Not quite Martin Mere

Jackdaw, Wigan Wallgate Station

I keep thinking about a visit to Martin Mere but they quite rightly and sensibly are only taking booked visits at the moment and that doesn't fit in with my way of getting up in the morning and deciding what I feel like doing today. Then I remembered that there's still a decent walk to be had between New Lane and Burscough Bridge via one or other of the meandering footpaths. So that's what I did today.

I changed trains at Wigan (there's a through train from Oxford Road but I decided I'd prefer to hang around in the open at Wigan for half an hour rather than twenty-five minutes at Oxford Road). No ravens today but I was joined by a jackdaw in rather downy moult.

I got off at New Lane and followed the path that runs beside the railway line. Not having a couple of hours at Martin Mere on the itinerary I had plenty of time to check out the water treatment works to see if there were any waders other than the pair of oystercatchers I'd been hearing since I left the station. There weren't but there was a couple of dozen each of starlings and pied wagtails and a mixed flock of house martins and swifts overhead. A flock of black-headed gulls took umbrage at a buzzard as it slowly flapped it's way towards New Lane.

Brown hawkers patrolled the ditch along the line and made forays across the path to put a scare into the insects feeding on the thistles, fumitories and mustards on the field margins. The thistles were also busy with goldfinches.

As I approached the pedestrian railway crossing I thought I could see a couple more buzzards over Martin Mere's reedbed. They floated closer and turned out to be a couple of female-type marsh harriers.

Greylag geese

A couple of dozen greylags were quietly feeding on the field across the line. It's not often you see greylags doing anything quietly. A kestrel hovered over the rough field on the other side of the path, the swallows feeding low over the grass moved over to another field just in case.

I followed the path down into the section where the boundary to Martin Mere's reedbed walk is defined by a high hedge. Chiffchaffs and great tits made it known they'd spotted me as I walked past. Just as I was coming to the little reed-filled pond the hedgerow was suddenly full of birds: a family of sixteen or so long-tailed tits, a family of great tits, a couple of blue tits and two or three chiffchaffs flitted about. Trying to keep track of them all and count them was a great demonstration of the effectiveness of safety in numbers, especially when a large part of that number caper about like a barrel of monkeys.

Juvenile long-tailed tit

Looking over the gate between the hedgerow and the reedbeds I could see more greylags on the pool in mid distance, together with a couple of coots, a mallard and about thirty lapwings.

A couple of reed buntings were singing from the reeds and a willow warbler called from one of the hawthorn bushes. There were more brown hawkers, together with a couple of common hawkers and a common darter. A banded demoiselle was kind enough to sit still long enough to have its photo taken.

Banded demoiselle

As much of a tawny owl as I've seen since March

More swifts and swallows overhead, plus another marsh harrier carrying something in its feet as it flew over towards the mere.

Instead of turning into the path to Martin Mere I turned into Tarlscough Lane and walked into Burscough. Flocks of swallows hawked low over the fields of barley. A big flock of a hundred or more house martins fed over the fields and farmyard at the corner of Curlew Lane. I kept checking the potato fields for yellow wagtails but no joy. No joy finding any tree sparrows either. I'd almost given up on corn buntings until I heard one singing in the field across the road from the horse paddocks. I was so intent on trying to see where it was singing from I didn't notice the buzzard sat on the telegraph pole next to me until it flew off and spooked a trio of woodpigeons.

So it turned out to be a nice productive walk even without the visit to Martin Mere.