Hodbarrow

Sandwich terns

I got myself an old man's explorer ticket and had a day out to Hodbarrow, seeing as this season there's actually working connections between the train from Manchester to Barrow and the train from Barrow to Millom.

As the train approached Silverdale I had a scan over the coastal pools. There was an embarrassment of riches, not all of which registered with me. I noticed a pair of great black-backs had a nest. A flock of dozen avocets fed on the pool in front of the Eric Morecambe Hide. The great white egret wasn't at its usual post, its place taken by a black swan. And the islands on the Allen Pool were white with tightly-packed black-headed gulls.

It was approaching low water so there wasn't a lot of bird life on the Kent Estuary at Arnside but there were a couple of large flocks of eiders loafing on the mud as we passed over the Leven Estuary. 

Hodbarrow

The trees along the path into the Hodbarrow reserve was noisy with blackcaps, chiffchaffs, a couple of willow warblers and a garden warbler, with a few chaffinches and rather of lot of goldfinches adding their voices. Out in the more open ground every other island stand of gorse, broom and hawthorn had its own whitethroat.

Hodbarrow

Approaching the barrier separating the lagoon from the Duddon Estuary I could hear but not see a lot of terns. The gulls were more in evidence, mostly lesser black-backs at this point, more black-headed gulls as I walked down the path on the barrier, Getting closer to the hide, which is closed for rebuilding, the first of very many Sandwich terns skittered over at head height as they flew to and fro between the estuary and hungry nestlings. They were joined by a handful of common terns and once every so often a little tern would be heralded by their peculiar wader-like call. I spent a while trying, and failing abysmally, to photograph flying terns but they were just too close and too fast.

Eiders

There were lots of family parties of eiders and stray drakes swimming round the lagoon. There were also a few great crested grebes, a couple of rafts of tufted ducks and, to my surprise, a pair of goldeneye. There were a lot more eiders and tufties loafing on the shingle banks keeping out of pecking distance of nesting black-headed gulls and terns. I couldn't see that there were any nesting common terns or little terns but there must have been hundreds of Sandwich terns on nests, with rather a lot more loafing on the shingles. A pair of red-breasted mergansers flew in and cut a rakish dash.

Black-headed gulls and chicks

Eiders and nesting black-headed gull

Red-breasted mergansers

Eiders and black-headed gulls

Sandwich terns

Common tern

Looking out onto the estuary there were a few curlews and a dozen redshanks feeding on the mud while a flock of oystercatchers loafed on the mud and kept unusually quiet.

Oystercatchers and eiders.

I spent a couple of hours enjoying the scenery and the birds then wandered off for my train. I got to Millom Station just in time for the scheduled train to Lancaster and half an hour early for the actual arrival. 

Duddon Estuary

The osprey sitting watching the trains go by in a dead tree just outside Green Road Station was a surprise.

Rather than changing at Barrow or Lancaster and waiting fifty minutes for the Barrow to Manchester train I got off at Arnside, which has the advantages of having shops nearby and being sited  right next to the estuary. I got a fresh drink and watched the little egrets and oystercatchers on the estuary while greenfinches and spadgers fed on the grass in front of my seat.