The Fylde

Little egret, River Wyre

It looked like being the week's token fine day so I got me an old man's explorer ticket and went for a wander. I've neglected the Fylde this year, I had planned a visit to Skippool Creek but that got iced in favour of hospital visiting, so I thought I'd have a nosy round there, then get a bus somewhere and get back home somehow.

I got off the train at Poulton-le-Fylde and walked up the road to Skippool. I'd just crossed the new dual carriageway when, on a whim, I thought I'd look over the fence to see if there were any wagtails on the creek here. There were no wagtails, just a kingfisher sitting pretty as you please on a branch over the mud. The kingfisher's reactions were quicker than mine and it shot off down the creek like an electric blue bullet.

Wyre Road 

I walked down Wyre Road, the verges busy with large whites and red admirals and the trees busy with great tits and robins. Mallards dabbled and dozed in the creek and a little egret picked its way below the moored boats.

Skippool Creek 

It was low tide and when I looked between the banks of the creek where it ran into the river I could see hundreds of gulls and waders loafing on the mud. A crowd of herring gulls with a few lesser black-backs littered a high bank on the far side of the river, a couple of common gulls hiding in plain sight and a great black-back standing to one side. Black-headed gulls fussed about. Sleeping lapwings were distant dumpy silhouettes, the golden plovers amongst them catching the light as I changed position. A couple of curlews waded through the rills and puddles though it was a whimbrel I spotted first. The only green sandpiper of the day flew across the mouth of the creek and disappeared under a bank.

Curlew

By Wyre Road 

I walked along the road, keeping an eye on the river as I went. This involved a lot of peeping across the marsh between boats and jetties at distant objects. Crowds of redshanks fussed and fed by mud banks, a bar-tailed godwit strode across the mud, a distant line of brown lumps became sleeping curlews. The house sparrows, great tits and robins in the hedgerow by the road were vocal and noisy and kept well under cover. Southern hawkers patrolled the marsh. Occasionally a gigantic dragonfly would fly by and turn out to be two mating hawkers flying and hunting as they copulated.

Redshanks

River Wyre

River Wyre

At the sailing club I got a clearer view of the river, though most of the birds were still distant. There were hundreds of redshanks and dozens of curlews. Every bend in the mud banks had a little egret or two, a crowd of redshanks and a few oystercatchers, every rise on the other side of the river its loafing gulls and cormorants. Rooks and carrion crows fossicked about, a shelduck dabbled in a pool.

Spot the wren

I joined the Stanah Tramper Trail and followed the river downstream. The sea asters were looking blousy and the thistle exhausted but the bees and butterflies were finding enough to get by with. Charms of goldfinches twittered in the hedgerows and swallows twittered in the rigging of the boats moored on the marsh.

Swallows

Sea lavender 

Ordinarily, when I get to the fork in the trail I carry on down into Stanah and get a bus from there. Today, on a whim, I took the path to the right and walked round into the Wyre Estuary Country Park.

River Wyre

Stanah Tramper Trail 

The marshy gap between the path and the river got wider and soon it was out of view. Rooks and jackdaws clamoured in the fields between the path and Stanah. Goldfinches, linnets and swallows twittered over the marsh, chiffchaffs and dunnocks squeaked in the hedgerow and robins sang from small pathside trees. Speckled woods and red admirals fluttered about the hedgerow, a painted lady joined the large whites on the sea asters. More Southern hawkers patrolled the marsh, daring me to try and get their photos. A raven called from the heights of an electricity pylon and was answered across the river.

Painted lady 

Damsons

I followed the path through a glade of damson trees and got to the car park. A voice in the back of my head said I could carry on along the riverside path to Fleetwood. My knees suggested the voice in the back of my head has a screw loose. I decided to head into Stanah for the bus. The 24 to Blackpool was scheduled to arrive ten minutes before the 24 to Fleetwood so I waited for that and they arrived together, both running late. I headed to Blackpool for a bit of seawatching by the North Pier.

Herring gull 

It had clouded over by the time we arrived in Blackpool and it was feeling decidedly cooler. I got me a seat on the steps by the North Shore and started looking round. The tide was coming in and the pigeons and herring gulls were tidying the beach of picnic detritus while they could. A pied wagtail flitted about the promenade. 

Lake District from Blackpool North Shore

Most of the gulls close to shore were herring gulls. Nearly all the lesser black-backs were juveniles and there were a lot more of them out to sea and all looking very dark against the water. Every so often, way out, a dark object would turn out to be a passing cormorant. I'd concluded that all the dark gull-shaped objects flying by in the distance were juvenile lesser black-backs when one about half a mile out caught my eye because it was a lot barrel-chested and the wings weren't quite right. I'd concluded that it was just another lesser black-back the victim of wishful thinking when the bird crossed a sheen of sunlight which caught pale patches on the bases of the flight feathers of an otherwise all-dark bird. A skua, barrel-chested and short-tailed, a great skua. "Bonxie!" I said to myself. 

Herring gulls and lesser black-back 

I looked in vain for shearwaters, though I suspect they were out there to be found by telescope. A couple of possible Arctic skuas would probably have been gulls through a telescope I told myself. Juvenile Sandwich terns chased after their parents. There was a crossing of ducks as three distant eiders flew left and an equally distant common scoter flew right.

Blackpool North Pier

I gave it an hour and decided to call it a day. I walked round to Blackpool North and got the next train home. I hadn't milked the full value out of the old man's explorer ticket but I'd had a full day's birdwatching and it had been very productive and I was ready for my tea.