Wyre

Redshank, Skipool Creek

It was a dreich sort of day and promised to get no better so it was a choice of going on a wild goose chase or wader watching. So I got myself an old man's explorer ticket and only made my mind up as the train approached Preston.

Skipool Creek

I stayed on the train up to Poulton-le-Fylde and set off walking for Skipool Creek. With the bypass roadworks on Amounderness Way getting to the very messy stage it's almost more difficult to cross the road than it is to pronounce it. There was a little egret feeding on the field by Thornton Lodge as I passed.

I turned onto Wyre Road and bumped into a mixed tit flock, mostly blue tits with a couple of pairs of great tits and a couple of goldfinches along for the ride. A couple of yards further along a redshank feeding in the mud by the first berthed boat saw me before I saw it and created a tremendous fuss. Absolutely nothing responded to its alarm calls, unless the dirty looks cast its way by half a dozen mallards in the creek counts.

Grey weather had turned to mizzle, which didn't help my efforts to identify the waders upriver by the road bridge. The waders on this side were redshanks and lapwings accompanied by black-headed gulls and a common gull.

House sparrow, Skipool Creek
(It makes a change, photographing someone else's spadgers)

The hedgerow between the car park and the sailing club was heaving with birds. Blackbirds, mistle thrushes and song thrushes feasted on sloes and haws, greenfinches were busy dismantling dog rose hips. I didn't notice the feeders hidden in the depths of the hedge until they were brought to my attention by blue tits and great tits. There were also a lot of sparrows rummaging about in the hawthorns and ivy, the house sparrows would occasionally come out and show themselves, the tree sparrows didn't get any further than sticking their heads out, seeing I was there and quickly retreating undercover. The coal tits and goldfinches stayed high in the trees.

Skipool Creek

The weather closed in and got nasty as I stood by the sailing club scanning the far bank of the river. The tide was high so there were over a hundred lapwings on the mud with a couple of dozen each of curlew and redshank and forty-odd herring gulls.

I'd stopped having fun so I got the 74 bus into Fleetwood, partly because it was there and it was dry, partly in the hopes that the weather might calm down by the time I got to Fleetwood. (Narrator: it didn't.)

Knott End from Fleetwood Dock

In Fleetwood I got a bag of chips from a chippy on Dock Road and walked down to the lifeboat station for a bit of seawatching. The high tide had brought a couple of hundred oystercatchers onto the mudbars by Knott End. A couple of dozen redshanks were identifiable in the gloom (made a lot easier when they flapped about) and half a dozen curlews were easy enough. A flock of about thirty dunlins were unidentifiable until they took flight and whirled round the oystercatchers. There were a lot of waders that were just unidentifiable shadows. The gulls were nearly all herring gulls.

The ticket I bought on the bus was good for all of Blackpool's buses and trams so after having the wind blowing the rain in my face for a while I decided it would be as well to jack it in for the day and get a tram into Blackpool. I rode the full length to Starr Gate and just caught the Preston train at Squires Gate (I'd significantly underestimated how long it takes to cross the road at the bottom of the Promenade).

Skipool Creek

A bloody horrible day with some decent birdwatching and moody, atmospheric scenery. There are worse things.