Morecambe Bay

Oystercatcher, Morecambe 

It had been another bitterly cold night but I thought I'd best get some work done on the year list. I got myself an old man's explorer ticket and headed North. I decided the pair of grey wagtails flitting about Oxford Road Station was a good omen. Ditto the profusion of magpies, woodpigeons and black-headed gulls lining the trackside up to Preston. Things were quieter between Preston and Carnforth, I was mostly counting carrion crows and occasional flocks of black-headed gulls.

Carnforth was busy with jackdaws, herring gulls and pigeons as I waited for the 555 bus. The railway station bus stop is obviously good pickings judging by the robin that lurked around the shelter and the house sparrows sitting in the hedge nearby.

Pine Lake 

The roads and pavements were ice-free so I could have walked up to Pine Lake. I'm glad I didn't, it was perishing cold and cloudy with it. My concern that the lake would be frozen over was justified at first sight as I got off the bus. Luckily a short walk further along into the chalets brought the unfrozen half of the lake into view. Robins and blackbirds rummaged around the chalets, coal tits, goldfinches and siskins bounced about in the treetops, it was picturesquely wintery.

Looking out over the lake the mute swans by the far bank were the most conspicuous birds at first, the Canada geese and mallards with them blending into the dark of the bankside. Black-headed gulls started to make themselves known and small rafts of tufted ducks and goldeneyes could be seen in the gaps between the chalets.

Gadwalls and coots

Herring gull, tufted ducks and coots 

Black-headed gulls, common gull, tufted ducks, coots and pochards

At last I got to the open area and had a proper scan round. There were common gulls with the hundred or so black-headed gulls, the herring gulls loafed on the ice with a couple of lesser black-backs and a brute of a great black-back. Most of the wildfowl were distant: rafts of mallards, shovelers and tufted ducks, a distant but very vocal raft of a hundred or more wigeon and smaller groups of gadwalls and pochards. A great crested grebe drifting on its own caught my eye, as did the group of cormorants drying their wings in the far corner. I could hear teal underneath the whistling of the wigeons but I was blowed if I could see them.

I couldn't see any sign of a diver for ages. I was scanning the Canada geese and mute swans on the far bank, just in case any other geese were hiding in there, when I saw a shape slip underwater in the corner of my eye. A few moments later a diver bobbed up and lay low in the water for half a minute before diving again. The size of the bird and the smudgy dark and light greyness of it identified it as a juvenile great northern diver. Red-throated divers are quite dainty in comparison, black-throated divers much more contrasty. (I'd already ruled out any other divers but just for the record: a Pacific diver would be more contrasty and a white-billed diver would have a bigger beak.)

Walking back for the bus I passed a couple of bullfinches rummaging around in the shrubs by the play area. Dozens more wigeon whistled as they flew in to the lake.

The next bus was for Lancaster and due in a couple of minutes, which saved my being tempted to get the bus to Kendal and the rail replacement bus back to Lancaster. At Lancaster the next Northern train was for Morecambe so off I went to the seaside.

Morecambe Bay 

Morecambe Bay was bleak and beautiful. The tide was out, leaving expanses of mud peppered with redshanks, oystercatchers and herring gulls. A couple of groups of knots foraged in the weedy mud near the groyne, three sanderlings skittered across the mud just beyond with a couple of curlews. I'd just managed to convince myself that the little dark shape swimming along a channel was a redshank when it dived. It took a while to pick the bird up when it bobbed back up a long way along but at least it was now close enough to confirm as a dabchick. I'm always thrown when I see dabchicks at the seaside, no idea why as there's no reason why they shouldn't be there especially as most inland water's going to be frozen.

Redshank 

Herring gull, oystercatcher and eiders

Eiders

I didn't have any luck finding any turnstones until I'd walked to the end of Trafalgar Point. There was just the one underneath the jetty. Three eiders swam fairly close by, a raft of a few dozen of them was loafing off the beach a few hundred yards further along. I walked back and made my pilgrimage to the Eric Morecambe statue where starlings and house sparrows fussed around its feet. Someone had knitted him a scarf.

Eric Morecambe 

The big problem with getting the train from Morecambe is that it arrives at Lancaster just as the Manchester Airport train sets off. We have our noses rubbed in it along the way as the Morecambe train has to wait at signals for two minutes to allow the Manchester train through. I got a cup of tea and waited the fifty minutes for the next train and didn't care because it had been a good day's birdwatching.

Morecambe Bay