Southport

Wigeon, teal, redshank, black-tailed godwit and lapwing, Crossens Inner Marsh

I'm still getting my head around the new train timetables, for the first time in nearly a decade there have been so many changes I'm having to learn from scratch again. The change in times for the trains into Manchester looked to work in my favour now for the Southport train, less so for the Barrow train connection so I decided on a day out in Southport.

The train journey behaved as it should. The snow had cleared but the canals in Bolton and Wigan were still frozen over, only starting to clear once we'd passed Gathurst. The usual common gull was in the paddock by Hoscar Station as we passed. It's unlikely to be being kept as a pet, it's probably just a rolling coincidence.  The rooks were nest-building at Burscough Bridge and some of the jackdaws were billing and cooing. I'll have to have a visit to Martin Mere via New Lane before the year's out, there were scores of black-headed gulls on the water treatment works today.

Arriving at Southport, I walked down to the marine lake. Herds of mute swans lorded it on the lake with flotillas of greylag geese. There weren't many mallards and tufted ducks were notable by their absence. The usual hordes of black-headed gulls and herring gulls lurked along the railings and lampposts and congregated anywhere it might be likely people may come to feed the ducks. Three cormorants were fishing for eels, with constant interference from a great black-back that knew an easy meal when he saw it struggling in the beak of a cormorant. One caught a whopper, almost the length of its neck, and spent an uncomfortable five minutes before it managed to get its meal down it.

Herring gulls, Southport

Snow bunting, Southport

Snow bunting, Southport

I walked down to Marine Drive and South of the pier to see if there were any snow buntings about. It was lowish tide and the wet sand was littered with redshanks and dunlins. Further out, shelducks dabbled in lingering puddles. A conversation with a passing birdwatcher confirmed there was a snow bunting a bit further down, in return I put him onto the best places to look for twite North of the pier. Looking at a picture of a snow bunting you would think they're very conspicuous but when you see where they're usually found in Winter you can see how well they blend in with wet sand and wrecked shellfish. I was lucky, the bunting was feeding on the sand between a pile of broken razor shells and a long line of puddles so it was easy to spot by eye. It spent a while rummaging and tugging at the debris before a dog walker came along. The bunting flew all of three feet the other side of the puddles to wait for the dog to pass by before going back to its beachcombing. They're quite blasé about people but they're not fond of dogs.

Pink-footed geese, Southport

Pink-footed geese, Southport

I took my own advice and went to look for the twite. I was in luck: thirty of them flew up from the sailing club car park and flew over the road where they disappeared into the salt marsh. I spent a while trying, and failing, to find them in the long grass. The skylarks, little egrets and pink-footed geese were far more accommodating, family parties of geese were grazing very close in to the footpath.

The 40 bus was due from Southport Links so I caught it into Marshside and walked up the cut onto the bund at the boundary between Marshside and Crossens Inner Marsh.

Wigeon, Marshside

The marshes had thawed completely and were more than half-flooded. There were wigeons and teals by the hundreds. I scanned them all on the off-chance I could sneak a last-minute addition to the year list but the teals were teals and the wigeons wigeons. I was surprised by how many of the wigeons were still in ginger eclipse this late in the year. As I walked along the bund the background noise was the whistles of the wigeons, squabbling black-tailed godwits and the chomp, chomp chomp of grazing waterfowl. Something spooked a large flock of starlings, which spooked the lapwings, which spooked the ducks. I looked for the culprit and while I was looking round a female sparrowhawk shot across the bund at knee height a few yards ahead of me.

Pink-footed geese and Canada geese. Crossens Outer Marsh

Crossens Outer Marsh was a lot quieter at first, mostly because it was so much drier than the inner marsh. The geese, mostly Canada geese with a few pink-feet, were way out on the marsh. Closer by were a family of greylags and a few shelducks, wigeons and teals. I'd got as far as the wildfowlers' pull-in when waves of Canada geese started to come over the marsh and over into the inner marsh. It took me a while to find the cause, a buzzard hunting over the marsh. I like and respect buzzards but I struggle to imagine one of them taking a Canada goose. A pink-footed goose would be another matter, they're distinctly smaller birds. More geese came over and started to loaf and graze near by on the outer marsh. Some of the pink-feet caught my eye as their feet glowed orange in the late afternoon sun but they were all pink-feet when I took another look. There were a few little egrets about. A large egret over by the far fence turned out to be two little egrets enjoying connubial bliss. 

Crossens Inner Marsh 

I crossed the road and walked down the path into Marshside. Marshside inner was very quiet, a few wigeon, teal and mallards with a pair of great black-backs on Polly's Pool. There were more mallards on the outer marsh, together with a dozen black-headed gulls. A great white egret popped its head up in the distance when the passing low overhead of a dozen herring gulls for some reason spooked skylarks and pink-feet alike. As the sun set Sandgrounders was even quieter than the rest of the inner marsh.

I had a look at the Junction Pool with no high hopes in the waning light and was rewarded by a crowd of pintails and teal dozing in the drowned grass and a dozen shovelers having a twilight feed.

As I walked down Marshside Road for the bus lapwings dozed, godwits squabbled and parties of little egrets and curlews passed overhead to roost. It hadn't been a bad outing.

Marshside sunset