A few walks around Southport (3) Crossens to Marshside

Sketch map of Southport

Crossens Marsh is the point where the Sefton Coast meets the Ribble Estuary Nature Reserve. It's worth a look at any time of year but really comes into its own in Autumn and Winter with wildfowl and waders in their thousands and a good chance of seeing a variety of raptors. It's a good walk most times of the year but wrap up warm in Winter because the wind has teeth.

If you've the time and energy, and the weather's not misbehaving, you could walk from Southport to Crossens along the Marine Drive. Or you could get the bus to Marshside and walk up from there, or stay on the bus and get off at the big roundabout at Crossens. The first turning on your left at the roundabout is the start of Marine Drive.

Walking down from Crossens to Marshside you have two choices: stick to the Marine Drive or take the path down the back of the RSPB reserve down to Marshside Road. In Winter I'd definitely stick to the Marine Drive as I'd want to check out the Crossens Outer Marsh for wildfowl and raptors. It's worth taking the other path in Autumn to see if any unusual waders have turned up — there have been long-staying long-billed dowitchers on this part of Crossens Inner Marsh. If you're walking down the Marine Drive in Autumn take the time to check out the golden plovers on Crossens Inner as there have been a couple of American golden plovers there. You can also easily see large numbers of wigeon, teal, black-tailed godwits and lapwings on here as you walk along Marine Drive.

Pink-footed geese

Walking down to Marshside along the Marine Drive, cross the road where the paved footpath stops by the water treatment works. Be careful here: it's busy and the traffic is fast around that bend. The shared footpath/cycle way continues all the way down into Southport. The footpath through the gate takes you on to Banks; I've not explored that area much yet though it's very good for wildfowl.

Crossens Outer Marsh

Crossens Outer Marsh is part of the Ribble Estuary National Nature Reserve. The reserve is huge and sometimes looks empty but if you look closely, particularly in Winter, there's a lot of wildfowl out there. Teal and wigeon are often quite close to the road, geese — Canada, greylag and, particularly, pink-footed geese — tend to be further out though small groups will fly quite low across the road as they move from one part of the marsh to another. More exotic geese will sometimes fly in with the pink-footed geese so it's worth spending a lot of time scanning round for anything unusual. For instance, last Winter I saw barnacle geese, a taiga bean goose, a tundra bean goose, a Russian white-fronted goose and a snow goose and missed quite a few others that people had managed to find. (So far this Winter I've seen a Greenland white-fronted goose nearby at Banks Marsh but it's been very mild and it's early days yet.)

Snow goose and pink-footed geese

Near the beginning of the walk from Crossens there are a couple of pull-ups where wildfowlers park. The field around this area is very boggy and quite popular with meadow pipits and pied wagtails. Have a good look round here: it's a favourite area for finding wintering water pipits.

A kestrel, merlin or peregrine may flash over the marsh at any time. Looking further out in the marsh, check out the fence posts for perching raptors; there's usually a buzzard or a peregrine somewhere out there and you may strike lucky and see a marsh harrier or, in Winter, a hen harrier (you're more likely to see them cruising the distant salt marsh putting the fear of God into the skylarks). I've never had any luck with short-eared owls here though other people have seen them quite regularly.

Eventually you'll get to the fence that marks the boundary between Crossens Marsh and RSPB's Marshside reserve. This is the point at which I usually cross the road to check out what's on the pools on Marshside Inner and walk up to the Sandgrounders hide and then a bus back into Southport from Marshside Road.