Leighton Moss

Bearded tits

I got up before the cat and set out for a mid-morning visit to Leighton Moss. It was a cool, dark grey sort of a day but yesterday's fog had lifted so I had a fighting chance of seeing something.

There were big flocks of woodpigeons about Botany Bay Wood and the usual pheasants in the fields on Astley Moss. As the train slowed down for the turn at Golborne Dale the only buzzard of the day was sat in a trackside sycamore and a great tit was a site tick.

Scanning the coastal pools as the train approached Silverdale Station there were a few mallards and shelducks on the water and a couple of woodpigeons. It was getting on for low tide so I guess the waders were feeding on the bay.

Dunnock

A singing coal tit in the dog roses at the station was a good omen. A few blue tits, spadgers and a nuthatch were in the hedge as I walked round to Leighton Moss. Sadly, the big conifer at the corner of the entrance to the reserve has been a casualty of the storms and a gang were chopping it up when I arrived. Walking round the reserve there were a few more, smaller, trees down and quite a few with broken limbs.

I spent five minutes getting my eye in at the picnic area. Blue, great and coal tits vied with chaffinches and a collared dove for the feeders while a couple of dunnocks and a robin pecked at my bootlaces in an effort to guilt me into giving them food I didn't have on me, just like being back at home with the cat. I spent a couple of minutes with a dozen mallards by the tables, each of us egging the other on to beat up a particularly obnoxious child who was chasing all the birds away. He ran off sharpish when the ducks marched after him with a look in their eyes.

From Lilian's Hide

The mist was rising off the reeds at Lillian's Hide but the visibility was pretty good. A couple of dozen each of shovelers and teals dabbled and loafed by the bank and a dozen pintails, mostly drakes, upended nearby. It took me a while to spot the couple of snipe with the teal. Over on the other side a raft of wigeons bobbed about with a single lesser black-back while coots and gadwall fed by the reeds.

Teal, snipe and shoveler

Shovelers and pintail

The walk through the reedbed to the Tim Jackson Hide was punctuated by groups of noisy tiny tots excited at finding their next one of the "Robin Robin on Netflix" noticeboards. The birds mostly don't mind the noise of people (so many of them associate people with food) so it was unfortunate that a pair of marsh tits I'd finally got into focus for a picture decided to skip off when one party arrived. (No, I was very nice and pointed out some blue tits.)

Robin

A Cetti's warbler sang half-heartedly on the path to the hide and I was mugged by another couple of robins. Three bullfinches — a male and two females — were busy disbudding one of the hawthorns while a family of long-tailed tits bounced by.

The pools at the Tim Jackson Hide were littered with teal and I spent some time making sure all the white lines were horizontal. They were accompanied by more shovelers and mallards.

Bearded tits

Bearded tits

I walked down to the Griesdale Hide, stepping aside to let another noisy party go by. (The tiny tots were just giddy excited, the grown-ups insisted on walking three abreast until it became apparent I wasn't going to step off the path into the water.) Much to my astonishment, there on the grit feeders next to the "Robin Robin" notice the kids had been shouting about was a pair of bearded tits. They let me take a few photos and I left them to it. A little further along the only marsh harrier of the day, a first-Winter bird, floated over the reeds.

Snipe

There was a couple of dozen snipe at the Griesdale Hide. There was also a few dozen teal and some pintails. Out on the marsh beyond the level crossing about fifty lapwings rose up, drifted a bit then settled down our of sight behind the reeds 

Leighton Moss

Walking back a skein of a dozen greylags passed overhead. It was bathtime in the ditch by the path at the margin of the reserve: blue tits, great tits, chaffinches, a bullfinch and a song thrush were all at their ablutions. A mixed tit flock included the pair of marsh tits and a couple of goldcrests.

It was lunchtime so I reckoned I could get the Carlisle train as far as Ulverston, so I could see what was on the Leven Estuary, then get the train back and either get off at Carnforth for a nosy round Pine Lake or at Lancaster for an afternoon at Morecambe. Unfortunately, every southbound train from Barrow before 4pm was showing as being cancelled. A frantic bit of searching gave me the choice of getting back by getting the Kendal bus at Ulverston and hoping the Windermere train wasn't cancelled or carrying on down to Barrow, having a ride on the Ulverston bus and having a mooch round before getting the first train back not listed as cancelled. Barrow seemed the safer bet 

There weren't many gulls on the river at Arnside but there was a redshank feeding on the bank and a pair of red-breasted mergansers swimming downstream. The saltmarsh between the viaduct and Kent's Bank was dotted with jackdaws, little egrets and woodpigeons while a large flock of black-headed gulls loafed offshore. The small flock of pink-footed geese were still on the marsh by the Leven while a flock of wigeon was on the riverbank.

As we approached Barrow a flock of black-headed gulls bathed in the dock by the trackside and every street had a herring gull sitting on the chimney of the corner house.

I got to Barrow, where the Carlisle train was promptly terminated and it became the train back to Manchester Airport. So I got a hot chocolate from the café and hopped back on.

On the way back there were Canada geese near Furness Abbey and another flock of wigeon inland of the viaduct across the Leven. The ditches draining the fields near Meathop were full of ducks, mostly mallard and teal with a few wigeon in the bigger drains.

It had been a dark day, even before sundown it looked like I was staring out into the twilight. The jackdaws and woodpigeons going to roost evidently felt the same. Stare as I might into the North Lancashire gloom I couldn't turn any of the passing shadows into owls, though a merlin sitting by the track at Bolton-le-Sands was a nice consolation.

Leighton Moss