Leighton Moss

Pintails, mallards, gadwalls and mute swans

I thought I'd best get a visit to Leighton Moss done before the train strikes begin. I started to have second thoughts when I looked at the weather forecast then it occurred to me that a toddle round somewhere just around the corner from a station wouldn't be a bad idea so I got myself an old man's explorer ticket and set off.

The trains have changed this weekend, the Barrow train now goes through Bolton and Chorley instead of Wigan. This made no odds today but I'll have to rethink a few journeys (though it looks like it opens a couple of new opportunities). The snow's pretty much disappeared round our way, save a few patches of black ice, so it was a surprise to see it lingering North of Agecroft. Lancashire beyond Bolton was indecently lovely in its Winter whites. The cold weather had brought out the woodpigeons and every town we passed had one or two sitting in a bare tree. Carrion crows and magpies were much in evidence, too, and black-headed gulls, lesser black-backs and herring gulls were frequent passersby. There were flocks of lapwings in the fields as we passed by Bolton-le-Sands and on to Carnforth.

Leaving Carnforth the train disturbed a flock of over a hundred starlings that were sitting in the trackside bushes by the salt marsh. The pools by the coastal hides were completely frozen over, there were just a few blackbirds in the trees.

Leighton Moss 

Leighton Moss was icy. There'd been grit put down around the visitor centre but not on the paths on the reserve (they can't because it's a Site of Special Scientific Interest). There weren't many people about so the birds had the run of the picnic area and hideout. Pheasants, blackbirds and dunnocks crowded round the raised flowerbeds, moorhens foraged round the picnic tables and there were more robins than you could shake a stick at. The feeders were crowded, as you'd expect in this weather, a marsh tit being one of the first arrivals while I was watching. Ironically, everything was too damned close and too active for me to get any photos, every time I got any bird into close focus it skittered off out of frame.

From Lilian's Hide 

The pool at Lilian's Hide was almost entirely frozen. There was a small spot of clear water in the far corner where the main channel runs in. When I arrived there was just half a dozen mallards here. Over the next half hour they were joined by a dozen gadwalls, then a couple of mute swans, then a pair of pintails, then more mallards and then more pintails. Between them the waterfowl started to break up the ice at the edge of the pool and by the time I left the hide it was half as big again as when I arrived.

From Lilian's Hide

A chap in the hide told me he'd seen three bitterns here in the previous hour or so, there being very limited open water for them to hunt in. I kept looking but couldn't find any in the reedbeds. I did find a few bearded tits feeding in the distant reeds beyond the ducks, though. Carrion crows, black-headed gulls and a few mallards and pintails flew over the reedbeds. A female marsh harrier did a distant circuit before disappearing into the reeds. I thought another was flying in along the causeway beyond the reeds, I wasn't sure at first because it was a bit chunky then the light caught it and I saw that it was predominantly straw yellow, then I realised it wasn't a bird of prey at all and by the time the penny finally dropped that I was watching a bittern it settled out of sight in the distant reeds.

I quickly learned that the white bits were the safest walking

I had a bit of a wander but sliding around on the ice soon lost its glamour so after an hour I called it quits. At this point I would have caught the Carlisle train to have a look see at the Morecambe Bay estuaries but it was cancelled so I got the next Lancaster train. The lapwing flocks were still in the fields between Carnforth and Bolton-le-Sands. Two waders rose from a field at Hest Bank. I thought they were a bit on the small side for curlews until they veered round and I noticed the straight bills and that they were bar-tailed godwits. I don't get to see them often so that was a nice surprise.

Rather than hang around Lancaster station in the cold for fifty minutes waiting for the next train South I stayed on when it became the Morecambe train and went there and back just for the fun of it. On the way back we were delayed by a red light just outside Bare Lane, which worked to my advantage as I'd have reckoned the dark grey bird deep in the hawthorns on the other side of the track was probably a woodpigeon if I'd only had a passing glance at it. As it was, I had a good view of a very nice male merlin as it emerged onto a branch and had a look round.

I hadn't gone for a quick look at the sea front at Morecambe because I'd wanted to catch the Manchester train. As it happened I could have lingered and got the next train back to Lancaster and still caught it. But it wasn't as bad as the hour and a half delays on the West Coast Mainline trains. At least the next couple of days will provide some travelling certainty for a change.