Southport

Little ringed plovers, Marshside

The woodpigeons and blackbirds have stripped the cherries before they were even properly ripe and are eyeing up the boysenberries, which I must say are looking very attractive. They're put off a bit by all the rustling in there, which is the sparrows having a field day eating aphids. Given their effectiveness at keeping down the greenflies and protecting soft fruit a flock of sparrows is a good investment.

This chap's the current patriarch of the silver team of house sparrows

I had a trip out to Southport for a wander round Marshside and Crossens. A couple of spoonbills had been on Marshside over the weekend so I was hoping I could perhaps add them and/or a cattle egret to the year list (I didn't either).

The trains behaved themselves. The usual July lull was in evidence: not many birds to see from the train, even the woodpigeons were thin on the ground. On the other hand a few post-breeding flocks of black-headed gulls were starting to accumulate on a few of the ploughed fields.

Pyramidal orchid, Marshside

The seasons are turning: the first small flocks of curlews are back on the fields by Marshside Road and the black-tailed godwits that had been lingering here have been joined by returning non-breeders. Over the next few weeks there'll be more of both. A hundred or more Canada geese were feeding in the long grass. I scanned the flock to see if anything else was in there with no success.

Every so often a long white neck with a yellow beak would catch my eye and every time it would turn out to be a lesser black-back. The black-headed gulls were a lot thinner on the ground than on my last visit (they were all over on Crossens Inner Marsh).

There were more waders at Sandgrounders: a few oystercatchers and lapwings, a dozen dunlins, a common sandpiper and a pair of frisky little ringed plovers.

Dunlins and a common sandpiper, Marshside

Tufted duck and ducklings, Marshside

The drake mallards are all in eclipse and all the ducklings were nearly full sized. Small family parties of tufted ducks — young ducklings and their mother — were scattered about both Marshside and Crossens Inner.

The plovers flew in and landed on the new bit of shingle opposite the hide and spent ten minutes courting and scouting out potential nest sites before skittering off to annoy the avocets. I don't know why the avocets were so annoyed by the plovers, especially as they didn't take any exception to a black ruff that was feeding beside them.

Male little ringed plover, Marshside

Courting little ringed plovers, Marshside

Courting little ringed plovers, Marshside

Courting little ringed plovers, Marshside

Courting little ringed plovers, Marshside

Juvenile avocet, Marshside

Dunlins, Marshside

I walked down to Crossens. The wind was strong and cool, which was good for walking but kept most of the butterflies under cover, only a few small tortoiseshells and large whites were active in the shelter of the brambles. The larger bramble patches were full of goldfinches, greenfinches and linnets.

Viper's bugloss, Southport Marine Drive

Crossens Inner Marsh was fairly quiet, the roadside marsh is fairly dry with water just in the larger creeks and drains, a few families of tufties taking advantage of the shelter. The pair of wigeons that have been hanging round were still about, not as obvious at the moment as the drake's in full chocolate brown eclipse. A pink-footed goose was a less expected lingerer.

Pink-footed goose, Crossens Inner Marsh

The quiet was broken every so often by pairs of redshanks taking exception to me or people walking along the Marine Drive. Whichever side of the road the redshanks rose from they made a point of making a fuss over either side.

Juvenile avocet, Crossens Inner Marsh

I turned and walked down the bund at the back of the marsh. Fifty-odd black-headed gulls loafed on the pool by the water treatment works. A few mallards dabbled in the pools and family groups of Canada geese and greylags grazed the marsh. Most of the young avocets are well grown now but there was one very young bird still being cared for by its parents.

The trains home behaved themselves impeccably, which was probably the biggest shock of the day.