Went out for a walk across Marshside and Crossens. There had been reports of whinchat and curlew sandpiper at Marshside and I hoped to add them to the year list. (No luck there so I'll have to keep on trying.)
It was all relatively quiet: all the pink-footed geese, wigeon and teal had gone and there were just a few dozen black-tailed godwits. Odd to think that it was only this time last year a pair of glossy ibis spent a few days on the pool by Nels Hide and earlier the same month a snow goose had joined the pink-footed geese on Crossens.
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| Avocet, Marshside |
The black-headed gulls and avocets were noisily busy on their nests at Marshside while the ducks and coots were kept busy trying to protects their young from marauding herring gulls. Crossens was a lot quieter, and drier: Crossens Outer Marsh was particularly parched and empty.
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| Drake gadwall, Marshside |
On the way home, on a whim, I left the train at Wigan and decided to get the bus down to Pennington Flash for an evening visit. Unusually there were no terns of any kind on the Flash. A couple of common sandpipers chased each other about and an unseasonal drake wigeon was asleep in front of the Horrocks Hide. Elsewhere there was just the one little ringed plover, there were two or three the other week. The usual Cetti's warbler made itself known just across from the Edmondson Hide. Time was that a Cetti's was a highlight of a South Coast visit, these days nearly every decent sized bit of wetland in the North West has at least one resident singer.
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| Mute swan, Pennington Flash |
Plenty of Canada goose goslings about, including a family that seemed to go out of its way to annoy one of the pairs of swans.
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