Sefton coast

Black-tailed godwit, Marshside

After a week's bad sleep I had eyes like peepholes in the snow but I decided to get out for a walk on the argument that staying at home trying to get a nap hadn't been conspicuously successful yesterday either. I've not been to Marshside for too long and the announcement that the Arriva bus strike was over gave me the necessary prod.

Unusually, the trains behaved impeccably to schedule. They were, however, phenomenally busy with people like me catching up with their travel plans. I made the mistake of catching the Barrow train to Wigan, the effects of Avanti cutting the number of trains to Manchester drive passengers onto this train to get to Wigan Northwestern, Preston and beyond on the West Coast Mainline so it's standing room only, and packed at that. By the time I arrived at Southport it felt like somebody had been sandpapering my nervous system.

Greylags, Marshside

I got the 44 bus to Marshside and toddled down Marshside Road. The fields either side were bone dry and most of the drains and the Junction Pool just cracked mud. Canada geese and greylags grazed and loafed in the long grass, an intimation of Autumn that prompted me to scan round hard for any stragglers or interlopers just in case. A female kestrel hovered over what was Junction Pool and a female sparrowhawk perched on one of the fenceposts by the junction with Marine Drive.  Further out the starlings flocked over by the feeding cattle and woodpigeons foraged in the short grass, and that was pretty much it from the roadside. 

Canada geese, black-headed gulls, black-tailed godwits, lapwings and a greenshank, Marshside

Bathing ruff and lapwings, Marshside

The pools by Sandgrounders were busy with Canada geese, lapwings and black-tailed godwits with a supporting cast of black-headed gulls, mallards and teals. A handful each of ruffs and redshanks wandered in and out between the godwits though it was the lone greenshank feeding with the geese that I spotted first. The tufted duck family couldn't be seen though there were a few males bobbing around on the pool by the gate.

The adult godwits were mostly still in their breeding finery and were accompanied by good numbers of full-grown juveniles with their more scaly backs and wings. The little egrets and herons were a bit listless, mostly loafing about in small groups dotted about the marsh.

Spoonbills have been drifting over every so often from the Ribble Estuary but they didn't make an appearance today. (This year's bogey birds appear to be wood sandpiper, spoonbill, white wagtail and ruddy shelduck. I hope that by writing that down I'll bump into them all next week.)

Black-tailed godwits, Marshside

Little egrets, Marshside

Juvenile heron, Marshside

Little egret, Marshside

I wandered over to Crossens Marsh. There was enough sun to make it a bright, dry day and more than enough wind to stop it getting too warm. It was too windy for butterflies: a few large white and meadow browns kept low over the path and an apparent mass-hatching of red admirals littered the bramble patches. I took the opportunity to pilfer a few dewberries from the sides of the paths where over-eager strimmers hadn't reached.

Dewberries, Marshside 

There were more godwits and black-headed gulls on Polly's Pool and yet more godwits were with the mallards, teal and dabchicks in the drains and gulleys. A family of shovelers were hard work to identify, keeping their heads mostly underwater and their backs to the road. Oddly, I couldn't see any gadwalls

The wind made it hard to hear any small bird noises in the wayside bushes. A wren churred at me and a few linnets and goldfinches twitted past between hawthorns. Over on the outer marshes I looked in vain for meadow pipits or skylark, there were just a few gulls flying over and the occasional little egret. There have been daily reports of a ringtail hen harrier but the only bird of prey I could see was a kestrel hovering over the border fence on Crossens Outer.

Hen harrier, Crossens Outer Marsh

Crossens Inner Marsh was bone dry with the only water, and not much of it at that, in the main drain by the roadside path. Aside from the half a dozen mallards in the drain and the hundred or so black-headed gulls loafing on the cracked mud over by the bund there wasn't a right lot about. I kept scanning the outer marsh to see if there was anything about and was rewarded by about a minutes' worth of the hen harrier floating like a bubble low over the long grass in the distance before going to ground and apparently staying down because I didn't see it again.

Walking along Marine Drive by Crossens Inner Marsh 

I crossed over to have a look at the small pools by the wildfowlers' pull-in. There was enough water to keep a few dozen teals and lapwings happy and they weren't much up for budging for any cattle that came up for a drink.

By the time I got to the 49 bus stop at Crossens I felt like I'd had a long walk, which shows how little exercise I've been taking this week. It was still only late afternoon so I decided to stay on the bus to Ainsdale and get the train to Hightown and thence toddle down to the Alt Estuary to try and improve this month's tally of waders. (The Area D Saveaway I'd bought is good for trains and buses between Hightown and the border between Crossens and Banks.)

Sandwich terns, Hightown Dunes

I wandered down from the station to Hightown Dunes and settled myself by the sailing clubhouse to watch the incoming tide. All I could hear was the wind blowing in from the sea and the creaking calls of Sandwich terns. It took a while to find the terns, a hundred or more were roosting beyond the boats over by the the danger zone (this is the area within shooting range of Altcar Training Camp). As the tide rose more terns drifted over, while others left the roost to go out fishing. Rather despite myself I scanned round just in case any of the terns had a yellow bill and in the process found a couple of passing common terns.

Ringed plovers, Hightown Dunes

There was a confusion of waders out on the mud. The area between the sailing club and the river looked deserted at first sight. It was worth a closer look: a couple of dozen ringed plovers were lurking, mostly loafing and preening. A few juvenile pied wagtails skittered about and a meadow pipit made a brief appearance. A few mallards drifted about in the river while redshanks and dunlins fed by the banks more ringed plovers pottered about on the far side like clockwork mice.

The light was harsh, casting nearly all the waders into silhouette and making it surprisingly difficult to keep a sense of scale. Every so often I'd start to get interested in a particularly small wader only for it to run a few yards and become just another dunlin in a crowd. A grey plover sitting on its own in the shadow of a mud bank took me longer to identify than it should have.  I even struggled to be sure that the mass of dark shapes in the mid distance were oystercatchers until the rising waters made them start to fidget. A cloud of knots finally giving up a mud bank against the tide came as a bit of a relief.

Incoming tide, Hightown Dunes 

I lingered a while at high tide, trying to see if anything else might turn up, before setting off back to the station and thence back to Southport and home. The side excursion had done me good. It was an uneventful journey home though later than planned so it was a chippy tea for me and a tin of tuna and mackerel for the cat.