Martin Mere

Moorhen chick

Today looked like being the optimum day this week for being out in the middle of nowhere with no shelter so I headed out to see what was about at Martin Mere.

Red Cat Lane 

It was a nice walk down from Burscough Bridge on a warm sunny morning with a bit of a breeze. Hordes of rooks and jackdaws rummaged about in cabbage fields while small squadrons of pink-footed geese flew hither and thither and occasionally flew hither, turned on a sixpence and flew thither. It always seems strange to be identifying dragonflies to the sound of wild geese, a couple of migrant hawkers patrolled garden hedgerows while coming darters zipped around the field margins. Just to underline the end of Summer vibe a few swallows flew high overhead.

Black-headed gulls, shovelers and pintails

Arriving at Martin Mere I went straight to the Discovery Hide. The breeze was stiffening but it was still very pleasant. The water was very high and most of the spits and islands were underwater. Out on the mere there were lots of black-headed gulls and mallards but both were easily outnumbered by shovelers. 

My first pintails of Winter dabbled round the relic islands, the drakes still in eclipse and mingling with the crowds. There were a few wigeon about, too, the chocolate browns of the drakes' eclipse plumage peppered with hints of grey. The gadwalls and most of the mallards had fully moulted out of eclipse, the drake teals were still only showing the outlines of the patterns of their breeding plumage on their heads like a colour by numbers picture.

Further out, cormorants hogged the rafts and small groups of pink-footed geese grazed the far bank. A heron flew in, landed then noticed a buzzard digging for worms on the bank a few feet away and flew off. I looked all over for shelducks but there wasn't a one and there were only a few lapwings. There were plenty of lapwings in the fields beyond, they and scores of starlings were put to flight for a few minutes by a couple of marsh harriers.

There were lots of unidentifiable small birds besides the starlings over that way. A few linnets and reed buntings flitted about closer in on the far bank and a couple of pied wagtails flew over. Another bird flying over I assumed was a meadow pipit until it veered and I got a proper look at what was really a yellow wagtail.

Mallards, greylags, pink-footed geese and a cattle egret

I popped into Raines Observatory to see if there were any waders on the bank of the mere here. I had no luck with them but a couple of cattle egrets made a very nice consolation prize.

Red admiral

I wandered down to the Hale Hide. The apple tree by the duckery opposite the hide had provided a host of red admirals with a feast of windfalls.

I had no joy with finding any waders on the pool at the Hale Hide. A little egret, still with its breeding aigrettes, decided that loafing on the bank darting at passing Southern hawkers wasn't a profitable pastime and went fishing. It was phenomenally successful at disturbing fish by stirring up the mud with its feet: nearly every lunge caught something, usually tiddlers but a couple of times it caught a good-sized minnow.

Little egret

The Kingfisher Hide was very quiet indeed, if there hadn't been a couple of goldfinches and a greenfinch on the feeders it would have been entirely barren. I had a predictably fruitless search for tawny owls in the ivy-covered trees along the way.

Marsh harrier

The pools at the Ron Barker Hide were high and covered in teal with a few shovelers and wigeon hiding in the crowds. If any green-winged teal had been blown in by the storms it would have been impossible to pick out, some of the drakes had moulted as far as to have the square buff panels on their rear ends but there was a definite lack of white lines in any direction in the crowd.

From the Ron Barker Hide 

Canada geese and greylags grazed the banks while handfuls of pink-feet flew about and settled in the fields. One of the lingering whooper swans was cruising about in the sluice.

Whooper swan

A panic of lapwings in the fields beyond heralded the return of the marsh harriers. They were upstaged by a passing hobby flying purposefully towards the reedbeds.

A pair of dabchicks bobbed about in the drain in front of the hide. A cormorant fishing in there made me wonder how safe they were. Nothing untoward happened while I was there, except to a couple of fish I couldn't identify because they were swallowed as soon as the cormorant's head reached fresh air.

Spindle berries 

I wandered back and headed for the Reedbed Walk. A family party of long-tailed tits bounced around in the hedge by the Janet Kear Hide which was otherwise unusually quiet.

I've still not got the hang of the names of the new hides out in the reedbeds. Looking over the pool at the Rees Hide there were yet more teal and shovelers and a pair of mute swans flew in and settled to feed. The water was way too high for any waders to be about save the lapwings in the fields beyond. The Gordon Taylor Hide provided more distant views of the same birds with the addition of a couple of young dabchicks that chirruped quietly at each other as they bobbed along, a far cry from the usual far-carrying hinny of the adults.

Pink-footed geese

I had plenty of time so I did the full circuit of the Reedbed Walk. Reed buntings and linnets bounced about; wrens, robins and chiffchaffs called in the trees; black-headed gulls and pink-footed geese flew overhead. There were a lot of dragonflies about, mostly common darters and Southern hawkers. I thought the damselfly season was over and was surprised to see a dozen common blue damselflies zipping along the path margins by the harrier hide.

Rook, Red Cat Lane, Burscough

I had a long wait if I walked to New Lane for the train so I walked back to Burscough Bridge. I'd been chiding myself for not doing the nine mile round walk to try and see the brown booby up at South Gare, the wisdom of that decision became clear by the ache in my good knee once I hit the six mile mark in today's walk. Despite that it was a very pleasant walk. The cloud cover was blowing in but wasn't threatening and the breeze had calmed down a lot. Starlings congregated on telegraph wires, rooks and jackdaws rummaged and small flocks of swallows passed overhead.

Tarlscough Lane 

A fine roebuck, his antlers still in velvet, browsing in a field just past Lostock Station as the train passed by was the icing on a very pleasant cake.