Lunt Meadows

Common sandpiper

A Temminck's stint lingering for its third day promoted my first visit to Lunt Meadows this year. My preferred route would have been getting the train to Kirkby via Wigan then getting the 133 bus to Lunt but the trains were only going as far as Rainford, making an ordinarily tricky connection definitely dodgy. Then I read that Lunt Road was closed and the 133 redirected so there was no point in picking it up at the Waterloo end. No matter, I could get the X2 or 47 buses running between Liverpool and Southport, get off at Long Lane and walk up, it's only a mile or so. It's cheaper to get to Southport and I'd be avoiding the start of the Eurovision celebrations so off I went.

Boding dodgy on Southport Road 

The weather forecast was for a grey day with a light wind and occasional showers with the risk of thunder. There had been odd spots on rain along the way and as I got off the bus I noticed a nasty black cloud over Crosby. What wind there was seemed likely to be pushing it out to sea so I didn't worry about it.

A heron was crashing about on the pond at the corner of Long Lane and a reed warbler reeled in the reeds. Goldfinches, robins and wrens sang in the hedgerows and blackcaps, chaffinches and chiffchaffs sang in the trees by the farm buildings. Mallards and magpies fossicked about in the fields and a kestrel flew low over.

"Occasional showers"

I hadn't gone fifty yards when the sky suddenly went black and the heavens opened. In less than a minute the road was awash and I was soaked. There was no point in turning back — there was no cover on Southport Road and half an hour's wait for the next bus — so I carried on in the rain. Most of the birds took cover, a lot started singing for want of anything else to do. I added reed buntings, whitethroats, greenfinches and great tits to the tally. A grey partridge ran across the road just in front of me to take shelter in a field of barley.

Lunt Meadows 

Just as suddenly as the rain started it stopped when I got to the crossroads with Lunt Road and it was a bright sunny day, warm enough for me to start drying out. Despite reports to the contrary neither Lunt Road nor the car park were closed so I went into the reserve that way.

Greylags and goslings

There were more blackcaps and chiffchaffs in the trees and they were joined by willow warblers. Every patch of brambles by the drains had a sedge warbler, whitethroats or a Cetti's warbler — or any combination thereof — all singing like Billy-o. Canada geese and greylags grazed in the fields with the lapwings and a family of greylags occupied the path. I tried given them space to move on by scanning the pools but they weren't for budging.

There were more geese on the pools together with mallards, gadwalls and tufted ducks. The nesting black-headed gulls were made nervous by a few dozen herring gulls and lesser black-backs loafing on the pools and wheeling overhead.

Avocet

I negotiated passage past the pair of hissing greylags and went over to the far pool where the stint had been reported. A couple of pairs of avocets were nesting, ditto a pair of coots and some more black-headed gulls. A lone common sandpiper was busy catching midges on the water margins.

Avocet

I spotted a small sandpiper feeding behind a distant lump of mud but when it came out into the open it was a very smart dunlin in its black-bellied Summer togs. A scan of the mud on the other bank quickly found me a little ringed plover. It took me a while to find the stint despite its being in plain view, it was smaller than the little ringed plover, mud-coloured and fast asleep. 

Temminck's stint

Temminck's stint and little ringed plover

Little ringed plover and Temminck's stint

Little ringed plover and Temminck's stint

In the time I watched it it woke up a couple of times, had a quick preen of its chest feathers and fell asleep again. This is pretty much my experience of Temminck's stints.

Lunt Meadows 

As I walked around I bumped into yet more warblers and there were shovelers in some of the back pools.

Lunt Meadows 

I had a quick explore of Roughley's Wood which was noisy with blackbirds, blackcaps and song thrushes. Chiffchaffs sang in the depths, willow warblers sang along the rides and sedge warblers, whitethroats and Cetti's warblers sang in the margins and drains. A cuckoo sang from a clearing on the other side of the wood but I had no luck seeing it.

As Lunt Road was open I checked the MerseyTravel web site to see if the 133 was back on its usual route. Apparently it was and I only had ten minutes to wait for the bus to Kirkby or fifteen for the bus to Waterloo. The notices on the bus stops said they were suspended from the 19th of April for about twelve days so that was alright then. The hedgerows were busy with spadgers and goldfinches while swallows and swifts wheeled overhead. There was a bit of a panic when a pair of kestrels turned up but it calmed down when they settled to rest in a tree.

Twenty-five minutes later with no bus in either direction I set off for the walk down Lunt Road then Long Lane for the bus back to Southport. Luckily the weather was a lot kinder this time. I was surprised when a ring-necked parakeet flew overhead at the crossroads and headed for one of the coverts.

I had only ten minutes to wait for the next bus. Forty-five minutes later one arrived and I just managed to get the train home. It had been a peculiar sort of day and I ached all over but I'd managed to get decent views of a Temminck's stint for a change, even if it wasn't particularly active, and it and the cuckoo kept the year list ticking over.