Leighton Moss

Long-tailed duck

Autumn has finally arrived for sure with fallen leaves billowing in the wind and a distinct nip in the air. The carrion crows on the school playing field are already courting, I don't think the local collared doves ever stopped. A look at the weather forecast persuaded me against any walks out in the open so I opted for a visit to Leighton Moss and set out early so I could aim for an early afternoon train back to escape the worst.

The train into Manchester was late but I still just had time to grab a cup of tea and catch the Barrow train which was, mercifully, not overcrowded. As I kept an eye on the scenery on the way to Silverdale I noticed there were more flocks of starlings on telegraph wires, more mallards on canals and steady streams of passing lesser black-backs.

Approaching Silverdale the coastal pools were quiet, a few teal out in the open were dispersed by the arrival of a marsh harrier. It looked like all the waders were on the pool by the Allen Hide.

Leighton Moss 

At Leighton Moss there was frantic activity by the "Hideaway," not just on the feeders but also in the surrounding trees as they weren't being bashed about by the wind quite so much as the ones by the reedbeds. Marsh tits sneezed and churred, the churrs a reminder how closely related they are to willow tits. Chaffinches and house sparrows dominated the feeders, great tits and blue tits waiting their turn though coal tits just barged in amongst the sparrows, something I've seen them do quite often at home. Unusually there were no dunnocks about. I could hear siskins amongst the goldfinches in the trees but couldn't pick them out.

Ordinarily I have a look in Lilian's Hide then go to the reedbed hides and only visit the Causeway and Lower hides if I have the time and energy. Today I wanted to see the long-tailed duck that's on the pool by the Lower Hide so I headed thataway first.

The causeway 

The boardwalk to the causeway was quiet by its usual standards, a couple of wrens and robins struggling to make themselves heard above the wind rustling the reeds and willows. I drew a blank on seeing any bearded tits along the causeway but one of the Cetti's warblers obliged with a burst of song from deep cover by the path. (He moved from a clump of reeds into a patch of nettles and bittersweet the better to sing his song.)

Coots and mallard

I didn't go into the Causeway Hide, looking out from the screens instead. All the ducks and coots were clustered by the sides of the reeds out of the wind, a herd of mute swans fed midwater and it was evidently good drying weather for cormorants as every pole and post had one sat on it. I'd been told there were otters about so I kept an eye out for any dark shapes in the water, easier said than done in such choppy conditions. I'd decided that I'd have a proper look for them on my way back from the Lower Hide when a head poked up from the water then quickly submerged with a flick of its tail. My first otter of the year.

The main drain across the causeway 

The walk down to the Lower Hide was very quiet. A rather noisy water rail shadowed me along part of the causeway, always keeping out of sight in the depths of a small drain, a few pheasants wandered round the clearings and robins and chaffinches silently fossicked in the undergrowth amongst the trees. Every small bird flying from tree to tree turned out to be a leaf.

Teal

Snipe

The Lower Hide was busy but not full and I settled down for a look round. There wasn't much on the open water except mute swans and cormorants on sticks, a few dozen mallards and teals loafed and dabbled at the margins with some pied wagtails and snipe. Another otter was hunting along the edges of the reeds on the other side of the pool, an occasional break of the water or splash of bubbles marking its progress.

Long-tailed duck

It took me an age to find the long-tailed duck. It was actually dead ahead of me less than a hundred yards out but it spent most of its time underwater. Once I'd found it it was easy to keep it in view as it returned to the same place every time. I was struck by the way it dived: most diving ducks give a little skip and a jump before the dive, this long-tailed duck just flexed its wings and fell head-first into the water. I tried to photograph it in the act because it's such a peculiar action but I didn't have much luck.

The path to the Lower Hide 

I walked back and headed for Lilian's Hide. I struck lucky finding the siskins amongst the goldfinches in the ash trees behind the "Hideaway" and luckier still with a couple of lesser redpolls that skipped out of the flock and into an alder tree, swinging acrobatically upside-down in the cones as the branches were flung about in the breeze.

Gadwall

Shovelers and teal

There were only three of us in Lilian's Hide, not surprising as the weather was boding very dodgy. I had half an hour before my train and was glad of the shelter. All the ducks were loafing on the banks of the pool, bar the pair of gadwalls and a tufted duck nestled in a raft of coots. There were equal numbers of gadwall, mallard and shoveler, perhaps three dozen each, there were twice as many teal but most of them managed to make themselves pretty inconspicuous. Half a dozen pintails huddled into the crowd and a female garganey was a definite surprise on a day like this. The only waders were half a dozen snipe busying themselves amongst the teals.

Shovelers, shoveler x cinnamon teal at front

Teal

It was heaving down as I set off for my train. There was conflicting information depending on which online source you referred to and when last refreshed. The Barrow train, or the Manchester train, or both had been cancelled but the departures board at the station said they were both running on time. It turned out that the Manchester train was cancelled and the Barrow train only twenty-five minutes late so I used my old man's explorer ticket to go over to Grange-over-Sands to wait for the next Manchester train under some degree of cover. Looking out through the streams of rain on the window I could just see the usual little egrets having a miserable time of it on the salt marsh.

The view from Grange-over-Sands Station 

I got the next train home safely. It had been an unsatisfactory ending to a good few hours'birdwatching. Perhaps there's a reason why there's only two of us birdwatching by public transport.