Martin Mere

Whooper swan and black-headed gulls

It promised to be a dry and potentially sunny day so I set off for Burscough Bridge for a walk down to Martin Mere. I hoped to see the red-breasted goose again but if I was unlucky with that there'd still be plenty to see.

As the train trundled through a damp landscape the effects of recent rains were everywhere to be seen. The Middle Brook at Lostock was a raging torrent where usually it's a lazy burble. At Wigan both the Douglas and the Wigan Canal had overflown. And the lake that had been a field just outside Parbold had a couple of hundred black-headed gulls loafing on it. I decided I wasn't going to take the long walk back to New Lane from Martin Mere, if there were any rare warblers on the boundary fence of the sewage works they could be discovered by somebody more amphibious than myself.

Pink-footed geese, Red Cat Lane

Leaving Burscough Bridge and walking down Red Cat Lane I was struck by the absence of rooks in the fields — they were all too busy sorting out their nests in the rookery by the station. Hundreds of pink-footed geese flew between fields, not so much in skeins as braided ribbons.

Fieldfares and starlings, Red Cat Lane

There were plenty of fieldfares and starlings in the trees by the hedgerows, keeping well away from the female kestrel watching the potato field from the top of the hedge. I didn't realise how many fieldfares and starlings were hiding in plain sight in the fields until a marsh harrier made an appearance and scared the lot of them up. There was easily a couple of hundred of each of them. Most flew back into the fields once the harrier had moved on but a noisy good few dozen stayed chattering in the treetops by Crabtree Lane.

Fieldfare, Red Cat Lane

The road just before Curlew Lane was flooded, I noticed a couple of houses had sandbags piled by their front doors. Half a dozen little egrets joined the donkeys in the field by Brandeth Barn.

I made the mistake of taking the pedestrian entrance to Martin Mere. It doesn't take much rain to make this unpleasantly muddy, it was ankle-deep today. As I was admitted to the reserve I suggested, yet again, that it might be a good idea to put some gravel down on the path to try to make it passable. There's no objective reason why I should have been so browned off about this for the rest of my visit, after all these years I should expect no better. I think in part it's because I'm getting depressed by nature reserves that put more effort into providing play activities for children rather than keeping footpaths passable, something that's been putting me off Pennington Flash lately.

Greylags, wigeon, pintail, mallard, whooper swans, black-headed gulls, shovelers, coots and shelduck

Anyway, I was in, it wasn't raining and the mere was covered in wildfowl and lapwings. There didn't seem as many wigeon as usual, there were hundreds of mallards.

Lapwing, mallards and pintails

Whooper swans

It was midday so there were only a few dozen whooper swans, the rest will have been out feeding on the fields like the pink-footed geese. 

Pintails

There were plenty of greylags on the mere and a handful of Canada geese. I looked in vain for the red-breasted goose. It hadn't been reported this morning so I concluded it had gone walkabout (it was reported here later in the afternoon). It was the pintails' turn to start courting, the drakes indulging in a lot of head-bobbing and quiet bubbling quacks.

Mallards

I checked out the mere from the screens where the old Swan Link Hide used to be. No red-breasted goose but plenty of ducks agreeably close to hand. The path to the Janet Kear Hide and beyond was busy so I turned and headed for the hides on the other side of the reserve.

Pintail

As I walked by the Raines Observatory a mixed tit flock — long-tailed, blue and great tits — bounced through the trees and a mixed flock of goldfinches, greenfinches and chaffinches fed on the alder cones in the treetops. There were more of them on the feeders further along but again there was no sign of tree sparrows.

Robin

There was another mixed tit flock at the Kingfisher Hide, jostling with chaffinches, robins and dunnocks for a place on the feeder by the reflecting pool. A goldcrest flew across the doorway into the trees as I went inside.

Chaffinch

Blue tit

There was a brambling amongst the chaffinches in the hedgerow by the Ron Barker Hide. It was a lot more skittish than the chaffinches and made sure it had plenty of twigs between itself and any birdwatchers' cameras. I quickly gave up trying, not least because this stretch of the path was underwater.

Buzzard

There were at least a hundred teal at the Ron Barker Hide, most of them in the central drain, which was lapping at the tops of its banks. A couple of buzzards sat in the trees by the reedbeds, occasionally letting themselves be moved on by crows and coming back almost immediately. A marsh harrier drifting low over the far end of the reedbeds was the only one I saw in the reserve today.

From the Ron Barker Hide 

I walked back, checking the ivy-covered trees for tawny owls and getting the usual result.

At first sight this field on Tarlscough Lane looked empty. There were fifty-odd fieldfares feeding on it.
There's a dozen in this picture!

I called it quits and headed back to Burscough Bridge, taking the car park exit and walking down the road on my way out. It was quieter on my way back: there were still dozens of fieldfares, starlings and pink-footed geese about but they weren't as conspicuous as they had been in the morning.

Tarlscough Lane 

I could have dawdled a great deal more on my way back: the train to Oxford Road was cancelled so I had to wait another half hour for the train to Victoria then wait the best part of half an hour at Salford Crescent for the next Oxford Road train. It had been a fine Winter's day and the birdwatching had been good and I was annoyed at myself for not having enjoyed it.

Tarlscough Lane