Merseyside bumper bundle

Greylag geese and goslings, Lunt Meadows

Northern had a mare of a day with its trains today, which sort of turned to my advantage at the start of my day out. The intention had been to get the twenty-past ten train into Manchester, get an old man's explorer ticket then go over to Merseyside for a wander round Crosby Marina and Seaforth Nature Reserve to look for passing wagtails and perhaps then go over to Lunt Meadows for a nosy round before coming home. As it was, the train to Liverpool from Humphrey Park was running fifty-five minutes late so I got that and arrived at Waterloo about forty minutes earlier than planned, which I took as a good omen.

A medley of herring gulls of different ages, Crosby Marine Lake

The bank holiday fun fair had been set up by the boating lake by Crosby Marine Lake. Aside from pinching a lot of space it didn't seem to bother the birds much, I expect they're so used to this area being busy with people a tent with a band playing a medley of Marty Wilde hits doesn't faze them any. It being a bank holiday weekend the weather was grey and cool, with the wind having an edge to it.

Nearly all the gulls on the boating lake were subadult herring gulls, the adults being busy elsewhere. A handful of lesser black-backs and black-headed gulls flew over. Most of the ducks and geese were elsewhere, too, with just a dozen mallards and a few Canada geese and tufted ducks. The usual herd of mute swans were all down at the shallow end by the dunes demanding food with menaces from passersby, leaving plenty of space for the pair of black swans to swan about looking elegant.

Out on the lake most of the buoys and rafts had herring gulls sat on them. A couple of common terns sat on one of the buoys in mid-water with a reassuringly dark arctic tern which made the identification pretty straightforward. More common terns flew overhead with a few maybe arctic terns ("commic terns") and pairs of Sandwich terns.

Small flocks of house sparrows and linnets commuted to and fro between clumps of sea buckthorn while skylarks tried, and mostly failed, to make themselves heard over the band.

It was high tide and the sand largely populated by children and dogs so there were only a few carrion crows and pigeons on the beach. Sandwich terns and common terns went out on fishing sorties and a couple of swallows flew in from Birkenhead.

Linnet, Seaforth Nature Reserve

Looking through the fence at Seaforth Nature Reserve there were more spadgers and linnets in the sea buckthorns here, accompanied by greenfinches and reed buntings. A hundred or more common terns were making a racket accompanied by rather a lot of black-headed gulls while a couple of hundred oystercatchers roosted on the banks and islands of the main pool.

I scanned the rabbit-trimmed grass for wagtails with not a lot of luck, just the one male pied wagtail. I've already got yellow wagtails on my year list but can always stand to see more of them; I'll have to try my luck elsewhere for white wagtails. Fifty or so shelducks were roosting on the grass so I had to take care not to upset them as I walked along the fence.

There were a few wheatears on the grass, nearly all of them females. A large wheatear on the dune by the marine lake had the long-legged, long-winged and very upright look of a Greenland wheatear, with the broad black tail band of that subspecies.

Greenland wheatear, Crosby Marine Lake

Greenland wheatear, Crosby Marine Lake

Sandwich terns, Crosby Marine Lake

A quick wander round the tiny bit of wet woodland by the sailing club added two surprises to the day's tally: a singing Cetti's warbler and a great spotted woodpecker. Chiffchaffs, willow warblers and whitethroats were expected treats.

I checked the bus timetables. I'd just missed the 133 that would take me to Lunt and the 47 that would take me to the bottom of Long Lane for a walk up to Lunt so I got a 53 to Great Crosby and picked up the 133 there.

Getting off the bus at Lunt I walked through Roughley's Wood which was full of the songs of blackcaps, chiffchaffs, willow warblers and song thrushes. A Cetti's warbler sang from the rank vegetation in one of the ditches. Coming out into the open by Lunt Meadows there were more whitethroats and something else coming from the tall grasses in one of the fields. It took five minutes before its song coincided with a lull in the songs of the other warblers and a song thrush. As usual I tried in vain to see the bird but at least I'd heard my first grasshopper warbler of the year.

Lunt Meadows

It's not often I want to heave a brick at small children in nature reserves, they're usually better-behaved than some of the grown-ups, if a bit enthusiastic. Today was an exception with a family that had obviously been taught to self-actualise as they may accompanied by a group of adults who would have been drawn by Posy Simmonds on a day when she had a particularly vicious headache. It took a long while before I'd managed to hang back enough for them to be a good distance ahead of me on the path.

Despite them the greylags, black-headed gulls and mallards by the hides and screens kept their cool and carried on with their business and even the feeding lapwings didn't go off on one. Many of the black-headed gulls were nesting and some of the greylags had goslings with them.

A typical view of a singing reed warbler, Lunt Meadows

A sedge warbler singing in a ditch was easy to identify by song alone even before it showed itself and I could easily tell it apart from the reed warblers I started to hear singing further along the path. It's an odd thing: if I hear a sedge warbler first I can tell the songs apart easily, if I hear a reed warbler first I struggle to do so. It's not something I can explain, it may be an infirmity of age.

A dozen or so avocets were setting out their stalls for nesting on the smaller pool away from the main body of nesting black-headed gulls.

I'd just missed the 133 buses heading either way to Kirkby or Waterloo so I walked down Long Lane to get the 47 to Crossens. I'd had a couple of good short walks with very productive birdwatching but it was still barely teatime and I needed a bit of exercise so a stroll along the bund behind Crossens Inner Marsh to Marshside Road was an attractive proposition.

As I started down Marine Drive it started raining. Luckily it was only light and fitful but it added to the gloom of the day and I wondered if I was doing the right thing. Stubbornness prevailed and I joined the path onto the bund, apologising to a couple of pairs of mallard I disturbed in the process.

Crossens Inner Marsh looked very quiet without the Winter crowds of wigeon, teal and waders. There were still a few pairs of teal about and half a dozen black-tailed godwits squabbled by one of the pools but the marsh was largely given over to pairs of Canada geese and lapwings and a group of a couple of dozen black-headed gulls loafing by the pool near the water treatment works. A few avocets and redshanks fed on the small pools and half a dozen ruffs rummaged about in the mud. Three pink-footed geese grazed on a patch of grass, a flock of a couple of hundred flew over the Outer Marsh.

Avocet, Crossens Inner Marsh

Although there weren't many ruffs they were all males and no two looked alike. The first one I encountered was a very striking white bird.

Ruff, Crossens Inner Marsh
A high-status white male

Ruff, Crossens Inner Marsh
A ginger and black male well into getting his ruff

Ruff with black-headed gull, Crossens Inner Marsh
A black male still waiting for his ruff.

Both ringed plovers and little ringed plovers were on the marsh but nowhere near each other to make for snap identification. It's hard to get a sense of scale in an open landscape like this so I couldn't rely on the size difference alone. The ringed plover's having a white wing bar in flight is a comfort when you're still not sure of a distant bird.

Greylags and Canada geese littered the grass on Marshside with oystercatchers and lapwings being remarkably inconspicuous in comparison. There were a few redshanks about, with black-tailed godwits and avocets feeding in the pools. Starlings, spadgers and linnets fed on the marsh near the bund and a steady flow of swallows and house martins fed overhead.

It being teatime I had a long wait ahead of me for the next bus from the bottom of Marshside Road so I wandered down to Sandgrounders to try my luck. The black-winged stilt, broad-billed sandpiper and curlew sandpiper of last week had been and gone but you never know what might have come in. The answer seemed to be: not much new. The black-headed gulls were on their nests and the usual gadwall, teal and shovelers were dabbling about. A few sand martins fed low over the water. I was just reminding myself that I'd have felt this was actually a pretty good haul if I'd come here first when I noticed my first common sandpiper of the year bobbing its way along the bank.

I got the 44 back into Southport and didn't have long to wait for the Manchester train. We startled a roe deer just outside Bescar Lane and it skipped across the field in an ungainly fashion. A couple of hares glowered at the train from the field by the water treatment works at Parbold. The train was cancelled at Wigan Wallgate. Luckily, I noticed there was a train to Victoria in ten minutes' time from Wigan Northwestern so I rushed over for that, the alternative being to wait half an hour at Wallgate for one to Victoria. I'd hoped that one going straight to Oxford Road from Northwestern might be available but it was cancelled. As it was, I struck dead lucky as the train to Victoria before the one I'd noticed was running late so I caught that. But couldn't change at Salford Crescent for the train to Deansgate because that was cancelled and the next one forty minutes later would have me waiting fifty minutes for my train home. So I got to Victoria and eventually got the bus home, arriving to find a cat sitting on the hall mat in full What Time Do You Call This.

But I didn't care: it had been a damned good day's birdwatching.