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| Mallard, Southport |
After a very trying weekend I thought I'd take the opportunity of a grey and rainy day to float about on the public transport network and do a bit of filling in of the maps along the way. I got myself an old man's explorer ticket and set off for Chorley, the idea being to play bus station bingo and either explore the route to Blackburn via Withnell on the 2 or the route to Ormskirk via Eccleston and Parbold on the 337. Either would fill in gaps in my mental map of Lancashire. (Public transport maps are immensely useful but actually seeing how places physically interconnect — or don't really — adds scope and value
¹, there are places that looked tricky to get to on the map that turn out to be fairly easy and there are some journeys you only do once, it's as well to know which is which when you're getting tempted by reports of bird sightings). Thence I'd get the train to somewhere or other.
The 337 was in the bus station when I arrived. This goes to Ormskirk by a very indirect route starting by going through Charnock Richard then heading Northwest through Eccleston to Croston Station then southwards to Parbold before meandering to Burscough where it has a bit of a wander round before going South to Ormskirk.
By and large I was sitting there counting woodpigeons and corvids and occasionally feeling that sense of relief that there are still some starlings around somewhere. School playing fields had small flocks of black-headed gulls, ponds and land drains had moorhens and mallards. A covey of grey partridges watched the bus go by from a field in Bispham Green. Every so often we'd pass a tractor turning a field over with the inevitable white cloud of black-headed gulls in its wake. The sun came out as we approached Burscough and I was very tempted to get off and walk through to Martin Mere, I was glad I hadn't as the bus passed through the industrial estate in the pouring rain.
The bus arrives in Ormskirk five minutes after the train to Preston leaves, which is a nuisance. I weighed up the options and seeing as how the 375 to Southport was due in a couple of minutes I got that. This route heads back up towards Burscough then turns onto Pippin Street and goes to Scarisbrick via Heaton's Bridge and Bescar and thence into Southport. Despite the fact that so many of the trees are still green with leaves the rooks at Scarisbrick were already nest-building and a flock of fieldfares passed overhead as the bus got to the outskirts of Southport.
Contrary to the forecasts it had become a warm, sunny afternoon. I decided to have a wander round bits of Southport I tend to pass by on my way to other places.
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| Heron |
I walked down from the bus stop on Lord Street into Victoria Park. The pond by the entrance was busy with mallards and herring gulls, a pair of gadwalls dabbled about and a heron seemed to be making a living amongst the waterlilies.
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| Gadwalls |
Woodpigeons, magpies and an oystercatcher fed on the great expanses of grass, robins sang from the hedgerows and in the small patch of wooded walkways mixed tit flocks bounced through the trees and groups of blackbirds rummaged in the leaf litter.
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| Victoria Park |
I walked the length of the park, through the caravan site and over onto the Queen's Jubilee Nature Reserve, a stretch of scrubby dunes inland of the Marine Drive. Skylarks and linnets flitted about and reed buntings called from the depths of bushes. Somewhere inland a skein of pink-feet were calling as they flew by. I was watching where I was going very carefully, fearful that my first sighting of a natterjack toad might be when I scraped one off my boot. No toads today but there was a dragonfly, an over-mature female common darter glistening like old gold and refusing to sit still for the camera.
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| Queen's Jubilee Nature Reserve |
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| Marine Drive |
Crossing Marine Drive I headed North and struck the Coastal Path along the salt marsh and up to Southport Pier. My head wasn't in a good place and the unplanned walk was doing a bit of good. Skylarks and starlings flew about before disappearing into the long grass. Carrion crows flew over to join the herring gulls and black-headed gulls at the edge of the marsh. Beyond that shelducks dabbled and indeterminate waders — dunlins? ringed plovers? — skittered about the mud, larger waders were indentifiable as redshanks by their calls, the curlews' calls weren't necessary but were welcome bits of atmospherics.
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Southport Pier The four-legged chappie bounded in as I took the photo. It was evidently determined to jump into every available puddle and i could but envy it its energy. |
Approaching the pier redshanks and gulls loafed on the mud keeping on eye open for passing dogs and their walkers. I passed the muddy treachery as the path changed from beaten ground to concrete via slimy puddles and started to tiptoe, just in case a snow bunting has decided to make an early appearance. One hadn't but you never know your luck.
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| Common gull |
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| Southport beach |
The rain had been beating down over distant Formby Point when I joined the path, it was closing in fast now. I passed under the pier and had a scout round the marsh to the North where linnets, starlings and pigeons were flitting about but there was no sign of geese.
I crossed over to have a nosy at the Marine Lake where rafts of coots drifted over the water and mute swans cruised about. A couple of dabchicks fished near the islands, great crested grebes over by the promenade. There weren't many Canada geese about and all they over by the King's Gardens.
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| Southport Marine Lake |
The walk had been unplanned but therapeutic. The plan prior to arrival had been to get the train to Wigan and thence get a bit of value out of the old man's explorer ticket by train-hopping. I didn't have the energy. On the plus side a lazy day's utterly unintensive birdwatching had somehow accrued a fifty-strong day list. As the train passed Bescar Lane I added collared dove to the list, they'd been absent without leave when I'd left home this morning.
[The textbook example of the difference between how things look on a map and the physical reality is changing trains at Leeds. Everybody should do this once in their lives, just because.]