Hail Lancashire!

A cormorant in the hail

So the plan for today was to take advantage of the storm's abating and shuck off the combination of cabin fever and the last dregs of a cold with an adventure. The idea was to get an old man's day rover ticket for the trains, get a bus to Longton Brickcroft for an hour's nosy round then a bus to Hesketh Bank to have a bit of wader and goose watching over the marsh, after which either a bus and train back to Preston for home or ditto to Southport and home. That was the plan.

It was a nice, crisp, sunny day, albeit a bit blowy, when I arrived at Longton Brickcroft (two and a half ponds halfway between Preston and Tarleton). A dozen each of goosander and tufted ducks were on the South pond together with a couple of gadwall and a great crested grebe.

Goosander

Tufted ducks

"Middle pond" turned out to be a big puddle in a wooded hollow, the sort of place where you spend a while looking for willow tits and not finding any. Which is when the first hailstorm happened.

North pond was littered with black-headed gulls and tufted ducks. A cormorant sat by a little island in the pond and a dabchick worked its way along the water's edge. Cue the second hailstorm.

A cormorant in the hail

Dabchick

The cormorant not in the hail

Song thrush

The third hailstorm happened while I was trying to excuse myself to the four robins that had decided that I must be a source of mealworms.

Robin

So I took the hint (bottled it) and got the next bus, which happened to be the one to Ormskirk. I got off at Rufford, had a look round the marina in the fifth hailstorm of the day (the fourth was when I was waiting for the bus) and train-hopped down to Burscough then up to Preston and out over to Blackburn then home. Which turned out to be not a bad way of spending an afternoon full of funny weather.