Leighton Moss

Leighton Moss 

The day had started with my noticing that one of the spadgers on the feeding station was a fledgling — I'd taken it for one of the darker females until I noticed it still had a bright yellow gape. It looked to be a few weeks old, they must have started nesting in last month's touch of Spring.

I thought I'd start the week with a stroll round Leighton Moss so I armed myself with an old man's explorer ticket and got the Barrow train from Oxford Road. It struck me on the way up that the change in the seasons was apparent by the absence of black-headed gulls nearly all the way (I think they're resident at Chorley Station). 

Roe deer, Bolton-le-Sands

We were held at signals just outside Carnforth. Three grazing roe deer provided a bit of a distratction.

It was a grey, rainy morning so there wasn't a crowd at Leighton Moss when I arrived. The feeders by the hideaway were busy with great tits and chaffinches, a couple of coal tits and a marsh tit slipped in while they weren't looking.

The main drain from the sky tower

For a change I ignored Lilian's Hide today, going straight for the sky tower for a look over the pools. There were plenty of black-headed gulls squabbling over potential nest sites, a few dozen pairs of teal dabbled while pochards, tufties and coots dived. I couldn't work out if I was hearing two or three bitterns, there's an echo to the booming that makes it difficult to place where it's coming from. A Cetti's warbler sang from somewhere in the vegetation at the bottom of the tower.

Leighton Moss 

It was a relatively quiet walk down to the reedbed hides, there were lots of small birds about but they were feeding quietly in the undergrowth. A lot of the young willow trees have been cut, opening up some of the views. If the willows weren't thinned out they'd dry out the reserve and take over the reedbeds as part of the natural succession. As it is, the reserve stays wet and the open spaces encourage the growth of a bit of cover for the birds.

The teal were a hive of activity

There were a few dozen teal at the Tim Jackson Hide, all asleep on the mud. Ditto the shovelers, the mallards and a pair of oystercatchers. Greylags flew past, making a hell of a racket as they did so.

There were fewer birds at the Griesdale Hide but they were all awake. A couple of pairs of pintails dabbled just in front of the hide, pairs of shoveler and teal were dotted about the reed margins and lapwings dozed on muddy islands. Far out, by the edge of the reserve, dozens of greylags and mallards fed on the field at the bottom of the hill, there were more greylags in the field beyond the reserve. A lone sand martin fluttered quickly by in the distance, a bit of promise on a gloomy day. The marsh harriers had evidently decided to sit it out in this weather, a female hunched down in one of the trees far out in the reeds was the only one I saw today.

Ramalina lichen on a willow twig

I set off walking back thinking that I hadn't heard any water rails in the reeds today. No sooner had I thought that when one started squealing deep in the reeds by the hide. My walk back was punctuated by blood-curdling noises from the reeds though I only saw the one water rail and that in the distance as it ran across the path. Cetti's warblers sang every hundred yards or so and the only reed bunting of the day made itself known.

This willow had a good assortment of lichens and mosses on its trunk as well as the common polypody ferns up in the crooks

Turning the corner the willows were more obviously lively with birds than they had been on the way in. Pairs of goldcrests and treecreepers fussed about by the path, great tits and blue tits foraged overhead and a nuthatch sang in the rain.

Leighton Moss 

I checked the trains. The Carlisle train was running phenomenally late, I had plenty of time to go and catch it and milk a bit of value out of my old man's explorer ticket by checking out the estuaries along the coast and there was a twenty minute window at Seascale for the train back to Barrow which connects with the Manchester Airport train. So I got that.

The tide had ebbed, redshanks and curlews probed the mud in the creeks of the Kent Estuary at Arnside. The lack of crowds of black-headed gulls was notable. Similarly the lack of little egrets on the salt marsh on the way into Grange-over-Sands though they were made up by pairs of shelducks. A paradise shelduck in amongst them was a surprise. The dozens of bar-headed geese on the marsh beyond the station were less of a surprise, they regularly skip over the railway from the municipal park.

Passing inland from Kents Bank the train disturbed a snipe which flew parallel with the train before jinking off and disappearing into a field. The salt marsh beyond Cark was surprisingly empty until we passed a dozen grazing pink-footed geese. There were more curlews and redshanks on the Leven Estuary and the first little egret of the day.

I only got as far as Barrow. The train was running so late that it was going to skip a lot of stations to try and make up time. I checked the schedule, I was looking at waiting an hour for the train back at either Millom or Sellafield, the latter with an uncertain connection back to Manchester, so I opted to get the train back from Barrow which was due in five minutes. Or rather twenty-five minutes as the late-running Carlisle train had its knock-on effects. This gave me plenty of time to notice that while all the gulls on the rooftops of Barrow on the way in were herring gulls nearly all the gulls at the station were lesser black-backs.

I sat inland on the way back. The train disturbed small groups of wigeon as we crossed the Leven and pairs of goosanders cruised the creeks. The wetlands just beyond near Holker were littered with pairs of teal and mallard. A dipper on the river Eea just before Cark was a nice bonus. 

The train terminated at Preston due to lack of train crew. I got the Liverpool train to Wigan Northwestern and the train to Victoria from there. I had wondered why the journey was scheduled to take forty minutes, it turns out there's a twenty minute wait at signals scheduled at Golborne Dale. It was getting late on a wet and gloomy afternoon so there wasn't much on offer in the trees and fields beyond a couple of carrion crows and woodpigeons and a pair of male blackbirds fighting over an elderberry bush. (The journey's still a good twenty minutes quicker than going the long way from Wigan Wallgate via Bolton).

A very rewarding day's birdwatching in unpromising weather and the year list's inched up to 136.

Leighton Moss