Martin Mere

Cattle egret, with cattle

I haven't gotten round to Martin Mere this month so I thought I should rectify the matter. The weather was grey and cool but threatened to get better later in the afternoon so there was no good excuse not to go for a walk. We'll skip the cancelled train and get to the bit where I alight at New Lane and start my walk.

Savoy cabbage, New Lane 

I had all day so I thought I'd take the long way round via the reedbeds and sewage works. The latter were a bit ripe but the brisk, cold wind was in my favour and I hadn't gone far beyond the station when I was already upwind of the smell. There were a few black-headed gulls and oystercatchers on the filtration beds and blackcaps, whitethroats and willow warblers sang in the trees. There was a lot of calling from the black-headed gulls as a buzzard floated by. As I was watching it I noticed a smaller bird flying towards Martin Mere perhaps fifty yards behind it. It took that bird's wheeling and flying closer for me to be sure it was a kestrel. A couple of pairs of stock doves flew overhead and over towards the covert near the tea rooms while there was a steady to and fro of woodpigeons, jackdaws and carrion crows. Everything went quiet for a moment as a sparrowhawk flew out from Martin Mere and headed towards New Lane Station.

I was approaching the crossing when the buzzard came back. A pair of carrion crows made a point of sending it packing.

Carrion crows mobbing a buzzard, New Lane
First approach

Carrion crows mobbing a buzzard, New Lane
First pass

Carrion crows mobbing a buzzard, New Lane
Another pass

Carrion crows mobbing a buzzard, New Lane
Both crows get involved

Carrion crows mobbing a buzzard, New Lane

Carrion crows mobbing a buzzard, New Lane
Job done, exit buzzard stage left

I crossed the railway line and upset half a dozen greylags that had been grazing in the field on the other side. I'd be no match for half a dozen greylag geese but they weren't to know that. My walk over towards the reedbed path was accompanied by the sounds of lapwings display-flying over the reserve.

Looking towards the Reedbed walk

The hedges along the reedbed perimeter were lively with whitethroats, robins, chiffchaffs, wrens and goldfinches. Linnets and reed buntings flew about overhead and titmice quietly fossicked around in the depths of hawthorns. 

The reedbeds from the perimeter path

Every so often a blackcap, willow warbler or a Cetti's warbler would burst into song and a reed warbler reeled from the pool by the side of the hedge. The noise that puzzled me the most was the sound of a moorhen on its nest about ten feet up in a densely-foliaged hawthorn bush. I had a scout round by the sewage works fence but even the chiffchaffs were getting better pickings elsewhere.

Chiffchaff

A sedge warbler singing in the willowherbs by one of the screens made my reedbed warbler tally up to seven.

The path by Martin Mere was less atrocious than last time so I hardly upset any of the mallards, shelducks or greylags loafing in the field.

Black-headed gulls

My first port of call at Martin Mere was the Discovery Hide. I was lured as much by the opportunity for a sit down as the sound of the black-headed gull colony. Most of the gulls had nests to sit or guard though there were still a few courting couples in the crowds. I looked around for Mediterranean gulls but only found the one reeling round the mere. Nearly all the whooper swans had left, I could find only one grazing on the far bank, and I didn't see any pink-feet. Waders were thin on the ground, too, save a few oystercatchers and the lapwings flying about over the fields.

Black-headed gull on its nest

I was scanning round to see what else was about when a little gull flitted across my line of vision. Every time I got a bead on it and started watching its feeding on midges it would be chased out of view by a black-headed gull, no doubt enjoying the experience of not being the smallest gull on the mere for a change.

Little gull

There was a sudden, muttered exclamation from the chap I was sharing the hide with. "The wife's just sent me a text," he said, "She wants to know what this bird is." It was a hooded crow in the car park of the Co-op in Banks. "I'll have a look for it on my way home," he said, "It'll be gone by the time I get there so there's no point in rushing off." I hope he got it.

The feeding station by the Raines Observatory was being monopolised by goldfinches and mallards. There were more goldfinches with the chaffinches and rats on the feeders by the Kingfisher Hide. The only sparrows I found were a pair of house sparrows in the hedge by the Hale Hide.

Approaching the Ron Barker Hide 

I'd barely sat down at the Ron Barker Hide before I noticed the two cattle egrets. The cattle were lying down by a pool with the egrets preening in front of them. Shelducks, shovelers, mallards and teal dabbled in the pools with a handful of avocets. A dozen black-tailed godwits flew by but didn't stop. I spent a while trying and failing to see much of the Cetti's warbler singing in the ditch in front of the hide.

As I was walking away from the hide an alarm call from a passing jackdaw made me look up in time to catch a peregrine steaming by at treetop height. Oddly, I didn't see a harrier all day.

The call of a cup of tea trumped the temptation to go down to the reedbed hides so I sloped off to the café and watched the swallows skittering about. Once I'd finished I decided to call it quits and make my way over to Burscough Bridge for the train home as the wind blew the clouds away and it became a warm teatime.

Swallows, Red Cat Lane

I'd stopped off for a wander down Curlew Lane in the hopes of catching a yellow wagtail or two but had no luck. There were plenty of lapwings and pied wagtails but no yellow wagtails as I could see. I got talking to the farmer whose house in on the corner. He'd asked if I'd seen anything special and I replied that I'd been hoping for a yellow wagtail. "Are yellow wagtails special?" he asked, "We have loads of them." "That's why your farm's special," I told him. We had a very long chat about farm prices, climate change and the prehistory of the mosses. I hadn't realised that this part of the moss was a glacial U-shaped valley, you can't see it from Tarlscough Lane or Red Cat Lane but looking towards the hills from that angle on Curlew Lane it's quite obvious even though the bulk of it has been filled in by the mosses. Apparently researchers have discovered that the bog wood that keeps fouling the ploughing is about 9,000 years old and that all the trees were toppled in the same event. All the while we were talking dozens of swallows and house martins wheeled over our heads and round the farm buildings.

Red Cat Lane 

Having a long yarn evidently recharged my batteries as I had plenty of energy for the rest of the walk. I struck lucky with tree sparrows in the hedgerows by Crabtree Lane but I had no luck finding any corn buntings. Mind you, given the way the starlings, rooks and woodpigeons vanished into the fields of oilseed rape I ought not to have been surprised.

Footpath through a field of rape, Red Cat Lane 

One of those days that emphasise the unpredictability of birdwatching.