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| Pink-footed geese, Crossens Outer Marsh |
After a night doing a fair impersonation of the bubbly snot monster the antihistamines kicked in and I decided to go on yesterday's planned visit to Southport. The plan was modified by weekend engineering works: there are no trains between Manchester and Bolton (again, it's a sign of Spring) so I got the Liverpool train and changed at Liverpool South Parkway, the more expensive but more reliable alternative getting there roughly the same time.
I didn't fancy the Southport sea front on a Spring high tide on a sunny Saturday so I headed straight for Marshside. It was gloriously sunny and mild, the woodpigeons, spadgers and robins were singing in the gardens, but the wind had an edge to it. The school playing field had pairs of greylags and Canada geese grazing amongst the shin-high molehills, I don't know which would be the bigger hazard for a game of football.
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| Lapwings, golden plovers and Nel's Hide |
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| Golden plovers |
It was a game of two halves along Marshside Road. On the left the flooded marsh had large groups of wigeons and teal pottering about the pools and hundreds of roosting golden plovers. There were similar numbers of lapwings but much more spaced out. Shovelers and tufted ducks fed and dozed in the deeper water, shelducks rummaged about the muddy islands, mute swans drifted down the drains. Way over opposite Nel's Hide a flock of herring gulls were loafing and bathing by the big pool. On the dry marsh on the right hand side small groups of wigeon grazed, a dozen curlews probed the ground and pairs of greylags, Canada geese and lapwings were dotted about in the grass.
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| Greylags |
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| Oystercatchers |
The pool by Sandgrounders was quiet, small groups of mallards and tufted ducks and a love triangle of noisy oystercatchers.
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| At Sandgrounders |
The pool at Sandgrounders was even quieter, a handful of wigeons and a pair of gadwalls pottering about. The first avocets of the year had been reported earlier in the week but there was no sign today.
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| Marshside Outer Marsh |
It was a very high Spring tide and the outer marsh was awash. Reed buntings and skylarks flitted about, a couple of skylarks sang. The pools were busy with black-headed gulls and for once there was no sign of egrets. A few parties of pink-footed geese grazed the long grass near the road, there were hundreds more out on the marsh.
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| Pink-footed geese |
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| Canada geese |
A stonechat sat on the fence between Marshside and Crossens Inner Marsh before diving into a gorse bush. The marsh was busy with teals, wigeons and Canada geese and a flock of fifty or so black-tailed godwits were busy feeding in the muddy pools. The flock of golden plovers was smaller here, perhaps a couple of hundred, and again the lapwings were dispersed over the marsh.
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| Crossens Outer Marsh |
I crossed the road, a tricky manoeuvre on a Saturday afternoon. There were thousands of pink-feet scattered about the outer marsh, and probably a couple of hundred Canada geese. I had a scan round but wasn't feeling optimistic of finding anything unusual, we're in that rather settled period so I wasn't surprised to be only seeing pink-feet and Canada geese among the crowds. The distant white objects were little egrets and shelducks, there were hundreds of wigeons and plenty of teals. That was the lot. And then two distant white objects got bigger as a couple of first-Winter spoonbills climbed out of a gully and started feeding in an open pool. A few minutes later they were back in the gulley, the tops of their backs moving to and fro as they fed.
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| Spoonbills and pink-footed geese |
It was only when I got to the wildfowlers' pull-in that I started seeing pied wagtails and meadow pipits and, eventually, a water pipit. This one was quite a streaky-backed individual but the contrast between the streaks and the background colour was nothing like that on the meadow pipits.
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| Wigeons and redshank |
I didn't fancy the traipse to the bus stop so walked along the bund into Marshside. It's twice the walk but doesn't feel like it. Robins, dunnocks, wrens and blackbirds rummaged around in the hedgerows of the water treatment works. The marsh was liberally scattered with teals, mallards and wigeons and a pair of pintails drifted along the water at the base of the fence. The golden plovers were in that spot of the marsh where whichever side you looked from they were in the distance, no mean feat as the inner marsh isn't all that big.
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| Avocets |
I found a couple of avocets. They were in the pool by the fence between Crossens Inner Marsh and Marshside.
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| Wigeons |
I got the bus back into Southport and weighed up the options. The train back to Liverpool would get in in time to have missed the straight train home so I'd be idling round at Warrington Central again. I got the train to Bolton, there'd be more options there. As the train passed through the mosslands between Southport and Burscough Bridge we passed small groups of whooper swans and mixed flocks of rooks and jackdaws in the fields. The rookeries at Burscough Bridge and Sutch Lane looked to be in full swing as we passed by.
Having the choice of options at Bolton worked my way: by the time I'd waited for the rail replacement bus and hung around in Manchester for a bus or train home I could be sat in a warm bus to the Trafford Centre for an hour and get home only ten minutes later than I would have done any other way. So I did.
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| Crossens Inner Marsh |
It had been a very long day and I didn't get as much done as planned for yesterday but I'd benefited from the walk and there was plenty about to see. All in all a pretty good start to the month.
