Leighton Moss

Bearded tits

Despite its being a Saturday I decided to get my first Old Man's Explorer ticket of the year and head up for a wander round Leighton Moss. The weather was grey and mizzly, not the sort of weather for any long-distance birdwatching but quite good enough for seeing what's about in the reedbeds.

The Barrow train was packed between Oxford Road and Preston, which is par for the course every day of the week these days. Things calmed down after that and it was a pleasant journey to Silverdale. As we approached the station the coastal pools were busy with wigeons and shelducks, there were also a few waders about but they were distant and we'd gone past before I could assay an identification.

I walked round into Leighton Moss, which was predictably busy. Luckily there weren't many about in the "Hideout" so I got my eye in on the visitors to the feeders, mostly spadgers, chaffinches and blue tits with a couple of robins and a marsh tit and some hen pheasants lurking round waiting for any seed spilled from the feeders.

Teal

Pintail

I wandered round to Lilian's Hide and found a quiet spot in a corner. It was a bit different to my last visit: the pool was unfrozen and littered with ducks. Mallards, teal and a pintail hung around the margins of the pool while gadwalls and tufted ducks joined the coots and a goldeneye at the deep end. A few shovelers dozed by the hide with some teal and snipe.

Leighton Moss 

Despite all the recent rain the path through the reedbeds was good going. Mixed tit flocks — long-tailed tits, great tits, blue tits and chaffinches — bounced around in the willows. One flock included pairs of marsh tit and nuthatch all of which struck photogenic poses when the mood took them, which tended to be fleeting. The marsh tits in particular tended to be too close and too fidgety for anything other than a wide angle lens. The moorhens feeding on the ground in the reedbeds were easy to spot, the water rail was hard work. There's been some work done to widen the main drain on the reserve, a couple of dozen teal were taking advantage of the reed seeds that had been disturbed onto the open water.

Marsh tit

Nuthatch

There were more mallards and teal on the Tim Jackson pool together with a dozen pintails and a few more snipe. I kept hearing greylags but it was ten minutes before I saw any, a dozen birds flying over from the salt marsh.

I wish I was any good at identifying fungi

Teal and snipe

There was more of the same at the Griesdale Hide. The drake cinnamon teal x shoveler was fast asleep just in front of the hide. A few cormorants loafed in the trees in which one usually hopes to find a marsh harrier, a white shape halfway up a distant tree turned out to be a little egret. I was just about to leave when a great white egret flew up from the reeds, flew a few yards and immediately dived back under cover.

Drake cinnamon teal x shoveler hybrid

Bearded tits

Walking back I had a monstrous stroke of luck. Despite its being the end of January and late lunchtime and a busy Saturday a pair of bearded tits were topping up at the grit trays in a clearing of the reeds. I tried to attract the attention of a couple who'd stopped a few yards short the other side but they were busy watching a female bearded tit at the edge of some drowned willows.

I took advantage of the explorer ticket to explore a little further, the trains let me get as to Ulverston, hang around for quarter of an hour and get the train back to Manchester (I would have gone on to Barrow and caught the next train back but that one was cancelled). The tide was lowish and the birds were diffusely scattered on the estuaries. A few redshanks and curlews foraged on the Kent at Arnside. There were a few more with the shelducks and little egrets on the salt marsh before Grange-over-Sands where a few bar-headed geese were grazing on the edge of the marsh. As we left Kents Bank a great white egret popped its head up from a creek on the marsh. There were a few wigeon on the Leven with a pair of eiders.

I rode back on the landward side. A flock of redwings scattered from the trees near Ulverston Back Drain as the train sped by. There were a few more wigeon on the Leven but no more eiders. There was a flock of greylags with the mallards and mute swans further along. There were teals and little egrets in the drains along Meathop Road after Grange and half a dozen mallards amongst the curlews and redshanks on the Kent. I saw the only marsh harrier of the day as the train passed the coastal hides at Leighton Moss. Just beyond that a flock of more than a hundred pink-footed geese were grazing on Carnforth Marsh.

Lichens on willow twigs: Ramalina (the bits looking like mistletoe) and Parmelia (the scaly lichen

Beyond that it was all pigeons and corvids in the gathering gloom. It had been a surprisingly good day.