Silverdale

Oystercatchers, Jenny Brown's Point

Continuing the week's seaside theme I got myself an old man's explorer ticket and travelled up to Silverdale. This time it wasn't for a visit to Leighton Moss, instead I was off for a wander round Jenny Brown's Point. I haven't done this for years; an adult Sabine's gull has been feeding there for the past few days and that provided the prod for going for the walk.

The Met Office promised a relatively cool and cloudy day, it was warm and sunny. The effects of the prolonged dry weather was evident on the coastal pools as the train pulled into Silverdale: they were bone dry save for the furthest one out, which had a big puddle in it. A couple of mallards loafed by the side of the puddle while a herd of about fifty Canada geese shared an expanse of dry mud with half a dozen sheep. We'd passed a male marsh harrier a couple of minutes earlier as it hunted low over the marsh by the railway line.

I got off the train and walked back towards the coastal hides but instead of turning into New Road and down to the hides I carried on down Slackwood Road until I got to the junction with Hollins Lane and walked down there to Jenny Brown's Point.

Along Slackwood Road 

The road was busier than I remembered. There were woodpigeons in the fields with greenfinches singing in the margins, chiffchaffs, great tits and nuthatches called from the wooded areas. The roadsides, where not planted gardens, were thick with thistles, lady's bedstraw and cranesbills and they were busy with bees and butterflies. Most of the butterflies were gatekeepers and meadow browns, with a few ringlets, commas and large whites to keep them company.

Spear thistle

I bumped into a chap walking down the road who told me the Sabine's gull had just flown off. Evidently the traffic was birdwatchers haring down to Leighton Moss to see if it turned up on the causeway there. (It didn't, it's not been seen at all since.) No matter, I was here for a walk round Jenny Brown's Point and the gull would just have been icing on the cake.

Jenny Brown's Point 

I turned left at the farm at the bottom of Hollins Lane and carried on down the road to Jenny Brown's Point. It was high tide, just about to ebb. A couple of lesser black-backs and a herring gull were loafing on nearby rocks but most of the birds were on the other side of the little cove. A black smudge across the tideline was a couple of hundred oystercatchers, something like a hundred curlews formed a line further along the shore. The inland curve of the shoreline was littered with gulls, mostly black-headed with perhaps a dozen lesser black-backs amongst them. Further inland I could see the heads of Canada geese and greylags occasionally bobbing up out of the long, dry grass.

Juvenile black-headed gull, Jenny Brown's Point

I found a not entirely uncomfortable seat on the rocks to watch the cove (the limestone dips 20° towards the sea here, which is not ideal). As the sea slowly retreated the first birds to venture out onto the fresh mud were black-headed gulls. A surprising proportion of these were juveniles, I suppose they're still enjoying the novelty of it. Eventually the black line of oystercatchers started to move away from the shore and become more diffuse, eventually forming three smaller flocks of birds then breaking up completely as they started flying out into the bay in strings of a dozen a so at a time. The curlews quietly dispersed, one minute there was a dark grey line across the mud, the next a rash of individuals spread across the tideline. The surprise of the day was a sudden panicky call from behind me as a juvenile green woodpecker was accidentally flushed from the roadside by some walkers. It flew out and over my head then suddenly veered back round whence it came. It's an odd thing: a very high percentage of the green woodpeckers I've seen, as opposed to just heard, have been at the seaside.

Jenny Brown's Point 

I lingered long enough to be convinced the Sabine's gull wasn't coming back and there were no surprises on the shoreline then I wandered back by way of Jack Scout, giving me the chance to scan the bay just in case, like. Lots more black-headed gulls and lesser black-backs but no albatrosses today.

The heathland on Jack Scout was busy with yet more gatekeepers and meadow browns, both of which were outnumbered by ringlets. Blackcaps sang from small trees while linnets and whitethroats bounced about in the bracken.

Jack Scout

I checked the time and the trains, noticed the string of cancellations and decided I needed to get a shift on for the station. The day's tally was expanded by a jay feeding by the roadside and a sparrowhawk being mobbed by house martins above the farmyard.

I got my train safely. It was cancelled at Preston, which isn't so bad because there's not generally too long a wait here for the next train going somewhere near Manchester. We'll draw a veil over the connection with my train home at Oxford Road which a dozen of us missed by two yards. A sour note ending what had been an excellent walk with some gentle birdwatching along the way.