Southport

Avocets, Marshside

It was more than high time I had a proper wander round Marshside and Crossens. The weather forecast for Southport was sunny but at Wigan it was cool, gloomy and windy so our train was cancelled there and we had a three-quarter hour wait for the next Southport train. Any road up I got there in the end and it was well worth the effort.

Lapwing, Marshside

I got off the 44 and walked down Marshside Road. It was an almost cloudless lunchtime and the wind was very brisk and cool but nothing like as strong as yesterday. A couple of house martins whizzing round the chimney pots on Elswick Road were a nice herald of the Spring we keep on thinking has arrived. As I passed the houses and onto the marsh the hedgerows were busy with house sparrows and the marsh was busy. Lapwings, black-headed gulls, woodpigeons and starlings flew to and fro on the nearby grass. Further out there were yet more of the same interspersed between many dozens of pairs of Canada geese and small groups of pink-footed geese.

From Marshside Road 

Over the road the marsh was still flooded. Although the whole marsh looked like a pond most of the water was only knee-high to a coot. Half a dozen greylags on one of the islands were, oddly, the only ones I saw all day. There were plenty more Canada geese and pink-feet together with mallards, black-tailed godwits, redshanks, coots and tufted ducks and a hundred or so black-headed gulls. The wigeons looked to have all gone, the few teal took some finding and I only found the one pair of pintails.

Black-tailed godwit, Marshside 

Walking along I started to find little egrets in the creeks and gullies on my side of the road and a few black-tailed godwits fed on the bank of the drain. Skylarks sang overhead or skittered about in the long grass. There were a lot of wagtails and they were all white wagtails.

White wagtails, Marshside 

My first whitethroat of the year was singing lustily from the gorse bushes on the corner by the junction. Across the road a wheatear was posing for cameramen in the car park.

Black-headed gulls, Marshside 

The black-headed gulls were busy sorting out the remaining nesting territories by Sandgrounders. Further out the pairs all seemed to have settled into place. It looks like the nesting colony's going to be about a hundred pairs, it's a lot less densely packed than a few years ago when I first came here. I looked around but couldn't find any Mediterranean gulls in the crowd.

Redshank, Marshside 

There were more redshanks flitting about, a common sandpiper trotted about the banks of the pools and twos and threes of godwits stalked the pools as they fed in the shallows.

Common sandpiper, Marshside 

It was impossible not to be distracted by the avocets. They fed, they squabbled, and they billed and cooed when they weren't chasing off black-headed gulls, Canada geese or each other. A small group in front of the hide weren't sure if they were feeding or courting and their bubbling and piping drowned out the calls of gulls in the background. They were ridiculously photogenic.

Avocets, Marshside

Avocets, Marshside

Avocets, Marshside

Avocets, Marshside

Avocets, Marshside

Avocets, Marshside

Avocets, Marshside

Marine Drive
This is the rough track on the inside of the road that runs beside the inner marshes

I walked on beside Marine Drive. The inner marsh was busy with Canada geese and black-headed gulls, the outer with distant skylarks and pink-feet. Avocets and mallards lurked in the creeks and pools either side. The bushes by the side of the road were busy with goldfinches, greenfinches and wrens, green-veined white butterflies kept out of the wind as best they could by hugging the ground.

Third-calendar-year great black-back
A pair of lapwings had just mobbed this off Marshside Inner Marsh 

Large gulls flew about ominously. Herring gulls seemed to be almost tolerated by everything except the avocets. Lesser black-backs were chased off by lapwings and black-headed gulls. The occasional passing great black-back was an all-out alert. The buzzard sitting on one of the fenceposts at the boundary between Marshside and Crossens Inner Marsh seemed to be no concern to anybody.

Wheatear, Crossens Outer Marsh 

A wheatear and some more white wagtails foraged in the long grass and flood wreckage at the boundary fence to Crossens Outer. More skylarks sang and meadow pipits performed their parachuting song flight.

Wheatear, Crossens Outer Marsh

Spoonbills, Crossens Inner Marsh

I glanced over the road and noticed two white shapes that didn't look right for egrets. It was a couple of young-looking spoonbills being surprisingly active as they fed in the pools alongside avocets and godwits.

Spoonbills, Crossens Inner Marsh 

White wagtail, Crossens Outer Marsh 

I stopped for a scan round at McCarthy's, a look-out over Crossens Outer by the old wildfowlers' pull-in named after the author of "The Birds of Marshside." Yet more white wagtails skittered about. It came as a relief when the first pied wagtail of the day flew in. 

Crossens Outer Marsh 

As I walked along the pink-footed geese were closer to the road. Try as I may I couldn't wish any of them into white-fronted geese or barnacle geese let alone the Todd's Canada goose or red-breasted goose that have been around lately. There were a few pairs of Canada geese settling down together here and there and some of the younger pink-feet looked like they were starting to sort themselves into couples. Nearly all the pairs of shelducks were keeping themselves to themselves in the middle distance.

Pink-footed geese, Crossens Outer Marsh 

Crossens Outer Marsh 

I couldn't be doing with walking into Crossens for the bus back into Southport so I walked along the bund at the back of the marshes into Marshside. Part of the attraction was the chiffchaff and the willow warbler singing in the trees by the water treatment works. As I walked onto the bund three hares that had been grazing the base of it ran into cover.

Black-tailed godwits, Crossens Inner Marsh 

The shovelers and teals I hadn't been seeing elsewhere on the marshes were on the pool by the bund. There were also a great number of black-tailed godwits and avocets.

Avocets, Crossens Inner Marsh 

Avocets, Crossens Inner Marsh 

Black-tailed godwits and avocet, Crossens Inner Marsh 

I'd hoped for a closer look at the spoonbills as they'd been heading this way but they'd changed their minds and were but distant shapes.

Crossens Inner Marsh 

It had been a bright, if breezy, day but now the cloud rolled in and it started raining. For all of ten seconds. A couple of minutes later it was someone else's turn, the winds at high levels must have been blowing a hooley.

As I crossed over onto Marshside the bushes were busy with spadgers and a blackcap sang from a hawthorn bush. All the pink-feet on the marsh were pink-feet and all the starlings were starlings. Another couple of hares grazed the marsh.

I dropped down from the bund by the school and got the 44 back into Southport in time for the next train back to Manchester. Just as well, really, the next one was cancelled. It's telling that on the fields between Southport and Wigan I was seeing as many mallards and shelducks as woodpigeons.

Walking into the bund by Crossens Inner Marsh