Leighton Moss

Bullfinches 

The weather had that constant uncertainty about it so I got me an old man's explorer ticket and headed up North for Leighton Moss. I stayed on the train past Silverdale so I could check out the Morecambe Bay estuaries, changed at Ulverston and went back to Silverdale, checking the estuaries on the way back on an exceedingly busy train that only had two carriages (they usually run four or six on this route).

It was high tide as we passed Lancaster and Hest Bank. Great white egrets dotted Carnforth Marsh as we passed by. Flocks of avocets had already settled on the pools by the Eric Morecambe and Allen hides. Crossing Arnside Viaduct there were no waders to be seen, the water was too high. It wasn't so high as to be lapping over the marsh on the other side so I couldn't account for a lack of the usual shelducks, their places taken by a handful of little egrets. There were lots more little egrets on the salt marshes of Grange and Kent's Bank. A hundred or so redshanks huddled at roost on one of the mudbanks we passed over the Leven, three eiders bobbed about in the water.

The herring gulls have taken possession of Ulverston Station, ready for the breeding season. The trees beyond were stiff with jackdaws but the rooks were notably absent.

On the way back I added a couple of shelducks on the bank of the Leven to the day's tally and the lake on the other side was busy with coots, mallards and mute swans.

The robins and greenfinches were in full song as I walked from the station into Leighton Moss. The hideout was busy with chaffinches and bullfinches almost to the exclusion of anything else, even the great tits were struggling to get a look in. Blue tits, long-tailed tits and goldcrests bounced about in the alder trees beyond. A chiffchaff sang from somewhere in the bushes and a great spotted woodpecker drummed on one of the trees by the path.

At Lilian's Hide 

Lilian's Hide was busy with people and the pool was busy with birds.

Teal

The usual crowd of black-headed gulls, mallards, teals and shovelers on the bank were joined by a dozen wigeon. The gadwalls tended to shadow the coots on the water, the tufted ducks stayed in a raft over on the other side with a raft of wigeons, dabchicks bobbed around in pairs. They all kept away from the great black-back cruising midwater. It took me a while to find the female ring-necked duck that's been here a while, she was spending most of her time underwater over in the gap between the tufties and the wigeons. I need to be careful not to get too blasé about ring-necked ducks even though they seem to be becoming a Winter fixture.

Black-headed gulls, shovelers, wigeons and gadwalls 

Black-headed gull 

Over on the far side a few greylags and mute swans drifted in and out of the reeds. Despite the noise in the hide I could hear a bittern booming from somewhere near the causeway.

Walking through to the reedbed hides I could hear the bittern much clearer. And also the robins, wrens, dunnocks and Cetti's warblers in the reeds and willows.

Red deer

Three red deer were grazing in the field between the reserve and the railway line. They were understandably skittish, there were plenty of us walking up and down that path, but they seemed to have worked out that we'd have struggled to quickly get through the willow trees, drain and wire fence and into the field even if we weren't most of us of a certain age.

Walking through the reedbeds

Walking further along I was distracted every so often by furtive noises in the reedbeds. Usually they'd be blue tits, coots or mallards, a couple of times they were invisible water rails that could be traced by the shuffling of reed stems but only identified when they squealed.

At Tim Jackson's Hide 

The pool at Tim Jackson's Hide was very busy with teal, shovelers and gadwalls. For once there weren't many coots and just one pair of pintails.

Teal

Snipe

I'd accidentally flushed a snipe feeding by the path by the hide on the way in. There were a few more of them on the pool, all nestled against the bund across the middle. I was thinking that the hybrid cinnamon teal x shoveler drake had moved on one way or another when he drifted across in front of the hide. The timings of his moults are different to the shovelers: they've been in pristine breeding plumage for a couple of months now but he was still moulting head feathers, the result looking like a mixture of first-Winter and eclipse shoveler. Once his moult's finished he looks very similar to an Australian shoveler, hybrid ducks have a habit of looking like third, related, species.

Cinnamon teal x shoveler hybrid duck

Walking down to the Griesdale Hide I realised there were two booming bitterns, one a little further away answering the first one almost immediately. 

Pintail 

The pool at the Griesdale Hide was quieter, a dozen or so wigeons and a couple of dozen teal. A few pintails drifted about apparently aimlessly. Greylag geese passed to and fro, a great white egret did a quick and close fly past. I'd had no luck spotting any marsh harriers and continued to have no luck. On my last visit the usual pair of great black-backs had occupied the platform nest, they were conspicuous by their absence today.

At Griesdale Hide 

Walking back I saw the only raptor of the visit, a buzzard soaring high over the woods. The robins had obviously decided that all these passersby must have some food about them and were stationed by the path at fifty yard intervals and very tetchy if no donations were forthcoming. As is becoming a habit almost the last bird I saw as I left the reserve was a marsh tit by The Hideout.

The train home, which was late and would get later, passed a flock of a few dozen greylags by the level crossing. The pools inland of the coastal hides were littered with coots, mallards and mute swans and we passed a flock of eighty-odd pink-footed geese on Carnforth Marsh. I was ready for a cup of tea when I got home.