Southport

Hen harrier, Southport

At last some sun! It's been strange, getting to half-past January and not yet having visited Southport so I thought I'd best rectify matters. That's probably been what's been making me feel fidgety lately. The clouds rolled in and we had a sleety half-hour at Oxford Road Station while I waited for the Southport train but I didn't let that put me off and beyond Salford Crescent it was sunshine all the way.

There were odds and ends along the way to Southport including a flock of fifty-odd pink-footed geese alighting in a field just after Hoscar and a buzzard in a tree as we passed Jack Lane. I made notes as I went along, memory and energy willing I'll write them up into a blog post.

Mute swans, Southport Marine Lake

At Southport I headed straight for the marine lake. I was struck by how few gulls there were, relatively, in the town centre as I passed through: a handful each of herring and black-headed gulls. Usually it's like a busy aerodrome. There were a more about on the lake, though still a lot less than usual. There didn't seem so many coots about, either, nor any cormorants. A herd of mute swans was working its way through an old lady's shopping basket, aided and abetted by greylags, mallards and pigeons.

Southport beach: shelduck, black-headed gulls and mystery goose

I had a wander along the seafront South of the pier to see if the snow bunting was about. Unfortunately I coincided with a stream of dog walkers and had no luck. Snow buntings are pretty fearless of people but they don't like dogs at all. It had probably flown into the salt marsh for cover, leastways I couldn't find it on the beach or near the sea wall. Not to worry, it gives me the excuse for a return visit soon. The tide was low and there were plenty of shelducks and redshanks feeding on the beach with a few curlews and ringed plovers. A goose slept on its own at the edge of the salt marsh opposite Pleasureland, unfortunately its legs were hidden, its head tucked deep into its back feathers and while I could say for definite it wasn't a snow goose I couldn't put an ID to it at all. Odds are it was a pink-footed goose, there were plenty of them in the marsh North of the pier together with meadow pipits, pied wagtails and little egrets.

Blackpool and a snowy Lake District, shelduck on Southport shore

Pink-footed geese, Southport

I bobbed over to the sailing club to see if I could add twite to a year list that was bubbling away quite nicely today thank you but had no luck and returned to walking along the Marine Drive to check out the salt marsh. There were a few curlews with the redshanks and shelducks on the muddy fringes of the marsh and I was looking round for any more waders when something spooked the redshanks and a crowd of skylarks I hadn't seen in the long grass. A ring-tail hen harrier floated in low and close, I've never seen one this close before and I expect I said something that would make a maiden blush. It succeeded in creating a mass panic but didn't manage to catch anything and moved on after a few minutes.

Hen harrier, Southport

Hen harrier, Southport

Hen harrier, Southport

Hen harrier, Southport

I noticed that if I drifted over towards the golf course I'd be able to catch the 40 into Marshside, which I did. I got off at the bottom of Dawlish Road and took the cut onto the bund at the back of the marshes. The house next to the cut's empty and for sale and I was tempted to look at the asking price but it would only depress me and even if I could afford it I'd be spending most of my pension buttering the cat's paws.

Teal, Marshside

Black-tailed godwits, Marshside

Wigeon, Crossens Inner Marsh

Both Marshside and Crossens Inner were flooded and awash with wigeon, teal and black-tailed godwits. There were fewer lapwings, shelducks, shovelers and greylags and it took me a while to find any pink-feet or Canada geese. I didn't see any mallards at all until I looked in the drain next to the water treatment works. There weren't many gulls about, just a few dozen black-headed and a handful of herring gulls. As I walked along I noticed small groups of redshanks and ruffs feeding in the shallows. 

Snipe, teal and ruff, Crossens Inner Marsh

I spent a few minutes making sure a snipe was a snipe and not a jack snipe. It looked a bit small, even bearing in mind that if you can ignore the long bill snipe are surprisingly small birds. Eventually I got it, and its bill, in silhouette away from the teal and redshanks it was feeding with, and saw enough to conclude it was just a snipe, albeit on the small side. There were half a dozen easier to identify snipe further along.

As I picked my way along the mud of the bund I was accompanied by a small flock of wagtails and pipits which were feeding in the flooded grass at the base. Every so often they'd notice I was there and fly ahead, or else notice I'd passed them and they'd catch up and fly ahead. In the end I concluded it was five pied wagtails, just the one grey wagtail and half a dozen meadow pipits. I double-checked the latter several times, it wasn't to be assumed any pipit had to be a meadow pipit.

Meadow pipit, Crossens Inner Marsh

I crossed Marine Drive and started walking back to Marshside, checking out Crossens Outer as I went. There were scores of teal and wigeon on the banks of the brook and more out on the marsh with a few hundred lapwings. The geese were quite a way out, beyond the grazing shelducks, and it wasn't until I got to the wildfowlers' pull-in that I could start to identify any of them. There were hundreds of Canada geese to my left, heading towards the salt marsh, and at least as many pink-feet to my right stretching out towards Banks Marsh. Beyond that were thousands I had no chance of identifying with binoculars but would guess at being mostly pink-feet. One group caught my eye amongst the pink-feet because they looked different but I couldn't pin down why. As I walked further along the change in angle and light helped, they looked bigger than the pink-feet but I still couldn't ID them. It was only when the sun went behind a cloud and I could only see the geese as distant dark grey shapes that I realised that one of them, at least, was a white-fronted goose. The sun came back out and I wondered why I hadn't identified it as a Russian white-front more easily than that. There might have been three or four others but they were keeping their heads down grazing and I couldn't be sure. As I was staring at them hoping for enlightenment a great white egret popped up in the marsh behind them.

The sun went in again, this time for a few minutes, and I was surprised both by how much colder it suddenly felt and by how inconspicuous the few hundred golden plovers were now there was no sun to catch their highlights. The weather was providing some spectacular skyscapes along the way.

Crossens Inner Marsh 

Crossens Inner Marsh 

Marshside Outer wasn't so obviously busy though there must have been hundreds of pink-feet in the long grass. A few mallards and shovelers bobbed about in pools and a couple of little egrets foraged at the margins. I wouldn't have spotted the shelducks and skylarks had a low-flying marsh harrier not spooked them.

Lapwings, Marshside

Marshside Inner was as busy as Crossens Inner with much the same species though there were a lot more greylags and a lot fewer redshanks. I had a shufti by Sandgrounders and added a few moorhens to the tally. The pools by Marshside Road were covered in gadwall and shovelers while the Junction Pool was littered with Mallards, shovelers and pintails.

A twilit ruff, Marshside

I walked up to the bus stop admiring the sunset and stopping every so often to watch the lapwings, godwits and ruffs coming in and the greylags flying between fields. It had been a lovely day's birdwatching even though my bones were feeling the cold and the year list is now a nice round ninety.

Marshside