Leighton Moss

Wigeon

I thought I'd ease myself into the week so I got myself an old man's explorer ticket and headed North. It was a cold and mizzly sort of a day so I decided I'd get the Barrow train as far as Ulverston to see what was on the Morecambe Bay estuaries, wait the twenty minutes at Ulverston and go back to Silverdale for an afternoon at Leighton Moss.

The trains behaved themselves. We left the black-headed gulls, pigeons and jackdaws of Greater Manchester for the carrion crows, woodpigeons and herring gulls of Lancashire. The coastal pools at Leighton Moss were thinly populated with small groups of wigeon and teal. 

The Lune had been high at Lancaster but it was an ebb tide on Morecambe Bay. A couple of redshanks worked the mud by the viaduct at Arnside. Shelducks dotted the salt marsh on the other side. The first little egrets of the day were on the marsh at Kent's Bank, which has become the pattern. A flock of wigeon dozed by the viaduct over the Leven, I could only see a couple of eiders by the mud banks.

I got off at Ulverston and waited for the train back to Silverdale. A very noisy pair of bullfinches drove me barmy because I couldn't find them as they called from the depths of an evergreen. The usual herring gulls and jackdaws lumbered about the station. I noticed that the jack snipe that had been seen from the Allen Hide yesterday had just been reported as seen again ten minutes previously. I decided I'd have a trip out to the coastal hides for a change, I usually wait until the breeding season. I don't often see jack snipe and never on purpose and if it was showing well then I'd finally get to see something more than a small object flying off into the distance.

Greylag geese

Looking over towards Warton Crag from Slackwood Lane 

By the time we got to Silverdale it had become a very pleasant afternoon though I could have done without the icy edge of the east-northeast wind in my back as I walked down to the coastal hides. Flocks of greylags grazed on the fields and carrion crows called and chattered from the trees.

This path forks when you pass under the railway bridge. The path heading away from the car park takes you round to Jenny Brown's Point and thence to Silverdale

Coots and dabchicks called from the pools in the reedbeds as I walked down to the car park and under the railway bridge. On the other side four curlews flew in from the marsh and joined the greylags a couple of fields away.

From the Allen Hide 

Walking through to the Allen Hide I was glad of the shelter afforded by the railway line and the reeds. It was very quiet, just a couple of carrion crows and a magpie rummaging about in the bushes. It would come as no surprise for me to say I had no luck finding a jack snipe. A few wigeons and teals floated about, shelducks dabbled, a female red-breasted merganser spent most of its time underwater. A flock of half a dozen redshanks joined the dozen lapwings dozing on one of the islands.

Lapwings and redshanks

I walked round to the Eric Morecambe Hide, which was equally quiet. I scanned the Allen pool from here, hoping the change of angle might find me a jack snipe but it didn't happen. Looking out into the marsh a couple of pintails dabbled in the pool near the hide and small groups of wigeons grazed the islands. It was so quiet you could hear their beaks cutting the grass.

Wigeons

From the Eric Morecambe Hide 

Walking back to the car park 

Slightly disappointed but not remotely surprised I made my way back. I was walking into the wind, which took the edge off the sunshine. The greylags in the fields took no notice of me as I walked by. Nor did the carrion crows and buzzard having a scrap in the trees by the level crossing.

New Road 

The last train through to Manchester for a couple of hours was due at Silverdale. I decided to get it and leave the reserve for another day. It gives me an excuse to get another old man's explorer ticket.