Leighton Moss

Goldcrest

It was another dull, cool morning. I'd had a really good sleep, getting four hours' uninterrupted in the wee small hours, and was keen to have a nice, long lie-in. I resisted the temptation, I end up spending the day like the wreck of the Hesperus when I fall for that trick. I decided to use one of my "go anywhere free" tickets and have a dawdle round Leighton Moss instead.

The trainbound birdwatching up to Silverdale was very quiet, the usual trackside peppering of corvids and woodpigeons was in spectacularly thin supply. Silverdale Station was also very quiet, just a great tit and a speckled wood butterfly. I wondered if the rest of the day would be as quiet. I needn't have worried.

Robin

The sun came out as I walked round from the station. I wandered over to the Hideout where a gang of mallards and dunnocks were hanging round the feeders waiting for the chaffinches to drop seeds their way. Some more were inside the hideout laying siege to a lady having her lunch. Great tits, blue tits and coal tits came to the feeders but didn't linger: flying in, snatching a seed and flying straight back into cover. I was surprised not to see any robins about; just as I was leaving a few turned up mob-handed (not a phrase typically to be used about robins) and took possession of the hideout from the mallards. There was no fuss, just an orderly change of the guard. The mallards moved over to the picnic area. Walking away from the visitor centre area the trees were busy with singing robins, each seeming to stake an area not much bigger than half a dozen trees.

The field next to the visitor centre was swarming with Southern hawkers, flying low over the grass and chasing each other and other less fortunate insects.

From Lilian's Hide 

The water at Lilian's Hide was very low, a couple of dozen each of gadwalls and coots clustering together in the remnant pool. Brown hawkers and common hawkers zipped around the reed margins. A juvenile heron stalked the mud on the far side of what had been the pool, a great white egret waded the shallows near the hide. A few black-headed gulls flew about over the reedbed catching insects in the air. Three tufted ducks dozed alone in a corner by the reeds.

Great white egret

As I passed the sky tower a marsh tit sneezed at me. Try as I might I got no better sight than some retreating tail feathers in a willow tree. The mixed tit flock a little further on was slightly more forthcoming eventually, the chiffchaffs and blue tits bouncing about on the ends of twigs and great tits rummaging about in the undergrowth. Oddly enough it was a treecreeper put me onto the flock. Equally oddly the long-tailed tits were heard but not seen. Another flock further along included a couple of very vocal nuthatches. A young red deer was lying down in the field by the trees at the corner. Somewhere in the trees a buzzard was being very noisy indeed.

Choices; Griesdale Hide to the left, Tim Jackson's to the right

Reed warblers muttered from the depths of the reedbeds and chiffchaffs squeaked in the trees. There wasn't a bird in the sky. A pause in the pheasant shoot on the estate beyond the reserve allowed me to pick up the different squeaky tone of a willow warbler in the willow scrub by the Tim Jackson Hide.

At Tim Jackson's Hide 

The water was low at Tim Jackson's but not as drastically so as at Lilian's. There was water enough for gadwalls, teal and mute swans to dabble in. A heron and a couple of little egrets loafed in the reeds to the side. The muddy water in front of the hide was busy with dragonflies. Brown hawkers zipped about inviting the unwary to break their hearts by trying to get a photo of them (I resisted the urge, I've played the game too often). The common hawkers were shier, keeping to the water margins and rarely approaching the hide. It took me a while to establish that the smaller dragonflies keeping out of their way were common darters.

Walking to the Griesdale Hide 

There was another mixed tit flock in the willows on the way to the Griesdale Hide, this one including half a dozen chiffchaffs and some very slightly more obliging long-tailed tits. The reeds around the grit trays had been cut ready for the bearded tits' change to a seed diet in the Autumn.

The grit trays

At the Griesdale Hide 

The pool at the Griesdale Hide was bone dry. A couple of red deer grazed by the poolside. I hung about hoping to see a marsh harrier and was rewarded by a bittern flying over the reeds on the far side.

Red deer

Walking back through the reedbeds

I bumped into the same tit flocks on the way back from the hides. At the sky tower a marsh tit sneezed in the overhead trees and I looked up to see a squirrel staring down at me. The tit sneezed again in the next tree, which was somehow reassuring. A goldcrest was a lot less elusive. Quite the reverse, in fact, and at one point I wondered if I had to switch on my camera's macro setting to get a focus on such a small object coming so close.

Goldcrest

Walking to the causeway

I checked the train times and headed over to the causeway. I'm getting quite lazy in my visits to Leighton Moss and it's mostly due to a fear of getting stranded for the best part of an hour at Lancaster Station. I didn't feel like having a five-hour visit today so I put off the visit to the new Lower Hide for another day.

Red admiral 

Walking round to the causeway I could see that there were two great white egrets fishing side-by-side on the pool over at Lilian's. A scrap of a buddleia bush at the start of the boardwalk was awash with red admirals. Common darters sunned themselves on the boardwalk.

Red admirals

Common darter

The causeway pool

Another great white egret stalked the causeway pool. A gang of mallards, pretty much flightless in moult, squabbled in front of the hide. Dozens of gadwalls and coots littered the pool and three shovelers cruised about the island. A dozen cormorants loafed on one end of the island, dwarfed by a great black-back. A few more shared the other end of the island with a mixed bunch of mallards and gadwalls and a mute swan. 

Cormorants, mallards, great black-back and garganey (front of the island on the right)

Idly scanning around I noticed a small duck. It isn't often I see teal from this hide so it caught my interest. Especially once it started swimming about and I got a better look at it and realised it was a garganey. I'd almost talked myself out of the identification, telling myself it was wishful thinking, when it had a stretch of its wing and flashed the black and white speculum pattern on its secondary flight feathers. 

Buzzard

I walked back and headed for the station. As I passed through the picnic area a marsh tit was throwing poses for a seated cameraman. Just as I got to the station the very noisy buzzard glided low overhead, calling all the while.

There were a few more corvids and woodpigeons along the way on my train journey home. Luckily the "jackdaw" I noticed on Carnforth Marsh was flying our way and approached the train close enough for me to be able to pretend I knew it was a hobby all the time. I paid a bit more attention to what I was looking at the rest of the way.