Leighton Moss

 A day out at a very damp Leighton Moss while the weather's behaving itself.

The path to the Griesdale and Tim Jackson Hides.

After fairly quickly abandoning Lilian's Hide — lots of teal, tufted ducks and gadwall, a surprising number of pochard, three goosander flying over the reedbeds and a few too many people who prefer to use the hide as a picnic site — I took the path down to the Griesdale and Tim Jackson hides. The going was extremely wet. A couple of mixed tit flocks, including a very vocal pair of marsh tits and a couple of camera-shy treecreepers, worked their way along the willows, stopping off at the informal feeding stations people have set up for photography (too crowded for me). On my last visit this stretch was dry and the lower path, amongst the reeds, was under six inches of water. As the water got deeper I took the hint and turned back when a pair of mallard swam past.

There are some photogenic bits of tree along the path

There was fresh frogspawn by the sides of the boardwalk leading up to the causeway and the first Cetti's warbler of the day gave a short, sharp blast of song and scuttled off into the undergrowth. Three buzzards and a sparrowhawk soared overhead.

The public causeway.
Only a couple of inches underwater.

A couple more Cetti's warblers were calling and singing along the causeway and all the way down to the Causeway Hide was accompanied by the snufflings and gruntings of water rails as they foraged in the reeds.

I had wondered about the wisdom of splashing my way down to the hide but it was worth it. A male marsh harrier gave a prolonged skydance over the reedbeds opposite. A couple of females were in attendance and didn't take kindly to each other's presence.

Male marsh harrier

Male marsh harrier

Female marsh harriers dogfighting

Female marsh harrier

Then, to cap it all, the bittern that I'd been hearing booming throughout my visit made a very brief appearance, flying up out of the reedbed and going back down again as quickly again.