Leighton Moss

Marsh harrier

The weather bode fair so I got me an old man's explorer ticket and headed up for Leighton Moss.

As we approached Silverdale I noticed the salt marshes were flooded, little egrets and great white egrets staking out the drier portions. Looking at the state of the flooding at the coastal hides I wouldn't think there'd be anybody walking down there today. They definitely wouldn't have able to drive down and park though I couldn't identify the ducks swimming in the car park.

The feeding stations are being rested at the Hideout after a couple of birds looked unwell. Which didn't stop the goldfinches and chaffinches flocking in to perch on empty poles looking for the feeders.

Teal

The pool at Lilian's Hide was awash with coots. The gadwalls and tufted ducks amongst them were almost lost in the crowd. A few mallards and teal dozed and dabbled by the banks. A couple of common darters became the latest contenders for last dragonflies of the year.

Coots

The view from Lilian's Hide 

Jackdaws and carrion crows flew about the fields beyond the reserve and a buzzard flew high over Griesdale Wood. A couple of marsh harriers hunted far over the reedbeds, one of them drifting slightly closer but sticking to its side of the pool.

Marsh harrier 

A Cetti's warbler sang by the Sky Tower as I passed by. I walked down to the reedbed hides, the trees by the path silently busy with fidgeting blue tits, great tits and robins. A couple of red deer hinds ran up and down the field between the reserve and the railway line, spooked by noises from over by the sky tower. They did a couple of circuits before disappearing into the trees by the line.

Honey fungus 

The water was high in the reedbeds but the work done on the paths last Winter proved its worth, they were mostly bone dry. A chiffchaff calling from the willows by the Tim Jackson Hide was the only one I bumped into today.

Reedbeds

The Tim Jackson Hide was jam-packed. I didn't linger. The pool was heaving with coots, shovelers and teal.

On the way to the Griesdale Hide 

I was a bit late in the day for seeing bearded tits but I thought I'd best check the grit trays by the path to the Griesdale Hide anyway and wasn't unduly surprised not to have any luck. A reed bunting fooled nobody.

The pool at the Griesdale Hide was relatively quiet, just a raft of a couple of dozen coots to-ing and fro-ing apparently aimlessly. A passing first-Winter great black-back was shadowed by a couple of carrion crows as it flew low over the reeds.

I had no luck finding either bearded tits or marsh tits on the way back. A goldcrest was very confiding as it hunted in a hawthorn bush by the path. So confiding I had to use the macro setting on the camera to get it into focus, not ideal when you're trying to photograph a fidgety small bird!

Goldcrest, nearly got it!

Goldcrest

There was a goldcrest there a moment ago

There was a very busy flock of goldfinches and siskins in the pathside alders near the visitor centre, mingling with the mixed tit flock passing by on the way to the bushes by the stream.

I decided to get the train out to Ulverston and catch the Manchester train back from there so I could have a look over the estuaries. The fields on the way to Arnside were awash, mallards dabbling in the floods and little egrets fossicking about the emergent grass. It was high tide and a very high tide at that, the black-headed gulls having to roost on the promenade.

Kent Estuary at Arnside 

The salt marshes of Morecambe Bay were very damp indeed. Lapwings crowded by the waterside at Meathop, black-headed gulls at Grange-over-Sands and Kents Bank. As the train took us inland to Cark we passed flooded fields crowded with hundreds of black-headed gulls and redshanks.

The tide was so high on the Leven Estuary there was no room for any birds on the seaward side. I switched sides on the way back, there wasn't a lot more space on that side. I had been keeping an eye out for eiders but was hadn't been having any luck. Then I saw a brown shape moving about in a small creek. Which turned out to be the rear end of an otter, eiders don't have long furry tails. I did find just the one eider, asleep on the edge of the next creek along.

Leven Estuary 

On the approach to Cark the fields were littered with greylag geese. The flooded fields beyond Cark had yet more black-headed gulls and redshanks, and a handful of curlews. As we passed by the woods on Meathop Fell I noticed a great white egret amongst the little egrets roosting in the trees.

The train was cancelled under us at Preston and we were advised to catch the next Manchester Airport train due in ten minutes' time.

Which was cancelled.

Leighton Moss