A day out

Teal, Leighton Moss 

It promised to be a fitfully sunny day but I was feeling a bit delicate (whatever it was it was doubtless my own fault) so I got me an old man's explorer ticket with a view to heading up to Ulverston to check out the Morecambe Bay estuaries en route then spend a couple of hours at Leighton Moss. I know, I know, it's Monday, it's Northern, the narrative writes itself. 

The plan was: get the next train to Preston, which happened to be the Blackpool train, have a potter about then get the next Barrow train. The Blackpool train was quarter of an hour late then broke down at Bolton. By the time they gave up on resuscitating the train the next one to Blackpool was due. I let it go, there was only ten minutes to wait for the Barrow train. This turned out to be a tactical error: there was loads of space on the Blackpool train, the Barrow train was jam-packed with people going from the Airport to Preston to catch the train to Scotland. And I went on to Barrow rather than get off at Ulverston because the next train back to Silverdale was cancelled.

Anyway…

It was a fitfully sunny day, once every so often it shone through a hole in the thick cloud. The trackside was busy with magpies, carrion crows and woodpigeons. The lesser black-backs and black-headed gulls of Greater Manchester gave way to the herring gulls of Lancashire. There were a lot of black-headed gulls on the pools at the coastal hides near Leighton Moss, together with fifty-plus lapwings.

It was a very high tide. A dozen black-headed gulls clustered by the viaduct over the Kent at Arnside. The salt marshes between Meathop and Kents Bank were liberally peppered with little egrets, the tide was too high for the usual cluster of gulls at Grange-over-Sands. Moving inland towards Cark small groups of curlews fed in the fields with the jackdaws and crows. A few shelducks pottered about the salt marsh before the Leven Estuary with over a hundred pink-footed geese. I thought I was going to be unlucky with eiders on the Leven with the tide being so high but a small flock bobbed about on the far side beside a tightly-packed flock of redshanks. A buzzard sitting in a trackside hawthorn just past Ulverston added to the day's tally.

Herring gulls, Barrow

Barrow was awash with herring gulls. I had forty minutes to wait for the train back so I had a putter round and got myself a cup of tea. Other times of the year I'd have taken the opportunity of going up the Irish Sea coast or having a walk round Cavendish Dock before going back to Leighton Moss but there aren't enough hours in a December day for exploring Cumbria on a day out.

Leven Estuary from the train

On the way back I noticed that the tide was starting to go out. There wasn't much of an effect on the Leven Estuary. I was travelling on the inland side of the train and couldn't see any ducks at all. A curlew, a little egret and some redshanks pottered about in the creeks. There was a large flock of mallards with the mute swans on the pool by the railway a little further down and teals lurked in small groups in the drains. There were more curlews in the fields around Cark, with flocks of jackdaws and woodpigeons. 

Arnside from the train

The pond in the park at Grange-over-Sands was heaving with black-headed gulls and mallards. They might have fitted in better with the golfers wearing wellingtons on the flooded greens further along. There's an egret roost in the trees on the side of the hilly outcrop next to the River Winster. I sometimes see little egrets here as the train passes by. Today there were also three great white egrets. I can't remember seeing great white egrets at roost before. As the train joined the viaduct over the Kent Estuary it disturbed a flock of a few dozen teal and a red-breasted merganser. A few sandbars had been exposed by the retreating tide and the flocks of mallards and redshanks resting on them sat right as the train rolled by.

Leighton Moss 

I had just under an hour at Leighton Moss before the next train, the last one going through to Manchester for a few hours. I decided just to have a look at the Hideout and Lilian's Hide and see what was doing in the trees around the visitor centre. A great spotted woodpecker called in the trees across the road from the station and a flock of fieldfares heading for the woods above the village as I walked round the corner to the reserve.

Chaffinch, Leighton Moss 

The Hideout was busy with small birds getting their suppers before a long night and squirrels and moorhens tidying up under the feeders. Most of the small birds were chaffinches and goldfinches, I knew there were greenfinches about because I could hear them but none came to the feeders. A few blue tits flew in and had command of the sunflower seeds for a moment before giving way to a great tit which was then fussed off by goldfinches. Goldfinches don't often peck at other species but they make such a fuss that most can't be doing with it and give up. While this was going on a marsh tit slipped in a couple of times to get a sunflower seed and take it back to cover.

I walked down to Lilian's Hide, scanning the field on the other side of the wall just in case I could add green woodpecker to the year list (I couldn't). Probably the same marsh tit sneezed at me from the undergrowth and a water rail squealed from the reed margins.

The pool at Lilian's Hide was covered in waterfowl.

Mallards, Leighton Moss 

There were about fifty teal on the pool, most dabbling or dozing by the water's edge by the hide. A few dozen mallards loafed about, as did a similar number of shovelers. There were about fifty pintails, most of them out in midwater with the coots and greylags. The tufted ducks, gadwalls and dabchicks rather got lost in the crowd. A marsh harrier drifted low over the reedbeds over by the causeway, flushing half a dozen teal out of cover but not paying any attention to them. It wasn't until I was packing up to move on I spotted the snipe feeding at the water's edge by some teal.

Shoveler, Leighton Moss 
There's something remarkably moth-eaten about first-Winter drake shovelers.

Shovelers, and a pintail, Leighton Moss 

Teal, Leighton Moss 

Greylags, pintails and coots, Leighton Moss 

Pintail and shoveler, Leighton Moss 

Goldfinches and siskins bounced about in the tops of the alders by the path, the latter easier to hear than to see. I was tempted to wander over to the causeway then noticed I had ten minutes for the train so I headed back. I had one last look at the hideout and added a coal tit to the day's tally then went for the train.

Silverdale Station 

The journey back was mercifully uneventful. There wasn't so much a sunset as a slow fade to dove grey and primrose yellow clouds. A livid vermilion slash lit up the horizon as we passed through Bay Horse. I spent the next half hour straining my eyes in the hopes of seeing owls and seeing the last of the jackdaws and magpies going to roost. By Golborne the trees were silhouetted against a darkening grey sky and the last magpie of the day settled into a tree by a floodlit works yard.