Marshside

Black-tailed godwits 

The forecast for the pollen count was high so I thought I'd head for the seaside. Marshside was due a visit so that was the target for today. The train got into Oxford Road just in time to see the Blackpool train leaving. I looked at the connections and decided to go via Liverpool, not the quickest or cheapest choice but it gave me a lot of options for doing something else on the way back home.

The stopping train via St Helens gets to Liverpool a couple of minutes before the stopping train via Warrington so I got that for a change. It was striking that despite its already being a bright, sunny day there wasn't a single butterfly on the trackside buddleias anywhere along the way. Bees were a bit thin, too. As, indeed, was the bird life. This is the time of year when birds in trees are being self-effacing in dense leaf cover, birds on the ground are generally feeding in tall grasses of one kind or another and they're all too busy having their breakfasts to be sitting on chimney pots.

I got an all areas Saveaway at Liverpool and got the Northern Line up to Southport, passing herring gull chicks on rooftops by Stanley Dock and the first cabbage whites of the day on the buddleias and brambles at Sandhills.

By Marshside Road 

It was an almost cloudless sky busy with house martins when I got off the 44 on Marshside Road at lunchtime. The marshes either side of the road were dry and grassy and sporadically busy with geese. The young Canada geese were two-thirds-sized replicas of their parents and the greylags still had hints of down on their backs. A few little egrets hinted in the long grass, a couple of herons stalked the creeks.

Greylags

Black swans

Junction pool was busy with a mixture of mallards, the drakes in eclipse and the ducklings nearly full-grown. As were a family of tufted ducklings. The black swans and their cygnets dozed by the reeds. In normal Summers I'll have gone through the pain of trying to identify hawker dragonflies (common, Southern and migrant, we won't even think about Southern migrant hawkers) and become nearly confident by mid-July. It took me a while to be sure the dragonflies zipping round the nearby reeds were migrant hawkers.

Approaching Sandgrounders 

I walked over to Sandgrounders, treating myself to a few dewberries along the way. Small flocks of goldfinches twittered about, a family of greenfinches were busy in the bushes and a couple of meadow pipits flew by. A skylark sang a few phrases for form's sake before disappearing into the long grass. The pool by the path was heaving with black-tailed godwits in a confusing array of plumages ranging from the greys of juvenile birds to the bright rusty oranges of the adults and all the variations in between shining in the sunlight. A few dunlins, most sporting the black bellies of breeding plumage, dozed at the water's edge. A spotted redshank had been reported in the morning but I looked for it in vain.

Black-tailed godwits and shelducks

Black-tailed godwits and dunlins

There were only two of us in the hide so I spent a lot of time wader watching. I had no luck finding a spotted redshank but found two redshanks asleep amongst the godwits. There were only a handful of avocets about and half of those were nearly full-grown youngsters. A couple of common sandpipers fussed about the waterside, about a dozen lapwings foraged at the far end of the pool with a few more dunlins and three ruffs including a tiny one I wasn't sure was an unusually small female or a part-grown juvenile in flying condition. I was thinking to myself that I've been having a very bad year for little ringed plovers when one flew in and joined the lapwings. The black-headed gulls had dispersed, leaving behind a dozen or so birds including a couple of juveniles so some nests obviously survived the attentions of the large gulls.

Black-tailed godwits 

Black-tailed godwits 

Avocet 

Black-tailed godwits and Canada geese 

Juvenile avocet

Common sandpiper 

Black-headed gulls and black-tailed godwits letting the cattle go by

Cattle, cattle egrets and cormorant 

The godwits shuffled about a bit to allow the passage of a herd of cattle with four cattle egrets riding shotgun. The egrets kept to the long grass on the other side of the cattle so I didn't get great views of them except when they flew over to catch up with the head of the herd. Five minutes later there was more shuffling about and then a panic as a great black-back which had been asleep on an island decided to take flight. It took a few minutes after it had gone for everything to settle back down. I couldn't find the redshanks but I found another ruff and a couple of pied wagtails working their way through the crowd. A familiar call put me on alert as five snipes flew up from who knows where and promptly disappeared into the marsh.

Black-headed gulls, lapwings and black-tailed godwits 

Black-tailed godwits 

Black-tailed godwits 

I was a lot longer than usual in the hide. I debated walking round to Crossens and decided against it. I'd had a good visit and seen plenty, there was no need to tag a route march on the end. I wandered back up Marshside Road, the wind on my back and a flock of lapwings slowly flying low across the road and thought this wasn't bad for a Tuesday. The cattle had wandered close to the road but there was no sign of the cattle egrets. It turned out that they'd flown across the road and were with the herd over there.

Cattle and cattle egret

I got the bus back to the station and took a meandering route home to see how the connections between Merseyrail and Northern work at the new Headbolt Lane Station. I had a bit of time to wait for the train back to Manchester so I had five minutes' nosy round Millbrook Millennium Green and marvelled at the bravery of rabbits that will share a patch of grass with kids and dogs