Martin Mere

Red-breasted goose

It was another very cold and beautiful Winter's day and I headed off to New Lane for the long walk to Martin Mere, hoping to find some warblers by the perimeter fence to the water treatment works. I took the stopping train to Wigan via Swinton so I only had to wait in the cold for ten minutes for the Southport train at Wigan.

Setting off from New Lane 

The mud on the path by New Lane Station made a reassuring crunch noise underfoot, the walking for most of the day was very good. The water treatment works was busy with more than a hundred black-headed gulls and a similar number of starlings. Dozens of pied wagtails and meadow pipits worked the filtration pans with a grey wagtail and rather a lot of magpies. The hedgerow was busy with chaffinches, blackbirds and great tits.

A steady flow of woodpigeons, jackdaws and carrion crows and a couple of skeins of pink-feet passed overhead. A few greenfinches flew over and my first yellowhammer of the year flew by and joined the greenfinches and chaffinches in the trees beyond the field of fennel. Most of the dark shapes rummaging about in the fennel were blackbirds, robins and meadow pipits though I flushed a woodcock out into the open as I scrunched by. It flew over the railway line into the coverts behind the farmhouses.

I crossed the line and followed the path round to the perimeter of Martin Mere. The first of many small groups of snipe zipped overhead. Only the female of the usual pair of stonechats was about and she quickly dived into the relative warmth of a clump of burdock. A mixed flock of long-tailed tits, goldfinches and reed buntings rummaged about in the reeds. 

Cattle egret                                                                                    

Cattle egret and friends

Over on the other side of the fence the longhorn cattle grazing the edge of the Martin Mere rough took a look at me and I took a look at them. Three cattle egrets flew out from the herd and headed out into the reeds, quickly returning when they noticed a fourth jump up with a frog in its beak and settle on a bull's back to eat it.

Martin Mere 

Redwing

I joined the path around the Martin Mere reedbeds. There were more woodpigeons and snipe overhead, chaffinches, redwings and magpies in the hedges, and blackbirds, robins and wrens in the undergrowth. A female sparrowhawk passed by while a kestrel sat in the top of a tree and watched me pass by. I'd gone about a hundred yards when I flushed my second woodcock of the day, taking the opportunity to compare its rather grumpy alarm call with the zips of the snipe passing overhead.

Siberian chiffchaff

I passed robins, great tits and dunnocks on the path to the water treatment works and took a position with the sun behind me for checking out the perimeter fence. The first bird I saw was a common chiffchaff which flew through the fence and joined a couple of pied wagtails on the nearest filtration bed. The next bird I saw as I looked back was a Siberian chiffchaff in the hawthorns by the fence. There were a couple of common chiffchaffs so I could compare their warm, olive yellow upperparts and mostly primrose yellow underparts with the Sibe's cool brown upperparts and pale underparts with touches of acid yellow. I could also take an array of "There was a warbler on that branch" photos. A goldcrest joined in but wish as I might a yellow-browed warbler didn't turn up. Serves me right for being greedy.

I retraced my steps to the main path and walked round to Martin Mere, taking care to hang on to the electric fence at a couple of points because although the mud made reassuring scrunching noises there were a few places inviting the unwary traveller to crack through the ice for a shin-depth of cold water.

I got to the main road and could have carried on back to Burscough Bridge for the train but there was unfinished business at Martin Mere and after two hours' walking in the biting cold a cup of tea and a bit of a warm was enticing.

Martin Mere 

I went straight to the Discovery Hide and found that the mere was half-frozen. Whoopers, mallards, coots, wigeon and pintails crowded the open water, shelducks and lapwings loafed on the ice, greylags and pinkfeet squabbled on the far bank. A few black-tailed godwits twittered in front of the hide. And there, out on one of the islands and glistening in the sunlight was the red-breasted goose.

Shelduck, red-breasted goose and pintail

Shelducks, mallards and whooper swans

Shelducks and black-headed gulls

So I got myself a cup of tea and quarter of an hour's warm and set off for Burscough Bridge.

I'd been dead careful on all that icy mud all day so of course I had to come a cropper crossing the road. I stepped on a bit of black ice and landed on my back, literally taking the breath out of me. It was a lot more effective than those exercises they give you for clearing the rubbish out of your tubes before you have the morning inhaler but I wouldn't recommend it for general use. Luckily there was no traffic about and no witnesses to my ungainly crawling to the kerbside trying to catch my breath. I scrabbled myself up, found there was no harm done and gingerly toddled off. A hundred yards down the road I realised I'd lost my woolly hat. I decided it could stay in the middle of the road, it might provide some traction for the next poor wretch trying to cross the road.

The fields were busy with lapwings, starlings and fieldfares. Waves upon waves of pink-footed geese flew over heading to roost from the Lancashire mosses. A pair of whooper swans grazed the turf field on Curlew Lane. As I approached Burscough and the sun dropped below the clouds about a hundred rooks had a last supper in the stubble fields before heading back to the rookery behind the station.

Winter Hill from Burscough

"No harm done" was a bit premature. The big lens needs a bit of TLC,