Banks

Meadow pipit having a bath

The weather bode well but I didn't much want to let Northern have any of my money so I bobbed up to Bolton, got a Stagecoach Lancashire day ranger and headed for Banks Marsh via Preston. I thought I was cutting it fine for catching the 125 to Preston, I needn't have worried: it was twenty minutes late. That meant I missed the number 2 bus at Preston and had to catch the X2 so instead of getting off at the stop on the corner where Marsh Road splits and becomes a rough road up to the marsh I had to get off in the centre of Banks and walk through. It added twenty minutes to the walk but was better than waiting fifty for the next bus.

Whooper swans

It was a lovely day for a walk, I felt a bit over dressed but every so often a cloud would roll over to remind me it was November. The light was astonishing at times, a high contrast modelling light coming from low over my left shoulder. A flock of whooper swans was feeding a couple of fields away. It included a few dusty grey youngsters and a couple of near-adults that were properly white but hadn't yet got yellow on their beaks. I got a bit giddy noticing a difference in heights until I realised how deep some of the ruts were. 

Meadow pipit

Juvenile pied wagtail

It was difficult to pick out any bird noises in the fields as a team of pickers were harvesting cabbages to music. The birds didn't mind the music at all, a mixed dozen of goldfinches and meadow pipits bathed in a puddle in the yard by the field and pied wagtails and grey wagtails foraged in the muddy grass. The stubble fields further along were heaving with skylarks and meadow pipits.

Banks Marsh 

I climbed the muddy bank onto the bund overlooking Banks Marsh and let on to the chap already on there with his telescope. We both marvelled at how mild the weather's been and what means in terms of late arrivals of Winter visitors. There were more than a thousand wigeon out on the marsh, mostly in small groups of a dozen or so. There were plenty of shelducks about, dabbling their ways around groups of wigeon. The mallards were harder to find — they were in the deep drains close to the bund and largely hidden from view until I got alongside them. I almost gave up on teal until I found half a dozen of them snoozing amongst a puddle full of wigeon. I kept getting distracted by the goldfinches and pied wagtails flitting about the bank of the bund.

Wigeon

Thousands of geese were further out on the marsh and nearly all of the small proportion that I could positively identify were pink-feet. There was one group of a couple of dozen Canada geese feeding on grazed grass with some mute swans. I'd seen lapwings billowing about on my approach to the marsh but I really struggled to find them on the ground. It was only when a few of them got skittish that I could pick them out amongst the pink-feet. I could hear but not see curlews and redshanks out there.

Pink-footed geese

I walked down the bund towards Hundred End. A couple of dozen pink-feet fed in the long grass just over the drain separating the marsh from the bund. They grunted their disapproval as I walked past. A few minutes later they were spooked by a low-flying plane pulling a banner. Little egrets fed in the gulleys and drains while a heron loafed by the pool a hundred yards out. (There'd been a lot of herons, a great white egret and a spoonbill here last time I came, today I had to make do with the one heron.) There was a profusion of skylarks, usually calling invisibly from the long grass of the marsh or the stubble in the fields, every so often a few of them would take flight and give me the chance to make sure I got the ID right. No such luck with the snipe calling from the base of the fence. Linnets were thin on the ground today for some reason. Wrens skittered about along the bund and there were a couple of pairs of stonechats chakking at me from vantage points in the dead thistles and nettles. A merlin shot by and headed out into the marsh.

Wren

Stonechat

The clouds rolled in and a chill took the air. The plan had been to walk down towards Hundred End and then, if I was feeling energetic, carry on down to Hesketh Outer Marsh. As I approached the drop down to the path to Hundred End a couple of wildfowlers and their dog were walking out into the marsh. I didn't think I'd be seeing very much with them about so I headed for Hundred End for the bus. Watching the cloud of geese rise up and fly over the river to Warton Bank it looked like a good call.

Starlings, Hundred End

I was nearly at Marsh Road when I realised that the big flock of starlings that came in to roost in the trees along the path included a few dozen fieldfares. They chunnered at me as I walked by and I only had five minutes to wait for the bus back to Preston.

Walking down to Hundred End