Merseyside bumper bundle

Bar-tailed godwits, Crosby beach 

It was the morning after the deluge before and it boded to be a bright, sunny day. I've been doing a lot of woodland walks lately so I thought I'd head off for the seaside and let the sea air blow the wet dog smells out of my jacket and cap. I got over to Merseyside despite the cancellations and late runnings due to flooding between Warrington and Manchester, none of which I noticed as we trundled along. The Mersey was in full spate, where the river joins the Ship Canal at Irlam Locks the weir was barely visible but we were a couple of dozen feet above that as we passed.

I got an all areas Saveaway at Liverpool South Parkway and got the trains to Waterloo. I was a bit thrown that the trains from here are going to Ormskirk now rather than Southport but it's no hardship to change at Sandhills.

Crosby Marine Lake 

It was a bit cloudier on the Sefton coast than it was at home. I walked over to Crosby Marine Park for a nosy round. 

Little egret, Crosby Marine Lake 

There were plenty of herring gulls and black-headed gulls about, with rather fewer lesser black-backs. A couple of great black-backs dozed in a raft on the lake with a cormorant and some herring gulls. There were lines rather than rafts of tufted ducks out in midwater, little egrets fossicked about the banks. A lady was trying to get photos of the little egrets and kept spooking them. Ironically they'd then fly over to the path almost within arm's reach of passersby. They're not much fussed by people and small dogs but proximity is on their terms only. A chap stopped me to ask if the lake was polluted, I explained that the rather unnerving oily sea green colour was due to a bloom of blue-green algae.

Lesser black-back, Crosby Marine Park 

Herring gull, Crosby Marine Park 

Herring gulls, Crosby Marine Park 

There were more herring gulls and lesser black-backs with the mute swans, coots and mallards on the boating lake. I'm about a week late for the black-necked grebe that was on here but I had a look anyway and found two juvenile dabchicks hugging the bank. The starling flocks were still small, a few skylarks flew about and a couple of pied wagtails skittered about.

Dabchicks, Crosby Marine Park

Crosby beach 

The tide was just starting the ebb as I got to the promenade, recent storms had created some new sand dunes where the path used to be. Black-headed gulls and a couple of redshanks were the first to settle on the newly-emerged sand on the beach. They were soon joined by a flock of a dozen knots and a bar-tailed godwit. In the short time it took to get to the end of the promenade a fine mix of waders had settled . A few dozen redshanks on the tideline were joined by a dozen barwits, a couple of sanderlings and a handful of dunlins; three dozen oystercatchers stood to one side and a couple of curlews claimed the first emerging mud bank. A knot in very scaly juvenile plumage had me puzzled for a few minutes.

Knots and dunlins, Crosby beach 

Curlews, Crosby beach 

Knots, Crosby beach 

Redshanks, Crosby beach 

Bar-tailed godwits, Crosby beach 

Redshanks, Crosby beach 

Oystercatchers, Crosby beach 

Redshanks and dunlin, Crosby beach 

Redshanks, Crosby beach 

I wandered over to the fence for a look over Seaforth Nature Reserve. Linnets and pied wagtails flitted about, a couple of goldfinches flew over and magpies and carrion crows rummaged in the grass. Over to one side three curlews were catching up with their sleep. Out on the pools I could see cormorants, Canada geese and shelducks with a lot of herring gulls and a few very noisy black-headed gulls. I looked twice at a wagtail flying low overhead and was surprised to find it was a white wagtail. They pass through here in large numbers in Spring, not so much in Autumn.

As I moved along I started to be able to see more of the pool edges and mud scrapes and could pick out the lapwings amongst the cormorants and the teal dabbling at the water's edge. At this distance it was a challenge, most of the birds being silhouettes merging into the shadows. As I walked along the angles changed, birds that were distinct melted into the shadows and others could be picked out. A couple of golden plovers walked into a patch of light and shone for a few seconds before they moved on. One indistinct shape which I assumed was another lapwing stuck its head up from the crowd and proved to be the spotted redshank that's been reported here this past couple of weeks. That was easily the worst view of a spotshank I've had and still been (just) able to identify it. 

Great crested grebe, Crosby Marine Lake 
(Heavily cropped photo)

I walked back down to the lake where I could pick out the lines of tufted ducks and a line of birds showing flashes of light about the head. The views weren't great, they were low in the water and distant. I quickly came to the conclusion they were grebes but which? In the end the camera solved the problem: I managed to get them in focus in a couple of pictures then on the back of the camera I zoomed in on the pale dots in each and found that the reason why I was getting a confusing suite of identification clues was that there were three great crested grebes — an adult in Winter plumage and two juveniles still with some stripes in their heads and necks — and one or possibly two juvenile dabchicks, possibly the ones that had been on the pond. I'd been seeing a dabchick bobbing up on a wave looking grey then catching the light on the white necks and faces of the great crested grebes but not seeing the rest of them. Quite often puzzling dots out in midwater stay puzzling dots out in midwater, it's nice to be able to solve the puzzle once in a while.

Five minutes' wander in the little nature reserve by the sailing club added a chiffchaff and a Cetti's warbler to the day's tally.

It was still only lunchtime so I decided to move on. Anything else I was seeing today would be a bonus so I headed over to Ainsdale to try my luck finding one of the two yellow-browed warblers reported by Sands Lake this morning. I had thought about dropping in on Hightown or Formby instead. By the time I got to Hightown the ebb tide would have the waders all as distant silhouettes. And it's a boring slog from Freshfield Station to the nature reserve at Formby, it's best to go there first then someplace else as an add-on to the day rather than as an add-on to another visit. The walk from Ainsdale Station to the beach and dunes is no less boring but it's a bit shorter.

Goldfinch, Ainsdale

And so it was. I crossed the coastal road and nipped through the car park onto Sands Lake. I wasn't the only birdwatcher peering through the trees here at the mixed tit flock and I wasn't the only one finding blue tits, great tits and long-tailed tits. 

Sands Lake 

Gadwall, Sands Lake 

Out on the lake the mute cygnets lurked by the jetty in case anyone had any food on them and the mallards were busy whistling and head-bobbing. Some of the gadwalls looked liked they were already paired up. A few tufted ducks sat out in the water, a few shovelers dabbled by the far bank.

I wasn't doing any woodland walking today

I walked anticlockwise round the lake, two or perhaps three small mixed tit flocks silently bounced clockwise through the trees. One birdwatcher I bumped into had managed to find a goldcrest amongst them which was better than I was doing. I was doing better at finding common darters zipping round the boardwalk. This time of year they're over-mature and take on blood red tones similar to ruddy darters. (Ruddy darters when they're over-mature become bright wine red.)

Ainsdale beach 

After an hour's walking round the lake I called it quits and came away to give the other birdwatchers a chance without my jinxing them. I walked down to the beach where the Valaris Norway rig sat out offshore like some science-fiction prop and had an hour's wander round the dunes. It's late in the season for natterjack roads but I still watched my step just in case. There were plenty of meadow pipits about, I disturbed too many by paying too much attention to where I was walking and not enough on what was ahead.

On the dunes

The walk back to Ainsdale Station seemed shorter than the walk up. I got the train to Southport then had a long wait for the train home. The regular reader will not be startled to know the next train had been cancelled.