Cumbria

Little egrets from a train, Kent's Bank Station

The weather was going to be grim today so I got myself an old man's explorer ticket and headed North. Besides seeing rather a lot of very splendid scenery the trip out confirmed my view that the Morecambe Bay railway line is one of the great sit-down birdwatching experiences even if a lot of the little brown birds have to stay unidentified as little brown birds.

It must be forty years since I last did the full length from Barrow to Cumbria so I had this in mind. In the end I only got as far up as Maryport before getting the train back down to Lancaster, the connections back to Lancaster from Carlisle via the Cumbrian coast get iffy after mid-afternoon and I didn't want to give Avanti West Coast very much of my money. (If I had I'd have got to Lancaster an hour earlier than I did do but there's no great hardship there).

The excitement started as the train slowed down for Silverdale and we passed five sleeping spoonbills and a hundred or so black-tailed godwits roosting by the coastal pools at Leighton Moss. A great white egret hunting in a flooded field on Silverdale Moss was good to see. It was a very high tide and there wasn't much to see at Arnside except a lot of roosting black-headed gulls though a wheatear perched on the viaduct was unexpected.

The tide was high, the creeks and becks were swollen and the salt marshes of Morecambe Bay were littered with little egrets, with nineteen of them lurking by the station at Kents Bank. Swarms of swallows hawked low over the marshes and black-headed gulls and herring gulls loafed on the shoreline. Things quietened down a bit as we moved inland to Cark, so long as you don't count the many dozens of lesser black-backs, black-headed gulls and rooks on the fields with handfuls of curlews.

The approach to the River Leven was busy with flocks of fifty or more each of jackdaws and black-headed gulls in the fields. Swifts and swallows kept busy and woodpigeons, carrion crows and linnets fed on the salt marsh. It was hard to process what was on the river as we crossed over, a couple of dozen eiders for sure, many dozens of black-headed gulls, a herd of ten mute swans and ten or so little egrets, 

I got the Carlisle train at Barrow where, for some reason, the lesser black-backs were outnumbering herring gulls two to one and held a monopoly on all the perches around the station. As the train moved on towards the Duddon Estuary there were more flocks of rooks and jackdaws and dozens of herring gulls waited out the tide in the fields. Every so often there's be a few little egrets, oystercatchers or greylag geese. Once in a while I'd actually be able to identify a flock of linnets. As we crossed the Duddon a couple of dozen black-headed gulls loafed on the bankside.

The osprey nest on Arnaby Moss seems to have been abandoned, there's no evidence of its having been used at all this year, which is a shame. Things were quieter on this side of the estuary, the flocks of corvids and woodpigeons rarely getting into double figures.

I resisted the temptation to get off at Millom and wander down to Hodbarrow despite the weather and lack of binoculars, staying on the train as it headed for the Irish Sea coast. The flocks of rooks started building up again, joined by flocks of starlings and swarms of swallows. Every so often a buzzard would lurch off a fencepost as the train passed by too close for comfort. 

The flavour of things changed as we passed over the River Esk with its dozen little egrets and loafing lesser black-backs. Beyond Ravenglass there were more stretches of rough pasture and hillside where swallows and swifts hawked and every so often I got a good enough view of linnets or meadow pipits to know what I was looking at.

We met the Irish Sea at Seascape and carried on along the coast. Lesser black-backs and herring gulls floated by and flocks of starlings bounced around in the fields. There were hundreds of black-headed gulls and dozens of lesser black-backs roosting on the Calder as we passed over it. For once the River Ehen at Sellafield was quiet with just a pied wagtail bobbing along the bank. 

The line hugs the coast closely from Sellafield to St Bees. Flocks of herring gulls, lesser black-backs, black-headed gulls, curlews and oystercatchers waited out the tide. On the coast near Coulderton cormorants and herons huddled together on the rocks. 

St Bees seemed to have all the local jackdaws fussing about the golf course. Herring gulls loafed in the fields on the way into Whitehaven, oystercatchers in the fields beyond near Bransty. The line hugged the coast again up to Harrington. More herring gulls and fewer lesser black-backs loafed on the shoreline. A stonechat jumped off a fencepost as we passed it near Lowca. I could have done with the train having to stop at a signal or something at Ghyll Grove. Fifty or more cormorants loafed on the rocks with a similar number of black-headed gulls; a couple of great black-backs sat to one side of a flock of a couple of dozen herring gulls; a couple of curlews and a least one redshank were fossicking round patches of exposed sand and there was a lot of other birds I just couldn't process.

I'd been keeping an eye on trains and decided it would be prudent to get off at Maryport and wait the ten minutes for the train back to Lancaster. We left Workington and went back to coast-hugging. Here and there there'd be flocks of linnets. I managed to identify a couple of dunlins amongst the small waders dotted along the way. Half a dozen common terns loafed on the beach as we passed the Thomas Armstrong factory. 

I had ten minutes' breather at Maryport with greenfinches, goldfinches and blue tits calling in the trees. When the train arrived I decided to sit on the inland side to see what I had been missing.

There were dozens of black-headed gulls and herring gulls and small groups of oystercatchers in the fields as we headed back towards Workington. Beyond Workington there were flocks of jackdaws and linnets and swallows were busy hawking over the rises by the track. 

We passed through St Bees and rejoined the coast. Herring gulls, black-headed gulls and oystercatchers were starting to get restless as the tide ebbed. Approaching Braystones the train disturbed a couple of whimbrels, giving me the chance to confirm their identification as we overtook them. A grey wagtail tried, and failed, to overtake us at Sellafield. We passed a flock of thirty-odd greylags on the banks of the Esk just past Ravenglass.

South of the Esk the fields started filling with rooks, jackdaws and swallows again. Swifts were fairly infrequent but given the Autumnal weather I was happy to see any. Approaching Millom the ones and twos of woodpigeons started to become dozens and the first house martins of the day were darting about Millom Station.

The tide was on the ebb as we crossed back over the River Leven. A curlew fed on the emerging mud and a flock of fifty-odd eiders were settling onto the mudbanks to doze.

Between Cark and Kents Bank there were flocks of over a hundred each of rooks and black-headed gulls in the fields. There were fifty-odd black-headed gulls on the salt marsh at Grange-over-Sands.

As we passed over the Kent Estuary towards Arnside the emerging mud was busy with redshanks and curlews and a red-breasted merganser cruised the main channel. Four spoonbills were still asleep by the Eric Morecambe Hide as we passed by.

I had forty minutes to wait for a train to Preston because of yet another Transpennine cancellation. The train from Preston got me into Manchester in time to miss my train home by ten minutes and the bus by five and I was ready for my tea when I arrived home just after nine.

The weather wasn't anywhere near as bad as forecast, I could easily have gone for a walk. As it was, I'd still managed a good day's birdwatching and clocked up fifty-nine species along the way. It was a useful change of pace: although I didn't get any physical exercise, not doing any walking or carrying heavy kit about, I was mentally exhausted by spending hours concentrating on what I was looking at through the windows and trying to identify as much as possible. I felt a lot better for having done it, it was probably the mental reset I've been needing that past couple of weeks.