren't many great crested grebes about, and only a handful of mute swans. I'm hoping that means they're busy in the smaller pools. One pair of mute swans ignored the rain for a bit of courting.

Mute swans

The trees and hedgerows were bustling with robins and song thrushes though not many were singing. Unlike the wrens, great tits and one of the many blue tits bouncing through the willows.

Walking down to the Tom Edmondson Hide

A pair of mute swans occupied part of the reed bed at the Tom Edmondson Hide. Shovelers and gadwalls dabbled about but it was otherwise fairly quiet. A couple of herons flew low over the trees but didn't stop.

The pool opposite the Tom Edmondson Hide

Shovelers and teals dozed on the banks of the pool opposite the Tom Edmondson Hide.

At Ramsdales Hide

It wasn't quiet at Ramsdales Hide, the islands were dotted about with noisy pairs of Canada geese and the teals and mallards cruising about were full of quacks and whistles. Herring gulls and black-headed gulls billowed over from the flash before going back whence they came in the grandest confusion. It was impossible to see which gull had the dainty titbit the others wanted.

Dabchick

The dabchicks I hadn't been seeing on the other pools were on Pengy's with some gadwalls and shovelers. Most of the time at Pennington Flash I'm seeing the dabchicks from a distance so I took the opportunity to get a couple of photos while I could.

Reed bunting

The Bunting Hide was, fittingly, busy with reed buntings. And titmice, moorhens and stock doves. Which was nice because I've not been seeing stock doves here for a bit. I lingered awhile in the hopes a willow tit might turn up but I'll just have to wait to get one on the year list.

Stock dove

As I walked back to St Helens Road I stopped to listen to a goldcrest singing. It was quite happy to fidget down to a branch five feet from my shoulder but hid behind twigs at the first sign of the camera. I put the camera away and listened to the concert in the rain.