Southport

Black-tailed godwits, Crossens Marsh

It's Monday morning so rail travel won't be easy and my attempts to get to Southport stumbled on arrival in Manchester with the Blackpool train being cancelled and the Barrow train disappearing from the timetable just before it was due to arrive so I was an hour late getting to Wigan. Anyway, I eventually arrived in Southport by late lunchtime and just in time for the 44 to Marshside.

There had been a bumper bundle of bird reports at Marshside over the weekend so I was working on the assumption that they'd all have flown off but there'd be a lot of people about, which is pretty much how the afternoon played out. I stayed on the bus to Marshside School and walked up the cut to the bund at the inland side of the Marshside reserve. An American wigeon had been here over the weekend and it had been reported again this morning so I thought I'd give it a go. Besides adding a tick to the year list it would be good to finally see one close enough to try and photograph. So it had waltzed off mid-morning. The watchers on the bund were a mixture of people hoping the wigeon would come back and people hoping for a reappearance of yesterday's buff-breasted sandpiper last seen heading inland and probably now behind closed doors at Martin Mere. (Martin Mere's closed at the moment due to an outbreak of avian flu on the reserve.) I decided to just have a normal walk round and see what was about. 

Pink-footed geese, Marshside

There was a large flock of gulls on the pool, mostly black-headed with a good number of herring gulls and a handful of lesser black-backs. A great black-back steamed by but didn't stop. The geese — Canada, greylag and pink-footed — were noisy to put it mildly. There were more pink-feet overhead than on the marsh, I found out later there were hundreds, if not thousands, in the long grass on the salt marsh.

Wigeon, Marshside

Wigeon, Marshside

Wigeon and black-tailed godwit, Marshside

There were also hundreds of ducks, mostly wigeon and teal with a supporting cast of shovelers, mallards and gadwall. The shovelers had mostly come out of their eclipse plumage though there were still a few with patchy brown and grey backs and dark slate grey heads. The wigeons had just started moulting, about half of the drakes were still in gingerbread eclipse plumage, a good number were nearly in full breeding rig with grey backs but brown flanks, and a few were halfway moulted with motley grey and ginger patches on their back and wings.

Wigeon and teal, Marshside

Ruff, Marshside
Ruffs vary in size as much as plumage. The bird on the left is definitely a female (a reeve), the bird on the right probably a male.

The waders were less conspicuous but just as numerous: hundreds of black-tailed godwits, nearly all in Winter greys now, at least as many lapwings, perhaps a hundred or so golden plovers and a few ruffs skittering about. And in amongst all these were a couple of hundred starlings.

Buzzard, waders and starlings, Marshside

Just as I was looking at a particularly odd-looking wigeon with no hope whatever of its being an American wigeon there was a huge kerfuffle as all the waders and starlings rose up in a panic. I looked around to see what raptor was around and quickly found a low-flying buzzard which made a few speculative lurches towards a cloud of godwits before being chased off by lapwings.

Buzzard, Marshside

Crossens Inner Marsh was a lot damper than the last few times I visited and a lot busier as a consequence. There was much the same as on Marshside but not in such numbers but with a lot of linnets and pied wagtails on the grass.

Canada geese, Crossens Outer Marsh

I crossed Marine Drive for a look at Crossens Outer Marsh. There were a lot of birds about but they were almost incidental to the scenery. The marsh had flooded and was a medley of deep blues and greens set against the straw yellows and rusty browns of the further salt marsh. There were hundreds of Canada geese, wigeons, godwits and lapwings out there with dozens of greylags, golden plovers and redshanks. Hundreds of pink-feet grazed out in the long grass beyond the fencing. I hadn't seen any little egrets and wondered where they were, a dozen of them loitered by the fence separating Crossens and Marshside.

Pink-footed geese, Crossens Outer Marsh

Shovelers, Crossens Outer Marsh

Canada geese, Crossens Outer Marsh

Canada geese and golden plovers, Crossens Outer Marsh

I crossed back over for a look at the inner marsh from this side. There were more greylags, Canada geese and wigeons and a kestrel perched on the fence.

Kestrel, Crossens Inner Marsh

Greenfinch, Crossens Inner Marsh

There were a lot of mallards, teal and gadwalls in the drains on Marshside with handfuls of tufted ducks, shelduck and teal.

Sandgrounders Hide was packed. Apparently I was an hour too late for a curlew sandpiper and a spotted redshank, the only waders I could see were lapwings and godwits. A couple of dabchicks lurked by the hide, bobbing up and down whenever one of the birdwatchers tried to take their photos, I'm glad it's not just me it happens to. A long way down the drain there was a dozen drake mallards and another duck which spent most of its time underwater. It took a few minutes to be sure it was a scaup. I'm relieved to have seen it, this was a notable omission from the year list last Winter. "What's the streaky bird sitting on that post?" somebody asked. "Juvenile kestrel," I said confidently. Of course, I was dead wrong: it was a merlin.

Merlin, Marshside

Greylags, Marshside

Walking down from Sandgrounders I could half-hear something calling from the trees by the sand plant across the road. I couldn't see the bird and although it was quite insistent I couldn't get a proper fix on the call. It might have been a robin, it might have been a yellow-browed warbler, either way I couldn't get it and had to give up on it.

The screen at the Junction Pool has been replaced by a low fence with a wall providing protection from the sea breeze. The pool was full and was full of ducks, mostly mallards with a few shovelers and teal. 

Junction Pool 

I contemplated walking down to Nels Hide but decided against, I'd already started limping on the bad foot and didn't want to push my luck. I walked down Marshside Road and was just in time for the bus back into Southport and for once the trains back behaved themselves.

I'd had a good walk and seen plenty, despite dipping on the weekend's picnic box. It's always a good idea to check what's been reported at a site you're going to visit and it's always a good idea to remember that you only get to see what you see, there are no guarantees and that's what keeps it interesting.

After my saying about the absence of mistle thrushes a flock of ten of them flew past the train as we chugged past Bescar Lane Station.

Grazing cattle, Marshside