Southport

Snow bunting, Southport Pier

There was a promise of a sunny day so I headed over to Southport for a walk round Marshside and Crossens.

The better weather brought out the buzzards along the line to Wigan. One soared over Patricroft Station, another perched in the trees by the line on Chat Moss and a third sat on a fencepost by the Winwick Road bridge as we passed by Lowton.

Mallards, teal and wigeon, and all with more sense than me and staying out of the wind

I got the 44 bus from Southport Station out to Marshside. It was a gloriously sunny day but it was blowing a hooley with the biting wind coming in and sweeping across Marshside Road as I walked down to the reserve.

The school playing field at the end was covered in curlews, which I found vaguely reassuring, and the brambles by the fence noisy with spadgers.

Wigeons, Marshside

Out on the marsh the wigeons, lapwings and golden plovers were in their high hundreds. Something — I couldn't find what but I'd suspect it was a merlin — brought up a cloud of waders over by the Sandgrounders Hide. A portion of the cloud broke away and flew over and landed on the other side of the road, a few ruff amongst the lapwings, plovers and black-tailed godwits.

Lapwing and golden plover, Marshside

Wigeons, Marshside

The pink-footed geese were feeding in small family parties and there were a few Canada geese but for once I didn't see any greylags on either Marshside or Crossens. There were hundreds of teal and mallards and plenty of shelducks and shovelers but they tended to get lost in the crowds of wigeons and waders.

Gadwall, Marshside

The Junction Pool was pretty much half the field today. There were perhaps half a dozen pintails amongst the mallards and wigeon.

The strimmer and the heavy-handed hedge layer had been at work at Sandgrounders. If anything there was even less cover than they'd left at Nel's Hide. The water level was high enough for the bund between the pool at the entrance and the pools in front of the hide to be reduced to a small island. A few tufted ducks and a pochard fed in the pool while a flock of gadwall loafed and dozed in front of the hide.

Pink-footed geese

The stretch of the Marine Drive between Marshside Road and Crossens was closed for resurfacing, which made for a lovely quiet walk once you passed the lorries at work. Adding together Marshside and Crossens there must have been thousands of lapwings and wigeons.

Crossens Inner Marsh
Wigeon, teal, shovelers, lapwings and black-tailed godwits

Crossens Outer Marsh was quiet. There were plenty of pink-footed geese feeding in the tall grass but no geese out in the grazed areas. A few shelducks and little egrets fossicked about in the pools and there was a large mixed flock of lapwings and plovers in the distance.

Crossens Outer Marsh

I'd had the wind at my back for most of this stretch of the walk, it came as a shock as I rounded the curve and it hit me amidships. After a hundred yards of it I was grateful for the relative shelter of the sewage works.

The 47 bus had just arrived at the Crossens terminus so I caught it and got off at the other end of Southport. I walked down and through Victoria Park to the pleasure beach. The park was stiff with jackdaws, woodpigeons and magpies, all of them socialising as much as feeding up before going off to roost. 

Grey plovers, Southport

Grey plovers and dunlins, Southport

At first sight there wasn't much on the beach save groups of black-headed and herring gulls and a few redshanks. As I approached the pier I found a few dozen dunlin busily feeding in the mud in the company of a couple of grey plovers. I was busy watching these when a flock of thirty twites flew past and disappeared over a sand break. Much relieved that the twites are in double figures after all I walked on towards the pier and bumped into the five snow buntings again. This time they were much less skittish and I spent five minutes watching them feed before they flew off to join the twites. I was particularly struck how their variegated orange, brown and white plumage broke up the shapes of the birds and blended them in with the shell litter on the beach, they're so conspicuous when you see them on concrete breakwaters or sand dunes.

Snow buntings, Southport Pier

Snow buntings, Southport Pier

Snow bunting, Southport Pier

Walking back to the station I had a quick nosy on the marine lake where there were almost as many greylags as herring gulls.

The sun set as the train left the station. A herd of twenty-odd whooper swans in a field by Bescar Lane was a nice bonus for the day.