Martin Mere

Brown hare, Red Cat Lane

The day started with a garden full of young birds, mostly spadgers. I don't know what the attraction was on the living room window sill but half a dozen sparrows and a wren were vying for it.

Spadglings

The train journey into Manchester was a nightmare and the one to Burscough Bridge was only marginally better, a consequence of a broken-down train at Oxford Road Station.

It had been pouring down in Manchester but was only dark and muggy at Burscough Bridge. The weather seemed to provoke the skylarks and corn buntings down Red Cat Lane into song. Rounding the bend before Curlew Lane the heavens opened and that set the stall for the next couple of hours. There must have been a hundred or more hirundines feeding over the barns by the corner of Curlew Lane, mostly house martins with a dozen swallows and a handful of sand martins. As the weather closed in they were joined by a dozen swifts. A sparrowhawk shot by and into the garden of the farmhouse, chased by a couple of dozen house martins 

Juvenile black-headed gulls, Martin Mere

The black-headed gulls were the main feature on the mere: there were hundreds of them and they easily outnumbered everything else by ten to one. A handful were still sitting on nests, most of the juveniles were in flying condition in a bewildering array of brown and white motley. Juvenile black-headed gulls always seem very wader like compared to the adults and any other species of gull I've seen. Half-grown youngsters in particular have a hunchbacked look similar to a ruff and I had to look twice a few times. As I was coming into Martin Mere a chap stopped me and told me where to find a Mediterranean gull nest but I was damned if I could find it in all the hubbub.

Shelduckling, Martin Mere

I was surprised to see a young shelduck feeding on its own in front of the hide, particularly as I couldn't see any adults anywhere. About five minutes after a massive pour down the adults emerged from behind an island on the far side of the mere with two less adventurous ducklings in tow.

From the Discovery Hide 

There were just a handful of lapwings about the mere and just a couple of oystercatchers (most of them were in the stork enclosure by the entrance). I had no luck finding any other waders, I had been hoping to bump into a green sandpiper here 

I bumped into my first mixed tit flock of Autumn by the path by the duckery: two dozen long-tailed tits, a dozen blue tits, some great tits and a couple of chaffinches. How fast the seasons roll. I spent a while looking for tawny owls in the ivy-covered trees but unlike me they had the sense to find deep shelter from the rain.

The Kingfisher Hide 

There were more young shelducks on the pools at the Ron Barker Hide. One family of very young ducklings were dabbling by the water's edge near some young avocets and it was quite unnerving how similar they looked at first glance. I expect the disruptive colouration is doing the same job for both.

Whenever the rain stopped a couple of marsh harriers rose from the reeds, once the showers got heavy again they dropped back down. The teal dabbling in the shallows weren't best impressed by them.

I saw but didn't hear a sedge warbler and heard but couldn't see a Cetti's warbler from the hide. The same bird might have been singing from the brambles near the Kingfisher Hide.

Juvenile black-headed gulls, Martin Mere

Juvenile black-headed gull, Martin Mere

I walked back and had a look over the mere from the screens where the Swan Link Hide used to be, taking advantage of ten minutes' bright sunshine. From the furthest screen I could see the nesting Mediterranean gull on the raft on the mere. It was largely hidden by black-headed gulls, just its head showing above the crowd. I went back to the first screen and tried again now I knew where it was: just the top of its head could be seen behind some vegetation. The vegetation completely obscured the bird from where I had been looking in the Discovery Hide (I went back and checked).

Corn bunting, Tarlscough Lane

Red-legged partridges, Tarlscough Lane

I checked the time and the trains and concluded there was no point in heading for New Lane so I walked back to Burscough Bridge. It was clouding over again but I had good hopes of beating the rain, though rain would have been better walking than the heavy mug turned out to be.

The donkey and horses at Brandeth Barn had emerged from their shelter but were facing stuff competition for grazing from a couple of dozen rabbits. The corn bunting that had been singing on the telegraph wires by the potato store was back and sang for the camera and a pair of red-legged partridges zigzagged for non-existent cover on a cleared turf field. At the corner of Curlew Lane the house martins were busy chasing off a kestrel that had tried hovering over the rough edges of the barn yard. I accidentally startled a hare that was sitting dead centre in the turf field behind the barn.

As I came to the bend in the road a bird of prey flew in hard from across the fields at treetop height. At first I thought it was a marsh harrier, all long wings and with a pale head. I started to have my doubts as it approached: it had a white belly, and a pale underwing. Was it a buzzard? There was a dark carpal patch on the underwing alright but it wasn't a clean block, it sort of smeared and spread towards the body. And what sort of buzzard has wings and tail like that. And a white crown to its head? While all this internal dialogue was going on it didn't occur to me to get the camera out and take some photos of a passing osprey. By the time I recovered my wits it was off and over past the fields beyond and probably halfway to Rufford. I think it was a subadult, or else an adult in heavy moult, as it looked more brown and white than white and brown.

A day full of lousy weather and excellent birdwatching.