Martin Mere

Pink-footed geese
It's that time of year again.

It was a nice day so I got the train to Burscough Bridge and walked over to Martin Mere. And the trains behaved themselves all day.

By Red Cat Lane 

Walking down Red Cat Lane the woodpigeons, rooks and jackdaws were around but didn't really look to be settling on the fields though there seemed to be more going on over by Crabtree Lane. A carrion crow had been harassing a buzzard soaring over the station, half a dozen jackdaws were doing similar to another buzzard that was drifting over to Rufford.

Pink-footed geese

.The first of the day's many pink-footed geese flew over as I left town and a couple of hundred of them clamoured a couple of fields to the North. 

Pennines from Red Cat Lane 

It was a cool, almost cloudless, morning that definitely felt like Autumn, even without the background calls of rooks and geese and robins singing in hedgerows. The lack of any swallows or house martins was to be expected. So it was a nice surprise to see a couple of yellow wagtails — an adult and a juvenile — flying around the farm buildings on the corner of Curlew Lane.

Martin Mere 

Arriving at Martin Mere I sat myself down at the Discovery Hide. The mere was busy: crowds of mallards, greylags and lapwings clustered on every island. There weren't many black-headed gulls but what they lacked in numbers they made up in noise. All the small figures hustling about between ducks and geese were starlings. There were plenty of teal around once I got my eye in but I had no luck finding any shovelers or shelducks. There was a crowd of Canada geese over on the far bank and a few pochards were cruising about, the drakes almost out of eclipse plumage.

Way over, on the Plover Field, there were at least hundreds of pink-feet with more flying in. A female marsh harrier drifted over the fields beyond. One buzzard sat on a fencepost, another circled high overhead.

Lapwings 

A glossy ibis has been on this field a few days, showing well but distant. I reckoned if I was going to look for it I'd need to be over in the United Utilities Hide where you get a grandstand view of the field. 

I headed for the United Utilities Hide. First stop was a look over the mere from the screens, plenty more lapwings and mallards and a snipe preening on one of the islands.

Speckled woods, large whites and red admirals fluttered about in the sunshine, it was becoming a warm day. That might have been what prompted one of the chiffchaffs to start singing. Toddling down the path I was met by a stoat which looked at me, decided it wasn't keen and shot off into the undergrowth.

Chaffinch 

A quick nosy at the Janet Kear Hide gave me some nice views of chaffinches as they preened in the bushes. The feeders were fitfully busy with blue tits and great tits, neither of them seeming keen to break cover for long.

The view from the United Utilities Hide was odd. To the right, the field by the mere was deserted, not even a carrion crow or woodpigeon. To the left, on the Plover Field there was upwards of a thousand geese, most of them pink-feet. The Canada geese and greylags loafed over on the far side of the field. I scanned the field to see what else was about, mindful that other geese get carried along with the flocks of pink-feet and I'll need to get into practice for the end of year wild goose chases. The white object was a farmyard greylag.

The black objects a couple of fields away were carrion crows but there was something odd about the one sitting on a fencepost behind them. It would have been about the right size for a crow but was very upright. Then it stretched its neck out and could only have been the ibis. Even then it could have been an hallucination had it not decided to fly down into the field. The long, dropping neck and limply-hanging legs were definitely the ibis.

The reedbed walk 

A wander round the reedbeds was a mixed bag. Dragonflies — Southern hawkers, migrant hawkers and common darters — were everywhere. Geese flew over noisily in overlapping circular waves like the cutaways in a Busby Berkeley musical. The pool at the Rees Hide was bone dry and overgrown, no chance of any waders. And no birds on the ground at all, not even any finches or buntings on the ripening seedheads. Three or four fields away a flock of at least twenty cattle egrets accompanied the herd of grazing longhorn cattle.

At the Gordon Taylor Hide 

There was water on the pool at the Gordon Taylor Hide but no exposed mud. A group of teal lurked in a corner of the pool away from a heron intent on catching dragonflies with about a one in three times success rate, the loud clatter of its closing beak marking the times when it missed. A group of mallard did that thing where they cluster together and keep a close eye on the heron with a clear patch of water between them. (This is also quite a good way of finding where to look if you can hear a bittern close by in a reedbed.) A Cetti's warbler sang in the brambles by the heron and I couldn't find a single clue as to where it was, not so much as a bouncing twig even though it was shifting locations within the bramble patch.

Walking back the only swallow of the day shot across one of the fields. There were more Canada geese, lapwings and teal on the pool by the Harrier Hide and just the one dabchick bobbing up and down as it fed mid-water.

The Harrier Hide 

I decided to get the train back from New Lane. The path by the reserve fence was reassuringly muddy in patches, I'll be happy if it stays that way and doesn't become a Winter quagmire. Gatekeepers and speckled woods chased through the woodland edges and a swarm of common darters sunned themselves on the tops of the high fenceposts.

The walk down Marsh Moss Road would have been quiet but for distant pink-feet. Woodpigeons and magpies clattered about in the trees. Collared doves, robins and a goldfinch sang in the gardens by the station.

Marsh Moss Road 

The journey back was quiet and uneventful and the trains did what they were supposed to do. The black-headed gulls that weren't at Martin Mere carpeted the flooded fields of West Lancashire.