Martin Mere

Black-headed gulls
Feeding time for the youngster

It was another Summer's day and I thought I should do something with it and headed off to Martin Mere.

I got off the train at New Lane, felt the heat, looked at the cloudless sky and decided not to go the long way in, opting instead to walk down Marsh Moss Road and keeping as many trees as possible between me and the sun.

Marsh Moss Road 

Song thrushes, chiffchaffs, chaffinches and whitethroats sang, there was a profusion of blackbirds, greenfinches and goldfinches and swallows hawked over the fields. One of the fields has been set aside this year and for all there was a sea of thistles and mayweeds there were precious few butterflies. A pair of buzzards soared overhead, one of them carrying an unlucky small mammal.

I took the path in towards Martin Mere. A crowd of jackdaws and carrion crows in the trees were very jumpy and noisy. Just at the point where I was beginning to feel like my deodorant had failed I spotted the cause: a female kestrel had taken a jackdaw nestling. She spotted me and decided to take her prize back to the nest. A pair of mistle thrushes spotted her and escorted her on her way.

Martin Mere 

The light was fierce as I had a look at the mere from the Discovery Hide. The immediately striking thing was how much the vegetation on the islands and rafts had shot up since my last visit. The black-headed gull chicks were well grown and just past that stage where you wonder what that wader is skulking on the bank. The only waders around were the oystercatchers having a siesta with the mallards and shelducks. The only other occupants of the mere seemed to be a few tufted ducks and a rather noisy common tern. A quick look in at the Raines Observatory, which was like a hothouse, added a teal to the list.

There was a lot of furtive movement in the trees and bushes along the path. The blackbirds, wrens and chaffinches were easy to see and hear, I could only hear the blackcaps and song thrushes, and the great tits and robins were just contact calls in the undergrowth.

The Kingfisher Hide 

There wasn't a lot of birdlife at the Kingfisher Hide but there was a reassuring crowd of red admirals fluttering about the brambles. Speckled woods had dogfights on the path leading up to the hide and a couple of times I had to dodge out of the way quickly as they barged by 

A glossy ibis had been reported at the Ron Barker Hide at lunchtime. If it was still there when I turned up it had done the typical ibis trick of disappearing into deep cover for a sleep. In my experience glossy ibises are either wandering about in plain sight saying: "Look at me!" or they're well nigh invisible, there's no in between.

All the chunky dark objects amongst the Canada geese on Sunley's Marsh were lapwings. A few black-tailed godwits and avocets fed on the pools, mallards and black-headed gulls dozed. There were no cattle out on the fields and no cattle egrets. A reed bunting and a Cetti's warbler sang from the drain. Out in the distance a buzzard soared over the woods and a marsh harrier rose from the reedbeds and immediately swooped back in. 

The waders on Ron Barker's Hide were keeping their distance

Wood sandpiper

Spotted redshank (left) and black-headed gull

A small wader feeding on Vinson's Marsh turned out to be a wood sandpiper. The silhouette of a lone little ringed plover skittered about the mud at the back. The dark wader by a tree woke up long enough to show its bill and confirm it as a spotted redshank before going back to sleep, so at least I got one year tick even if the ibis wasn't obliging.

I wandered back to the visitor centre and got myself a pot of tea. It was getting a bit late for contemplating the reedbed walk, besides which I wasn't sure I had the legs to do that in this weather and go and get the train home. I could go the long way back to New Lane and pick up a lot of the reedbed birds along the way but I'd only have a ten-minute margin of error for catching the train and there'd be a two hour wait for the next.

Tarlscough Lane 

Thus it was I headed for Burscough Bridge. Wrens and blackbirds sang from the hedgerows, goldfinches, greenfinches and house sparrows flitted between fields and hedges and house martins and swallows hawked overhead. Crowds of woodpigeons and jackdaws fed in the fields but were only visible when they flew up to move down a bit. 

Corn bunting, Curlew Lane

I got to Curlew Lane and noticed a wagtail sitting on a telegraph pole, a quick squint through the bins confirming it as a pied wagtail. I'd scarce put the binoculars down when a pair of yellow wagtails flew over my shoulder and disappeared into the barley on the other side of the road. I carried on but hadn't even passed the farmhouse on the corner when a corn bunting started singing behind me. It was on the telephone wire above where I'd just been standing. I've not seen nearly enough corn buntings this year.

Red Cat Lane 

The only tree sparrows of the day were in a hedge just down the road and a buzzard soared overhead and over towards Mere Sands Wood. For all that I'd not walked all that far I was quite weary when I got to the station and relieved when the train came on time.