Leighton Moss

Marsh tit

I thought it more than high time I had a visit to Leighton Moss and, for once, the trains behaved impeccably in both directions. It had started to rain when I arrived at Silverdale Station and seeing as I haven't yet replaced my flat cap I bought a cheap baseball cap in the RSPB shop to stop the raindrops tapping on my bald spot. Almost at once the clouds parted and it was a bright, sunny day thereafter.

There was a small, and very well-behaved, school party in the Hideout so I didn't get my eye in on the bird feeders. It hardly needed doing anyway as most of the birds on the pathways seem to have emerged from post-breeding moult and skulk.

The black-headed gulls dominated the pool at Lilian's Hide. A few were sitting on nests, there were no full-sized juveniles about. There were also a few loafing mallards and gadwalls and a couple of tufties and about forty coots. A couple of marsh harriers — a male and a female — drifted over the reeds and a few swifts wafted around on high.

I walked down through the reedbeds to the Tim Jackson Hide, accompanied by the songs of wrens, blackcaps, chiffchaffs and sedge warblers. Along the way a marsh tit broke off from demolishing a piece of moss on a tree trunk to come and see if I had any bird seed (I hadn't, and was made to feel very guilty about it). 

Crossing over the little bridge over the main drain I managed to see a water rail swimming across the ditch before it disappeared into the reeds. I hear water rails all over the place and every so often catch tantalising glimpses of them, Leighton Moss is the only place I get to get a good look at them on a regular basis. I hadn't gone far when I heard the first reed warbler of the day and a pair of emperor dragonflies powered by, my first of the year and their identities confirmed by my bumping into a couple of common hawkers which looked positively dainty in comparison.

Spot the red deer hind
(Her ears are just right of centre)

The view from Tim Jackson Hide was fairly quiet with a few gadwall and mallards taking it easy and a pair of coots with a very young family. A red deer hind sat in the tall grass not fifty yards away, all but invisible save for the twitching of her ears. The main action was with the dragonflies: common blue damselflies zipped around the tops of the grasses while broad-bodied chasers chased each other around the pools. 

Baby coot

I wandered round to the Griesdale Hide with more reed warblers and some reed buntings singing in the background. I could hear the tapping pennies calls of bearded tits not far into the reeds and had just found where at least one of them was calling from when a hobby shot past at head height and over towards the hide. Everything went quiet after that. I saw the hobby again about five minutes later as it rose on the thermals and went soaring high over in the direction of the causeway. A willow warbler by the hide was still making a point of staying low in the bushes when I got there.

A pair of great black-backs and their youngster are occupying the osprey platform

I didn't stop long in the Griesdale Hide, it seemed a shame to intrude on so many very loud conversations. I stayed long enough to see that the greater black-backs that have commandeered the osprey platform have a youngster, that the greylags didn't seem to, and that the mute swans had a couple of cygnets. A chap with more camouflage gear than the Eighth Army barged in amidst great fanfare and regaled the assembled with loud tales of his recent birdwatching successes. I made a discreet exit. Outside another pair of harriers were floating over the reeds and a buzzard was soaring high overhead.

I'm baffled by this small damselfly

I was congratulating myself on my being able to identify all the damsels and dragons flying about the reedbeds when I spotted an oddity amongst the blue-tailed damsels flitting about a stream. It was slightly smaller and looked even more fragile and I haven't been able to make the identification at all. I does one good to be reminded not to get too cocky once in a while.

The common toadlets scrabbling across the path were a bit easier to identify.

Toadlet

Walking back I bumped into my second mixed tit flock of the Autumn as it bumped into a family of blackcaps fossicking about in the hawthorns. For a good five minutes there was a confusion of blue tits, long-tailed tits, marsh tits, great tits and juvenile blackcaps and each time I thought one group or another had moved on some or all came back for another go. Once they'd finally gone I had to wait a minute or so for a sunbathing blackbird to budge up a bit so I could get past.

Juvenile long-tailed tit

Juvenile blackcap

Blackbird

I was ready for a cup of tea and while I was having it I noticed that the noisy parties were drifting over to the causeway so I decided to give it a miss. I only had ten minutes to wait for the train straight through to Manchester so I took that. I had an old man's explorer ticket and the afternoon was still young so I should have moved on to someplace else but I couldn't find any useful train connections and I really couldn't be bothered faffing round anywhere for the best part of an hour so I called it a day. I'd had a couple of hours' exercise and there'd been plenty to see, there was no point in being greedy.