Mere Sands Wood

Tufted duck and ducklings, Mere Sands Wood

I thought I'd go on a twitch today. A common rosefinch — what the books used to call a scarlet grosbeak — has been singing in a garden in Kendal for a couple of weeks and I thought it might be a nice addition to my life list. So I got myself an old man's explorer ticket with a view to getting the train to Carnforth and catching the 555 to Kendal. So of course the Barrow train was cancelled. I got the Blackpool train to Preston to see if there was a way of getting a Northern train to Lancaster and lo, there was the Barrow train. It had obviously been one of those cases where it was running late from Barrow and terminated at Preston. We got on, the train crew got on, we were ready to leave on time. And it was cancelled. Plan C was to wait the extra hour and get the Windermere train to Kendal. And that was cancelled too.

Which is why I didn't go for the common rosefinch at Kendal.

The Ormskirk train was running so I got that to Rufford and went for the explore of Mere Sands Wood I gave up on last week.

Banded demoiselle, River Douglas, Rufford

I got off at Rufford and had a quick look over the River Douglas just by the station. I spent ten minutes failing to get any photos of the emperor dragonflies zipping over the midstream. The banded demoiselles fluttering by the bank and occasionally chasing of an emperor were more amenable.

Greenfinches and goldfinches sang in the hedgerows, a moorhen muttered in the flag irises and a pied wagtail caught flies from the rampart of the bridge.

Pied wagtail, River Douglas, Rufford

A goldcrest singing lustily from a roadside conifer by the marina was good to hear.

I walked through Rufford, down Holmeswood Road past Rufford Park and down the entrance road to the visitor centre. In future I'll take one of the footpaths in to the side entrances, it's just a car's width and a hairy walk for a pedestrian.

Azure damselfly, Mere Sands Wood

The pond by the visitor centre was busy with emperor dragonflies and blue damselflies. It took me a while to realise that most were azure damselflies. I had even less luck photographing the emperors here.

I couldn't find a map of the paths so I took one at random. In the event it eventually led to the main path that circles the wood (or would if the end approaching the visitor centre wasn't closed for repairs. There was a lot of restoration work going on.)

Mere Sands Wood 

It turns out that Mere Sands Wood is an excellent nature reserve. I needed to keep reminding myself of that because the signage irritated me greatly. I don't mind a complete lack of signage — wild places don't have signposts — but the reserve is littered with them and only two of them told me anything I could use: one was the signpost for the Redwing Hide, the other I bumped into late on pointed the way to the path that takes you to Curlew Lane and thence Martin Mere. The rest were evidently relics referring to a map I couldn't find anywhere. It's a petty thing to get so annoyed about but continually bumping into them was like being nibbled by midges.

Anyway, it's an excellent nature reserve and well worth a couple of hours' wander.

The large pool by the visitor centre was off-limits, which is a shame as the only willow warblers of the day were singing over there with reed buntings and sedge warblers.

Mere Sands Wood 

Walking through the wood I could hear plenty of chiffchaffs, coal tits and nuthatches singing, wrens and robins bobbed and darted about the edges of the paths and families of great tits bounced through the undergrowth. Blue tits and long-tailed tits flitted about high in the canopy. A buzzard flew high overhead and a steady traffic of black-headed gulls flew to and fro between the pools and the fields beyond.

The big pool on the Western side of Mere Sands Wood 

Unsurprisingly there were plenty of speckled woods, peacocks and red admirals about and my first ringlets of the year were chasing each other round a grassy clearing. There are a lot of pools and ditches in the wood and the paths were littered with common blue damselflies and azure damselflies, the latter more often near open water, or perhaps more obvious. Broad-bodied chasers zipped around the open pools together with smaller numbers of skimmers. I managed to spot one black-tailed skimmer but I don't know that they all were. 

Canada geese and shelducks, Mere Sands Wood

The Rufford Hide looked like it was being rebuilt from scratch. The Redwing Hide was open so I sat in there for a while to see what was about on the pool. Over on the far side a pair of mute swans cruised around the dozing Canada geese and shelducks. Most of the shelducks were starting to moult and most of the mallard drakes were halfway into eclipse plumage. A Cetti's warbler sang from somewhere near the hide but not long enough to pin down its location.

Heron, coots and mallards, Mere Sands Wood

A heron on the far bank contorted itself into strange angular shapes as it sunbathed, the better for preening out any nibbling insects.

Tufted duck and ducklings, Mere Sands Wood

There had been a few small mallard ducklings and baby coots on some of the other pools. A tufted duck had her brood bobbing and diving near the hide. Tufties often strike me as being quite phlegmatic as ducks go but females defending their ducklings can be very feisty, as this one provided. First off she led her squadron into a group of dozing mallards, most of them nearly full-grown ducklings, barked at any that drifted her way and attacked a couple for swimming too close to her ducklings.

Tufted ducklings, Mere Sands Wood

Then a coot made the mistake of getting too near. The tuftie chased it off but coots being coots it steamed right back in full aggressive mode. It went for the tuftie, which replied in kind and then some. There's not a lot smaller than a goose that will sent a coot on its way with its tail between its legs.

The tufted duck chased this coot away from her ducklings, Mere Sands Wood

I retraced my steps part of the way then joined a path around the Eastern perimeter of the reserve, which is where I saw the sign to Martin Mere. Blackcaps and chiffchaffs sang in the trees and whitethroats in the fields beyond. At one point there was a pool beyond the hedge with reedbeds and a singing reed warbler.

A particularly gnarled oak

I checked the train times, if I didn't dawdle I could catch the train back to Preston via the footpaths to Cousins Lane or Brick Kiln Lane. As it happened, I took the longer route but still managed to get to the station with five minutes to spare. And along the way I found the bus stops for the 2a between Preston and Ormskirk that take half a mile out of the walk.

Mere Sands Wood 

I probably chose exactly the wrong time to have an explore, and it was unfortunate so much rebuilding was going on but it's an excellent nature reserve.