Leighton Moss

Heron

I decided to risk it with a visit to Leighton Moss and, for once, the trains behaved themselves. It was a relatively quiet day's birdwatching but there was enough about to keep me on my toes and the weather made for pleasant walking.

As the train approached Silverdale I could see that there was more water on the pools by the coastal hides, but rather a lot less birds, just three mallards.

Things picked up at Leighton Moss. Goldfinches, nuthatches and bullfinches were calling in the garden but the only birds showing themselves were the usual gang if mallards in the picnic area and the titmice and chaffinches on the feeders. A couple of chiffchaffs called from within the willows but I couldn't pin them down.

Shoveler on a stick

Gadwalls

Redshank and greenshank

The hides tended to be busy but there were enough birds about to distract from the chatter. There were only a handful of young black-headed gulls on at Lilian's Hide. On the other hand there were fifty-odd coots, a similar number of mallards and a couple of dozen gadwall. The supporting cast included a few drake pochards in their leaden eclipse plumage, a couple of dabchicks, a dozing mute swan and a shoveler dozing on a stick. I noticed a greenshank walking over one of the nesting rafts, grabbed my camera and it had turned into a redshank. The greenshank had sat down on the raft and the redshank walked up and sat down in front of it.

Heading for the reedbed hides 

The walk down to the reedbed hides was very quiet. A couple of juvenile robins flitted about the undergrowth and a chiffchaff called from the treetops. Some furtive rustlings by one of the drains turned out to be a water vole heading for cover.

Just outside the Tim Jackson Hide a mixed tit flock — long-tailed tits and blue tits — bounced silently about through the willows. There weren't a lot of birds at the hide: a heron, a handful of dozing mallards, a couple of dabchicks and a family of moorhens. Most of the activity was broad-bodied chasers chasing each other over the pools.

At the Griesdale Hide 

A couple of willow warblers called from the trees on the way to the Griesdale Hide. Unusually I didn't see or hear any reed warblers, sedge warblers or Cetti's warblers here today. The sky was even quieter than the reeds with just a handful of swifts flying very high overhead. Again dragonflies provided the main action with brown hawkers patrolling the reeds at head height.

The great black-backs that had nested on the osprey platform at Griesdale had been and gone. There were a few coots, mallards and gadwall on the pool. Common hawkers and brown hawkers were laying eggs at the water margins while a couple of emperor dragonflies patrolled the reeds.

Leighton Moss looking towards Warton Crag

As I walked back to the visitor centre I checked the trains. The afternoon cancellations meant that if I decided to visit the Causeway Hide I'd have at least a two hour wait for the next train and an uncertain connection at Lancaster for a train back to Manchester, so I decided against.

As I arrived at the visitor centre a juvenile treecreeper detached itself from a charm of goldfinches to sit and preen on a tree trunk by the path. A quick check of the feeding stations found one of the marsh tits I hadn't seen by the wooded path.

Juvenile treecreeper

It had been a relatively quiet visit, it's not often you only see thirty species of birds in two hours here. It seemed odd not to see a single marsh harrier.

I was tempted to stop off at Lancaster and get the bus out to Confer Green to try and connect with the Temminck's stint that's been there the last few days but I lost my bottle when I looked at how the trains were running and headed off home.