Martin Mere

Pintails

I needed a walk and the weather was promising grim but dry so it was high time I went for a stroll round Martin Mere.

I got off the train at New Lane and decided to go the long way round via the reedbed walk because I was very conscious that I've not got grey wagtail on the year list and there was always the chance of one on the sewage works by the station. And who knows, I might strike lucky and get fieldfare and chiffchaff ticked off while I was at it.

The hedge by the station was busy with robins, dunnocks and blackbirds but there didn't seem to be anything out on the leek field (not even many leeks). Over on the other side of the railway there was an abundance of black-headed gulls on the sewage works. I walked a bit further on to get a view of the filtration tanks where there were a couple of hundred starlings and dozens of pied wagtails but not grey wagtails. I spent a while checking to see if there were any water pipits, just in case. (There weren't.)

Birch trees by the sewage farm

There were a few stock doves feeding with the woodpigeons amongst the cabbages and a flock of linnets flew overhead from the bit of set-aside with the sunflowers and oilseed rape. A buzzard floated high over Langley's Brook and headed for Martin Mere.

I joined the top of the reedbed path just as a mixed flock of long-tailed tits and great tits bounced by. There were robins, dunnocks and blackbirds along the path and here and there a couple of blue tits or great tits would chase each other through the hawthorns. As I approached the Northern boundary of the sewage works it was difficult to hear much over the squabblings of starlings and black-headed gulls. There were plenty of reed buntings about and another family of long-tailed tits frolicked their way through the trees.

At this point I noticed a report of a Siberian chiffchaff hereabouts so I had a look at the details. According to the report it was just two minutes earlier and precisely where I was standing. I was puzzled by this as I literally hadn't seen anybody since I crossed over the railway line and passed the time of day with a dog walker and there had been nobody in sight ahead of me. And the only possessors of a rather sad, bullfinch-like call had been three rather sad bullfinches making the most of the last of the ash keys. I can only think whoever it was must have been using one of the paths reserved for Martin Mere staff and volunteers that disappear behind a hedgerow. I spent quarter of an hour along that stretch of patch, closely scanning the hedges (a chiffchaff of any flavour would be a year tick). Five minutes in I heard a call, a sad bullfinch-like, monosyllabic call but thinner than the bullfinches' and tailing off into nothing. A Siberian chiffchaff. Damned if I could see it, though. Enough for me to add it to the year list but not nearly enough for me to feel comfortable submitting it to the local Bird Recorder. I'll leave that to the gang of blokes I meet along the way to Martin Mere.

The field between Martin Mere and Marsh Moss Road was full of dumped carrots and woodpigeons studiously ignoring the dumped carrots. A little egret was along for the ride.

Once I was at Martin Mere I went straight to the Discovery Hide to see what was on the mere. There was a lot on, but a lot fewer whooper swans and greylags than on my last visit. They were more than compensated for by pintails, shelducks and pochards, with a couple of hundred wigeon on the far bank. A couple of marsh harriers were putting up murmurations of lapwings over in the reedbeds while a buzzard sat on a fencepost and watched the performance. A lone ruff amongst the lapwings was the only one of the day, which is a bit disappointing.

Whooper swan

Pintails

The drake pintails were doing a lot of head-bobbing and showing off to the ladies. The mallards seemed paired off already. I wasn't sure if the black-tailed godwits in front of the hide were courting or just squabbling but they made plenty of noise about it.

When the black-tailed godwits are too close for your camera lens to focus on them and you have to use your 'phone.

Black-tailed godwit

It turned out all the whoopers were scoffing spuds opposite the Hale Hide and the greylags were in the adjoining field. I notice there were a lot more tree sparrow nestboxes in the trees by the Raine's Observatory, I didn't see any tree sparrows here today.

Juvenile whooper swans

Looking out from the Ron Barker Hide there were a couple of hundred teal on the pools and a hundred or so wigeon grazing on the banks. I checked that all the drake teals had horizontal white stripes (they did) and none of the wigeons had green and straw yellow heads (they didn't). Five shovelers flew in to join the half a dozen shovelers mooching by the far reeds. Further out, a little egret flew out over the reeds and a great white egret made a distant cameo appearance flying over the sluice beyond the reeds.

Marsh harrier

Marsh harrier

There were a couple of marsh harriers about, one sat in a tree in the reeds and the other sitting in the reeds by the water. A couple more flew in and unsettled the ducks and flushed a brace of snipe, two more harriers floated about in the distance. I'm old enough to remember when marsh harriers were occasional Winter visitors here.

Marsh harrier

A heron flew low over, disturbing the teal which did a lot of whistling and took a while to settle back down again. The three male pheasants having a battle on the bank were disturbed by a passing stoat.

I wandered back, stopping to look in vain for tawny owls or bramblings. The light, which was never good all day, was starting to fade and the wind was getting a definite edge to it so I decided to call it quits and walk over to Burscough Bridge for the train home. There was a constant stream of black-headed gulls overhead going to roost on the mere. 

Pink-footed geese, Burscough

Once on Red Cat Lane I could hear a few hundred pink-footed geese a couple of fields away, out of sight except for a few minutes when they rose and wheeled about before settling back to feed.

One of those days where it feels like I've spent a long time not seeing anything but turn out to have sixty-odd species recorded in my notebook.