Marshside and Crossens

Juvenile avocet

The weather forecast was decidedly gloomy for today so I decided to go over to Marshside, the idea being that there wouldn't be a crowd and I needed to break the hoodoo before there was any chance of new lockdowns. Sure enough, the weather was a bit grim so off I toddled.

The only travel problem of the day was the wait between connections because of the emergency timetables. It was reassuring to see everyone wearing masks and respecting the distance between each other.

Walking down Marshside Road it seemed strange to see a green field where last time there was a lake. The difference a long, hot Spring makes! A family of whitethroats had me puzzled until I finally got a proper look at them: they were uncharacteristically quiet, not even chakking when they spotted me. A large flock of house martins, including a few obvious youngsters, spent their time hawking high over the housing estate and low over the marsh. Half a dozen swifts fed at head height, including one that very near knocked my cap off, the closest encounter I've had since visiting an Arctic skua colony up in Orkney a couple of decades ago.

It was high tide so there was a few hundred black-tailed godwits scattered about the marshes, a mixture of adults in all stages of moult from full breeding to Winter plumage and a peppering of juveniles. There were also a couple of dozen curlews about, most of them on the school playing field on Marshside Road. Half a dozen little egrets were dotted around, none of them particularly close. A couple of avocets flew over the road. There were large flocks of Canada geese and a few big family groups of greylags, all a bit quiet and nothing like the clamour of Winter.

Black-tailed godwits

The Sandgrounders Hide was closed but the view from the screens by the hide was more than adequate. A flurry of small waders passed by a group of godwits and disappeared behind a large tussock of grass. It took a while for them to emerge the other side and join a redshank on a large puddle: four dunlins, two of them in full breeding plumage.

Avocet

I decided to walk over to Crossens as the rain wasn't awful and the wind was behind me. There were more avocets in the creeks on Marshside inner marsh, including a couple of well-grown youngsters. On days like this with flat, gloomy lighting it's amazing how easily avocets disappear against a backdrop of wind blown water. A couple of reed warblers sang from the overgrown ditches, one very near to the road had an astonishing song that included elements of blackbird calls.

Viper's bugloss

The viper's bugloss growing in the cracks in the path by the Marine Drive are doing well this year. I've missed the best of the poppies, roses and everlasting peas.

Crossens Marsh was a lot quieter than Marshside, though the black-headed gulls were easier to see because the grass is a lot shorter. A great black-back steamed over and was driven off by the combined efforts of a pair of oystercatchers and a lapwing. I could see no evidence of youngsters about so I suppose they chase off the danger as a matter of principle.

A sedge warbler sang from a bank of great willowherb. Aside from my visit to Frodsham I've been finding sedge warblers a lot thin on the ground this year so it was nice to get this tick for the day. A little further along there was another reed warbler in one of the overgrown gutters.

On the way back home it was good to see a couple of fields with pairs of hares in them. One pair in a field near Hoscar were accompanied by a family of red-legged partridges.

Strange how I'd missed having muddy boots.