Crosby

Black swan, Crosby Marine Lake

It was one of those days where the weather forecast seemed to be hedging its bets so I had a trip out to Crosby Marine Lake on the grounds that it's an undemanding toddle and you're never more than ten minutes away from shelter. As it happened, a gloomy morning in Manchester became a bright sunny day on Merseyside so I could enjoy the walk without any dramas.

I'd changed trains at Hunts Cross where three singing greenfinches were only just managing to shout over a robin and a coal tit. I very much commend suburban railway stations as places for an undemanding bit of birdwatching. Back at Humphrey Park I'm approaching the conclusion that I've underestimated the local sparrow population: I'd left a dozen in my back garden, the family in the steamroller's rambling roses were at least a dozen strong, there was more than a dozen spadgers feeding under the Liverpool-bound platform at the station and at least another half a dozen shouting the odds in the privets at the end of the Manchester platform. I don't know if they're all coming to feed in my garden, it would explain much if they are.

Crosby Marine Lake

I got off the train at Waterloo and walked down to the marine lake. For all that it was lunchtime it was fairly quiet. There wasn't a lot on the lake bar a mute swan, a couple of herring gulls and a little egret feeding on the shore by the dunes.

Herring gulls, Crosby Marine Lake

The pond was busier, mostly with herring gulls, mallards and tufted ducks. A few coots and Canada geese made up the numbers at the deep end while a couple of swans loafed around in the middle.

A lady stopped me and asked me how long there have been little egrets here. I told her I'd seen my first one here just over ten years ago. "I thought I was hallucinating the first time I saw one here," shed said, "Just like seeing a black swan here." Well, yes, quite so.

Mute swan and black swan, Crosby Marine Lake

Half a dozen skylarks sang and there were more of them bouncing round the dunes. Meadow pipits were a bit thinner on the ground but a couple were singing from the fenced-off bit of rough ground. There was a noisy hubhub of starlings in the stand of sea buckthorns by the dunes but they were fiendishly difficult to see as whatever they were up to they were doing it near the bottom of the buckthorns in the centre. A couple of stonechats were hunting from the tops of the bushes until they flew off to try their luck somewhere quieter.

Crosby Beach

Out on the beach most of the gulls were herring gulls with a handful of lesser black-backs and a couple of passing great black-backs. Aside from a couple of curlews and a couple of oystercatchers all the waders were redshanks. A couple of shelducks flew by close to the surf.

I had a nosy through the wire fence at Seaforth Nature Reserve. There were linnets, greenfinches and house sparrows in the bushes. On the open grass, besides a lot of rabbits, there were a few pairs of Canada geese and shelducks. I'm probably a week or two early for wheatears and wagtails here bit it didn't stop me looking for them. There wasn't a lot on the open water, just handfuls of shelducks and curlews, but there was the usual crowd scene of birds loafing on the island opposite the hide, a mixture of coots, cormorants, Canada geese and curlews. There were also a few mallards, teal and black-tailed godwits but they didn't lend themselves so easily to glib alliteration.

A couple of chiffchaffs were singing from the willows by the boatyard, alongside a robin, a blackbird and my first whitethroat of the year, a couple of weeks earlier than I was expecting.

I debated moving on to another site for a wander round but decided instead to use the daily Saveaway I'd bought to do a bit of exploring by bus and found that the 47 bus from Liverpool to Crossens stops opposite Long Lane in Thornton, just ten minutes' walk from Lunt Meadows. It also gets within a short walk to Altcar Moss, which is worth bearing in mind when the geese are coming in in the Autumn.