Martin Mere

Pintails

I'd made a muck of an early morning appointment so seeing as I was out and about anyway I thought I'd best set off for a walk. A small flock of redwings flew overhead as I got to Trafford Park Station for the train into Manchester, a good omen I thought so I headed off for Martin Mere which had reopened earlier in the week.

I didn't have long to wait at Oxford Road for the Southport train and got off at Burscough Bridge (it doesn't stop at New Lane). It was a mild, cloudy day and I would have felt distinctly overdressed if the wind across the fields along Red Cat Lane hadn't been so brisk. Skeins of pink-footed geese and strings of black-headed gulls passed overhead and woodpigeons fed in the cabbage fields. It was a bit of a relief to see the woodpigeons. It's an odd thing, they were very thin on the ground in Greater Manchester but as soon as the train got to Appley Bridge I started seeing them in their usual numbers. Small birds hid out of sight in the hedgerows, except for a flock of starlings which commuted between fields and barns and four fieldfares which flew overhead and settled in a distant field.

Pink-footed geese, Burscough

At Martin Mere I went straight to the Discovery Hide. The water on the mere was very choppy. Bird numbers were down, understandably after a bird influenza outbreak and the afternoon feeds having only just resumed. That said, there were hundreds of lapwings and mallards, dozens of teals, shelducks, shovelers and wigeon and plenty of coots. The shelduck were busy a-courting with lots of head-bobbing and chuckling from the drakes and coy whistles from the ducks. There were only half a dozen whooper swans, all asleep. A few dozen greylags loafed and grazed on the far bank. I didn't realise how poor the light was until I saw the shutter speeds my camera was selecting in automatic mode.

Shelducks, pintails and mallards

There wasn't much doing on the Hale Hide or the Kingfisher Hide and it looked dead quiet on the Ron Barker Hide at first. The two whoopers on the far edge of the marsh were probably the same ones that stayed over Summer. Other than they there were no wildfowl on the water. A couple of marsh harriers showed very well as they hunted over the reedbed fringes.

Marsh harrier

Marsh harrier

I looked in the vain for a tawny owl in the ivy-covered trees on way back but was rewarded by a mixed tit flock, most of whom were long-tailed tit. Small birds were thin on the ground, they were wisely staying under cover in the wind.

Shelducks

Mallards, teal and wigeon

I had another look over the mere on the way to the Janet Kear Hide, the wildfowl were joined by a flock of black-headed gulls that quietly loafed on the mere.

There was nothing doing at the Janet Kear Hide: the hide was full and there was nothing on the feeders though a rat feeding on the ground underneath them was trying to give the audience a good show.

I spent a few minutes in the United Utilities Hide, hoping to do a bit of goose watching in the fields and making do with about five hundred lapwings. It's been a long while since I've seen so many in one place.

The reedbed walk 

The reedbed walk was relatively busy with birds. Dabchicks lurked in the drains, linnets and reed buntings flitted about and black-headed gulls littered the pools.

Teal, little stint and black-headed gull

I've not been in the new Gordon Taylor Hide which overlooks one of the reedbed pools at the edge of the reserve. It opened during lockdown and I hadn't got round to it, I decided it was high time I did. It was quite busy with a group of birdwatchers but I found a corner and started looking round. There were a hundred more each of black-headed gulls, teal and lapwings. I thought a starling was doing a bit of mudlarking at the water's edge but when it came out into the open I realised it was a little stint. At first I wasn't sure: it was definitely a wader but might it not be a dunlin? Then it walked past a lapwing and was dwarfed by it. I got a lot of pretty lousy photos of it from a distance in the gloom. Then something spooked the lapwings and they and the gulls took flight, the teal rushing into deeper water. I've no idea what caused it except that it must have been a land-bound danger given the way the flocks moved. The stint was very conspicuous as it flew about with the lapwings — sparrow sized with white wing bars. I also picked up on a black-tailed godwit and three ruffs I hadn't spotted on the ground. The ruffs settled back down with the little stint when it went back to feeding at the edge of the pool.

Lapwings

I carried on and joined the path to New Lane Station. If you're ever this way Google Maps tells you it's a five minute walk to the station, it doesn't tell you that involves climbing over the fence into the water treatment works then walking through the filtration beds, then climbing over the gate and walking down the private road and coming out by the station. In the real world following the footpaths it's nearer twenty-five than twenty minutes (I shaved five minutes off by jumping over a five-bar gate to switch paths rather than walking the long way round, much to my knees' disgust) and I got to the station just as the train back to Manchester turned up.

For all that circumstances and the weather had conspired to make things relatively quiet there's still been plenty to see and the little stint brings the year list total to a personal best 212.

The Kingfisher Hide