Martin Mere

Moorhen chick

It's going to be a coo what a scorcher bank holiday weekend so I thought I'd best get a visit to Martin Mere in before it all kicks off. Most years we have a few weeks' gradation between Britain Shivers and Coo What A Scorcher but this year we're doing it over four days and I'm not convinced my system's quite caught up yet. It felt odd leaving all the coats at home, including the Summer raincoat. I had an atavistic yearning for a Packamac. It wasn't needed.

Some of the nests in the rookery by Burscough Bridge Station are either still active or active again. Most probably they are latecomers or pairs whose first attempt was predated and they're hoping second time lucky.

By Red Cat Lane 

The walk down Red Cat Lane to Martin Mere was oddly quiet but busy. The noise of rooks and jackdaws in the ploughed field just outside town gave way to the hints of woodpigeons, starlings and skylarks in the arable fields beyond. Robins, blackbirds chiffchaffs and goldfinches sang in the trees and hedges. Swallows and house martins twittered overhead, and all the more when a kestrel passed by. A yellow wagtail flew across the road from Curlew Lane and disappeared into the depths of a field of corn and there was a close pass-by by a male marsh harrier. 

A little further on, and to my utter astonishment, I had a nice suprise. A bird caught my eye as it flew into one of the horse chestnuts across the road from Brandeth Barn. It didn't look right for a sparrow and had too much back end for a chaffinch so I had a quick shufti with the binoculars. I can't remember how many years it is since I last saw a corn bunting along here, I'd given up on them. A surprisingly sleek-looking female brought the year list to 181.

Oystercatcher 

At Martin Mere I dived into the Discovery Hide for a bit of shade as much as for the birds. It's that time of year when mallards and shelducks conduct trains of ducklings past nesting black-headed gulls and non-breeding oystercatchers gather to celebrate their lack of responsibilities. There were a few lapwings and Canada geese about the far side of the mere, they were heavily outnumbered by greylags.

Black-headed gulls and chicks

Black-headed gulls and chicks

A walk down to the Mere View Hide included an encounter with a grey squirrel kitten that was out unsupervised and hadn't a clue. When I encountered it on the way back it was sunbathing after exhausting itself by running up a lady's trouser leg.

This grey squirrel kitten hadn't worked out it was supposed to be scared of people

The songscape along the way was light but persistent: if you weren't hearing song thrushes and/or robins you were hearing blackbirds, blackcaps and/or chiffchaffs, with background helpings of wrens, woodpigeons, a Cetti's warbler and a sedge warbler. A whitethroat added to the concert at the Mere View Hide and a reed warbler was seen but not heard, which is a distinct reversal of the norm.

From the Ron Barker Hide
Out in the distance a whooper swan sits on its nest.

I'd barely sat down at the Ron Barker Hide before a chap asked if I'd seen the whooper swan on its nest. I'm used to there being the odd one or two lingering over Summer because they couldn't join the migration because of injury or whatever and the past couple of years there's usually been a couple lurking around this end of Langley's Brook, the drain heading away from the hide. This year they've decided they may as well make the most of it while they're here.

Swallow

A few black-headed gulls were also nesting, bothering any passing lesser black-backs or herring gulls to keep them moving on. A few mallards, gadwalls and greylags drifted listlessly on the pools. Swallows twittered about the drain, some of them settling down for ten seconds of song before getting back to the business of flying about twittering. The long grass in the field at the side of the marsh was high enough for the calves to just be disembodied ears and tops of heads careering about in a giddy fashion. The cattle egrets with them and their parents were only visible when they took flight or sat on one or other's backs.

The afternoon was but young and the weather dead clear so I headed for the reedbed walk. I didn't think I had the legs to do the long walk round but I wanted to check out at least some of the hides and I was desperate to see some dragonflies. I lingered on the bridges over the brooks and drains like some lovelorn sailor in a bad movie and just got pitying looks from mallards for my pains. No dragons, no damsels.

The pool at the Rees Hide was busy though most of the birds were a fair way away from the hide. Black-headed gulls sat on nests with avocets on sentry duty chasing off lesser black-backs, coots, lapwings, swallows, butterflies, whatever caught their eye. I almost missed a Mediterranean gull sitting amidst the mêlée.

Tufted ducks 

The birds were closer and the whole scene a little calmer at the Gordon Taylor Hide, except when male black-headed gulls brought sticks back to shore up the nest when the family was expecting dinner. Pairs of tufted ducks, shovelers and teals quietly cruised about in and out of the reeds and between the nesting islands.

Black-headed gull

Black-headed gulls 

Black-headed gulls and chick

On the way out I glanced over the bridge and a female banded demoiselle landed on the reeds just underneath. Just the one damselfly for the day but one is infinitely better than nothing.

Banded demoiselle

It was lazy afternoon time at the Harrier Hide. Mallards, greylags, gadwalls and shovelers dozed and a great crested grebe slowly cruised around to no apparent purpose.

Creeping buttercup and flax

It was busy-quiet again on the way back. There was another fly-by by the marsh harrier though this time he was well away from the road. The starlings and swallows were starting to settle on telegraph wires ready for their teatime singsong, some were already warming up. All in all the day was like that, a deceptively calm day's birdwatching that somehow got 69 species on the tally.

Mosses

Meadow pipit, Little Woolden Moss
One of those "The best you can hope for is a small bird in a large landscape" days.

I wasn't sure of the weather today, it was to be warmer than it has been and might or might not involve rain depending on which forecast you chose to believe. I was sure that I wanted a good walk and didn't want to spend much time travelling for it so I got the train to Glazebrook and set off for Little Woolden Moss.

I'd worn the combination of big coat and Summer gilet yesterday. The gilet's a recent purchase and I'm still disorganised with it but I'm lost without an inside pocket so it comes in useful. There was a cooling breeze yesterday so the combination worked well. I took the coat off almost as soon as I left the station today. The entire afternoon felt like being in an armpit.

Walking up the road the trees and gardens were full of house sparrows. Blackbirds, blackcaps, dunnocks, wrens and woodpigeons sang and starlings whizzed to and fro to meet the demands of hungry mouths. The blue tits were in stealth mode and even the goldfinches had no time for drama.

Glazebrook 

Skylarks sang in the fields just outside town. A pipit-like call caught my ear and I managed to catch sight of the yellow wagtail that made it before it disappeared into the depths of barley. That's the first one I've seen this side of the motorway round here.

Over the motorway I crossed the road and walked down towards Little Woolden Hall. I had to stop at the bridge over the Glaze, the riverside was buzzing. Canada geese loafed either side of the river bank; magpies, woodpigeons and pheasants rummaged about in the fields and meadow pipits fussed about the bridge. The main action was in the air. Swallows and swifts swarmed low overhead. More swallows, and dozens of sand martins hawked low over the river and passed to and fro over the bridge. All that action and the odd thing was that I wasn't aware of there being all that many insects about. Perhaps there weren't anymore, they'd all been hoovered up. 

The River Glaze from the path to the nature reserve

Yellow wagtails flitted across the barley fields on the other side, occasionally stopping to bicker with each other on telephone lines, flitting off at the sign of a camera. I walked the meandering path past the hall to the nature reserve, tiptoeing past pied wagtails and flinching as swallows zipped close by at shoulder height.

Little Woolden Moss 
The reserve is behind the trees on the left.

The path along the Western edge of the reserve was noisy with mostly invisible songbirds. Some of the willow warblers popped up into the tops of saplings to have a quick song before diving back into cover with a squeak. There were dozens of willow warblers singing on the reserve today. The blackcaps, wrens, robins and even the blackbirds were, at best, retreating shadows and the rustle of leaves. A couple of whitethroats singing at the field margins made brief song flights and pairs of linnets and goldfinches flew over the fields. And somewhere in the vegetation by the pools, screened from view by thickly-planted birch and willow scrub, reed buntings and a sedge warbler sang from afar.

Green tiger beetle

The smaller critters were no end more forthcoming. There were green tiger beetles all over the shop.  Between them and the peacock butterflies I had to watch every step along the way lest I trod on them. I'm not good at wolf spiders and they were all too fast for me to try and get any better at identifying them. The electric blue sparks jumping out of the bracken were pearly green lacewings on the hunt.

Pearly green lacewing
These look electric blue in flight as the light catches them.

Little Woolden Moss 

Chiffchaffs and a garden warbler joined the chorus from deep in the trees at the corner of the reserve. And large whites and orange tip butterflies fluttered about the bracken and heather by the path. I slowed down as the path and the trees diverged and I entered more open country. I still haven't seen any reptiles here and I didn't today either. Oddly, I haven't seen any lizards anywhere since I decided to start recording seeing them.

The lapwings and black-headed gulls on the Eastern pools were fidgety, made more so as the carrion crows chased a buzzard off their patch and the buzzard then flew back to make a point. A pair of oystercatchers were noisy but took a surprising amount of finding. The coots and mallards were self-effacing and the usual Canada geese nowhere to be found. Overhead black-headed gulls, swifts and swallows wheeled about and way higher above them half a dozen lesser black-backs circled round.

Little Woolden Moss 

I had been hoping that the return of the warm weather might be a turning point after a dismal start to the dragonfly season. I was coming to the conclusion that it wasn't when a stubby black pencil of a thing shot past and out of sight. No idea. I had more luck with the large red damselfly dancing about some willow scrub. Large red damselflies are actually quite small, small red damselflies are almost flights of fancy. I was nearly out of the reserve when I saw another stubby black dragonfly hawking over one of the pools. It's the first time I've knowingly seen a hairy dragonfly and I only made the identification from a process of elimination on the Dragonfly Society website. While I was puzzling this out a male stonechat hopped up out of the cotton grass on the banks to see off a magpie that was making intrusions.

Little Woolden Moss 

Blackcaps, chiffchaffs and a song thrush sang in the trees along Lavender Lane and whitethroats sang and churred from bramble patches. Skylarks sang in the fields and a curlew called as it flew over. There were a lot of painted lady butterflies flying about. I had a few moments of confusion trying to work out what a pair of butterflies rushing about a hawthorn bush were then realised it was a painted lady in hot pursuit of a red admiral. Ooh matron, as they say in Hamlet.

Chat Moss, the new pond

A little way along Twelve Yards Road a small pond has been made in the corner of a field of rough. The Canada geese I hadn't been seeing on Little Woolden Moss were here, in the company of mallards, shovelers and moorhens. As I passed this corner a pair of lapwings distraction-displayed me out of their territory.

Twelve Yards Road 

Swallows and swifts zipped about overhead and skylarks sang low over the fields. Whitethroats sang in the brambles and land drains, willow warblers from the field of willow scrub, chiffchaffs and blackcaps from the hedgerows. I almost missed the stock doves amongst the woodpigeons in the long grass. The grey partridge disappearing to join them almost missed seeing me.

Cutnook Lane 

Cutnook Lane was awash with song. The only titmice showing were the couple of blue tits flitting about in a Rhododendron bush. I was glad of the shade for that last stretch of the walk.

Marton Mere

White-winged black terns

Marton Mere's one of the many places I didn't get round to last year. Seeing a report of two (two!) white-winged black terns there first thing this morning decided me to head that way.

I got the train to Blackpool North and just missed the 61 bus that would have dropped me off at Paddock Drive and then a short walk into Marton Mere. The next bus was the 18, I got that to St Paul's Church, walked down Preston Old Road and joined the path into Marton Mere from Cornwall Place, half a mile's additional walk and quicker than waiting for the next 61.

Walking into Marton Mere 

This path took me into the West side of the reserve. The apple trees starting to set fruit amongst the hawthorns reminded me that a few Autumns ago I came here to watch a red-footed falcon amidst the background smell of cider and swarms of red admirals and hawker dragonflies. It wasn't that sort of day today, grey and mild and windy, the sort of day where the butterflies stay under cover and the year's dismal showing of dragonflies continues.

For all the grey and dull the chiffchaffs, blackcaps and a couple of willow warblers were in full song though outnumbered by song thrushes and all they outnumbered by Cetti's warblers. The Cetti's, as ever, offered tantalising glimpses of tops of heads and tail feathers disappearing into reeds.

Marton Mere

I had a sit down at the first Hide I came to to get the lay of the land. The reeds in front of the hide were seething with Cetti's warblers, reed buntings and song thrushes. At first glance there was little on the open water except for a mute swan and a fishing cormorant. A scan with the binoculars immediately established there was a swarm of swifts over the mere. It took me a while to find the swallows and house martins in the mix. It took next to no time to notice the couple of white-winged black terns zipping about with them.

White-winged black tern

White-winged black terns

White-winged black terns

Both terns showed brilliantly well, though they kept their distance. One bird was definitely an adult, black body and solidly silver white wings and tail. The other looked to have a few dusky patches on the wing coverts and may have been a subadult.

I managed to get one of the swifts in shot

The terns were a bit closer to the next hide along but largely hidden by reeds as they skimmed about just above the water.

Marton Mere 

Job done I had a potter about. Herring gulls and black-headed gulls fussed about the mere and a common tern paid it a fleeting visit. A couple of greylags called from the edge of the reedbed, a Canada goose looked to be sitting on a nest and the "What's that with those mallards in the corner?" turned out to be a drake gadwall. There was a bit of a twittering panic amongst the martins and swallows as a kestrel flew by. For all the extensive reedbeds there was an absence of reed warblers though a sedge warbler in one corner was trying to sing for a regiment. I finally started hearing reed warblers as the path neared the holiday village.

Main Dyke

I walked through the holiday village and got the 61 back to Blackpool North Station. I'd had a good birdwatching walk and it was nice to have had a long look a white-winged black terns, my first one last year was a youngster only offering fleeting views. I'd got myself an old man's explorer ticket so I took a meandering route home. When I got home the back garden was littered with baby blue tits. Which was nice.

West Kirby

Scaup

It was grey but slightly milder than yesterday. I decided I'd have a gentle potter about West Kirby Marine Lake to see if the scaup that's been reported there lately was still about.

There was a bit of a hiccup with trains on the West Kirby line so I arrived later than intended and walked over to the lake. It was high tide, the walkway on the outer rim of the lake indicated by the tops of a few stones. The windsurfers were out in numbers, it was that kind of weather.

Herring gull

Herring gulls hovered around the lake, occasionally settling down by the outer rim,  mostly content to check the place out then return to the nearby rooftops. A lesser black-back cruised out of the way of the windsurfers until one took a spill in its direction and it flew off. Waders were notably absent, the few that would be about would be roosting on the eyes and Hilbre this time of year. A pied wagtail fossicked about the base of the sea wall.

Pied wagtail

I wondered if I had much chance of seeing the scaup. It very obligingly came over to greet me.

Scaup

Scaup
I'm always surprised by how long a scaup's beak is.

Scaup

Scaup

Scaup

Scaup

Job done, just this once I went straight home. Just to show I can do it.

Etherow Country Park

Pied flycatcher, Keg Wood

I waited for the rain to be done and dusted before heading over to Etherow Country Park to see if I could get mandarin duck and dipper onto the tally for the month.

Coot

The Canada geese and one of the mute swans lurked by the car park hoping for goodies from passersby. There were only a couple of mallards and the only coot was sitting on its nest. The little canal was similarly quiet, the few ducks about lurked in the willow roots by the bank. A pair of mandarins skulked under the little bridge over the canal.

Blackbirds, dunnocks and robins rummaged about on the roadside. Blackbirds, robins, willow warblers and a chiffchaff sang in the trees and a green woodpecker yaffled from somewhere over in Ernocroft Wood.

Horse chestnuts by the canal

There was another pair of mandarin ducks on the river and a family of grey wagtails up by the weir bridge. I had no luck finding any dippers. Meanwhile, a pair of blue tits shuttled constantly between the wood and their nest by the bridge.

Keg Wood 

I had a walk around Keg Wood. It seemed quiet at first, just robins and blackbirds singing and a great spotted woodpecker barracking me as I passed by. As I walked in deeper chiffchaffs and blackcaps joined the songscape, blackcaps soon becoming the dominant feature. Woodpigeons, wrens, dunnocks and coal tits joined in and chaffinches sang from the woodland margins up the hill. 

At the bend by one of the sitting areas two blackcaps were having a singing duel with a blackbird singing in the background. A fourth bird piped up, at first I thought it was another blackcap warming up but the song stayed rushed and slightly scratchy and I had me a garden warbler on the tally.

Pied flycatcher

I had a sit down by Sunny Corner. Nuthatches, great tits and a grey squirrel came over to see if I was providing food and gave hard stares when it became apparent I wasn't. A pheasant called from somewhere and blue tits fidgeted about in the trees. A little further along a small pale something flitted through the trees like a butterfly with unusually direct flight. It remained a puzzle until I noticed it alight on a dead branch. Luckily for me it stayed put so I could identify it as a pied flycatcher. I stayed still and watched it catching flies for a few minutes then, as it hasn't been bothered when a couple walked by with a dog I got a few photos taken to make sure I hadn't fallen asleep at Sunny Corner and dreamt it. It was a bonny little bird.

Pied flycatcher

Pied flycatcher

Pied flycatcher

It was obviously a much-favoured perch, the flycatcher was back later on as I was on my way back. I retraced my steps because I knew the knees weren't going to be happy with the slope up from Keg Pool. I'll have to try and remember which bend the dead branch is on, just in case the bird's still around next time I visit.

Pied flycatcher

Pied flycatcher

Pied flycatcher

Treecreeper

A treecreeper on the next tree along was a nice bonus.

Treecreeper

No visit to Etherow Country Park should be without a few pictures of mandarin ducks. The pair on the canal were having a bath out in the open.

Mandarin duck

Mandarin duck

Mandarin duck

Mandarin duck

While I was waiting for the bus home at Stockport Interchange I had a look to see if anything was on the river. A grey wagtail flitted about the bankside and a family of goosanders slept under the bridge.

Goosanders, ducklings (front) and duck