Martin Mere

The strong winds brought some funny weather today: it started off sunny with occasional bursts of rain or hail then over lunchtime it turned filthy with occasional bursts of sunshine. I decided to take my chances and go out to Martin Mere for the day.

Along Marsh Moss Lane, just before it started hailing

Walking down from New Lane Station the fields and trees were chock full of fieldfares and woodpigeons. The lack of swans or geese on the fields was made up by the number of little egrets and shelduck on the field between Martin Mere and Marsh Moss Lane.

Whooper swan

The water on the mere was very high. Although there were plenty of whoopers, pintails and wigeon about the most numerous wildfowl by a long chalk were shelduck. On the far side of the mere cormorants, greylags and lapwings loafed at the water's edge. The lapwings were spooked by a flock of lapwings that in turn had been spooked by something in the field beyond, which brought along with them half a dozen black-tailed godwits, a handful of ruff and a single green snadpiper. A flock of twenty-odd avocets flew in but didn't settle.

There weren't many tree sparrows along the path to the Kingfisher Hide, it turned out they were all in the brambles there waiting their turns on the feeders. A buzzard floated in low and looked like it might settle, which upset the woodpigeons that were monopolising the feeders and gave the sparrows the chance to get in there.

Tree sparrows

Shovelers were the most numerous ducks at the Ron Barker Hide. As the weather closed in it became easier to pick out the five avocets feeding far out on the water. It's surprising how easily avocets disappear into choppy water in high contrast light. The wigeon, teal and gadwall were keeping to the water's edges and the ditches. There was a brief flash of pale grey wing with a black panel — a male hen harrier! I've only ever seen ringtails at Martin Mere. That's as much as I saw of it: the sky went black and a torrential hailstorm put paid for any hopes of seeing any raptors flying about.

After a cup of tea I wandered over to the Janet Kear Hide. It was nice to see the willow tit's still there.