Carnforth

Ring-necked duck and mallards, Borwick

I hadn't intended doing an eight mile walk, it just sort of happened. The idea was to get the train to Carnforth then bob over to Borwick to have a look at the ring-necked duck there, have a look round Pine Lake either on the way there or back then move on to someplace else with my old man's explorer ticket.

Pine Lake

I got off the train at Carnforth and decided that rather than waiting nearly half an hour for the bus to Pine Lake I'd walk it as it only takes half an hour anyway. Busy as the A6 Scotland Road is there were plenty of robins, blue tits and woodpigeons about in the roadside hedges and a bullfinch was feeding in the ivy by the railway bridge.

Pochards, Pine Lake

I'd dressed expecting an icy breeze across Pine Lake and felt distinctly overdressed in its absence. There were rafts of tufted ducks and pochards out in the water near the entrance and mallards and coots feeding near the shore. Further down the Canada geese showed a distinct lack of road sense, not getting up even when a driver had to stop their car behind a couple and blow the horn (opening the door shifted them in the end). The black-headed gulls were accompanied by a dozen or more common gulls and, far out on the lake, a raft of herring gulls with a few lesser black-backs.

Tufted ducks, Pine Lake

Oystercatcher, Pine Lake

I decided to move on when a power boat launched and started doing circuits of the lake, scattering all the birds. I had half an hour to wait for the Kendal bus but given that I'd only be going one stop and then I'd have a ten minute walk to the lake at Borwick and it was only just over forty minutes' by foot I decided to walk it.

There were more robins and blue tits in the hedgerows, accompanied by a family of long-tailed tits and a couple of goldcrests. I turned at the big roundabout and went down Borwick Lane, stopping by the motorway to check out the raft of tufties on the lake by the holiday homes.

I was just starting down Kellett Road to try and get a look at the lake when a chap stopped his car and told me I'd do better going up the road a bit and taking the next path down. I thanked him and set off that way only to bump into him again a few minutes later. His wife had just been looking at the ring-necked duck and she insisted on acting as my guide, which was phenomenally good of her.

The lake's a small fishery, fenced off from the footpath. Having said that the view was excellent and it was the work of a moment to find the mallards, tufted ducks, dabchicks and a female goldeneye. It took me half an hour to find the ring-necked duck, a nice female bird, when she finally emerged from behind the only island on the lake.

Ring-necked duck and mallards, Borwick

I checked the local buses: I could walk the ten minutes up to Tewitfield and just miss the bus back to Carnforth or I could walk down to Upper Kellett via Capenwray and just miss the Warton bus into Carnforth from there. So that's what I decided to do.

Great white egret and friend, Borwick

I hadn't gone far down the path to Capenwray when I noticed a couple of little egrets feeding with the sheep in one of the fields. A little further on, after turning a corner, I looked back at the field and saw another egret on this side of a slight rise. It looked a bit big, though, so I had a look through the binoculars. A great white egret feeding in a field of sheep in northernmost Lancashire, you wouldn't have put money on it even a decade ago. Out in the field it was a very obvious great white egret, looking at the photos back home I wasn't so sure and almost convinced myself it was a cattle egret because it looked small in the company of sheep. I had to go back to some photos of cattle egrets knee-high to some bullocks to remind me how small they are.

Walking down to Capenwray

Just before Capenwray there's a little fishery just by the path. I'd noticed a goosander in the pool with a bunch of mallards. I moved along a little to try and get a better view through the trees and found a kingfisher fishing from a willow stump.

River Keer, Capenwray

As I walked down Capenwray Road to Upper Kellett flocks of starlings accumulated in the tops of the trees in the fields and there was a steady passage of gulls overhead flying to roost. The first few waves were all black-headed gulls, they were followed by larger flocks of lesser black-backs with a few herring gulls. A buzzard floating over the fields between copses was the only bird of prey of the day.

Along Capenwray Road

It's just a short walk down from Upper Kellett to Carnforth, accompanied by singing robins, blackbirds and song thrushes and the calls of jackdaws going to roost.

It had been a really good walk but I'd arrived back in Carnforth during that odd couple of hours when all the trains head North. So I got the train to Arnside and spent a while by the estuary watching the curlews, oystercatchers and redshanks feeding in the twilight.

I got the next train to Lancaster and rather than kicking my heels for over an hour for the next Northern Rail train I bought a single to Preston and went home from there.

Another of those days where the plan unravels organically and the day's outing's the better for it.

Morecambe Bay from Upper Kellett