Martin Mere

Mallards, pintails and whooper swans

Today had the makings of being a nice day so I headed off for Martin Mere while I had the chance.

The train ride to Burscough Bridge was pleasant and uneventful. The trackside woodpigeons were back in numbers, it wasn't often I saw just the one bird. Magpies, black-headed gulls and carrion crows were much in evidence; pigeons, blackbirds, robins, collared doves and blue tits could be seen on rooftops or stations; and there were a couple of moorhens on the pools close by Hindley Station. The Douglas had broken its banks, almost but not quite merging with the lake at Pemberton Park where only a few coots and black-headed gulls lingered. The course of the river could be traced by the mist beyond the canal beyond Gathurst. We left Parbold and passed through a mist bank, emerging just before Hoscar. I got off at Burscough Bridge for a walk on a cool, bright Winter's day.

Red Cat Lane in the mid-day sun

The jackdaws were being noisy about town but there wasn't much sign of the local rooks. Nor was there much sign of either in the fields outside town. A handful of each flew about but the arable fields were left empty. Common gulls and black-headed gulls mooched about in paddocks or bathed in puddles, starlings and house sparrows fussed about farmsteads. It was all surprisingly quiet.

Martin Mere 

Arriving at Martin Mere I went straight to the Discovery Hide, as much for a sit down as to get my eye in on the waterfowl. 

Mostly mallards

The mere was packed. There were more whooper swans and wigeons than on my last visit and a lot more greylags, pochards and tufted ducks. The flocks of lapwings and starlings looked bigger, too, but for the life of me I couldn't see what kept putting them up. The shelducks were paired up and the pairs put a lot of time into quarrelling with each other. A scan round the near bank found me a single black-tailed godwit, all the waders on the far bank looked to be lapwings.

Lapwings

Pochard

Tufted duck

Shelducks

A drake ring-necked duck has been showing well here the past few days. I soon found it, fast asleep at the edge of a raft of tufted ducks. It drifted about in dozy. A one point I thought a collision with a coot might wake it up but aside from shuffling its head and pushing its beak further into its back feathers it hardly noticed.

Ring-necked duck

Ring-necked duck

Cladonia
This lichen's on the stump next to the gate for the path to the Ron Barker Hide

The snowdrops were already showing by the Raines Observatory. I've been seeing signs of crocuses at home. It's been an oddly mild start to December, I hope we don't get caught napping with some Winter awfulness.

Pink-footed geese

Pink-footed geese fed on the potatoes at the Hale Hide while a little egret shrimped in the pool.

Little egret

Mere View Hide 

The view from Mere View Hide 

The views from the Mere View Hide were wonderful though lacking in bird life. There was some work done last week to enlarge and lower one of the windows so wheelchair users can see and it's made a big difference to the light in the hide, it feels less like standing in a pillbox. It wasn't so very long ago that the trees by the little pools here were busy with tree sparrows, I wonder why numbers have collapsed so badly.

Sunley's Marsh

Vinson's Marsh 

Teal

I had the top deck of the Ron Barker Hide to myself, which is very unusual. Vinson's Marsh, to my left, was very quiet. Sunley's, to my right, was busy with teal, they lined the banks of the pool and a couple of rafts of them dabbled and fussed on the water. The wigeons and a couple of mallards were lost in the crowd. Crows sat in the trees on the far side, venturing out every so often to irritate passing marsh harriers. At least six harriers, all of them female or immature birds, floated in and out of the reeds or sat on fenceposts at the edge of the marsh. A buzzard sat on a fencepost by a field, it took me a while to realise that the shape a few posts further along was a pheasant. A great white egret flew by but didn't stop, similarly waves of pink-feet and black-headed gulls. More closely to hand a dabchick was fishing in the drain in front of the hide.

Dabchick

Shaggy inkcap

Wandering back, I passed mixed tit flocks and checked the flocks of goldfinches in the treetops for any siskins or redpolls. I've not had a good year for bumping into redpolls and today was no exception, they were all goldfinches.

Black Bulgaria 

Walking back towards the visitor centre 

Whooper swans, mallards and wigeons

The waterfowl were gathering on the mere for the afternoon feed as I passed the screens by the path. By three o'clock the corner near the Discovery Hide would be chock-a-block with hungry beaks. In the meantime there was a lot of dozing and preening and squabbling about. The lapwings went up again and again I couldn't see the reason for it. I did manage to find a ruff in the mêlée.

Black-headed gulls, pintails, shelducks, wigeons and lapwings

Wigeons

Shelducks, black-headed gulls and pintails

Teal

A juvenile kestrel flew into the poplars by the Janet Kear Hide then flew down onto the grass on the other side of the fence to dig for worms for a few minutes before flying back into the trees.

Kestrel

Given the very damp conditions I didn't fancy the walk to New Lane so on a whim I took the short path round the reedbed walk which was mostly dry underfoot. Truth to tell, I saw a notice saying that there was a clump of bird's nest fungus a hundred yards down the path, I've never seen them before and I didn't today. But it was a very nice walk. 

Along the reedbed walk 

Reed buntings bounced about, appropriately enough, in the reeds. Cetti's warblers and wrens sang in the depths of the reeds as I passed. Teal and gadwalls and a pair of shelducks dozed and dabbled on pools. A chiffhaff squeaked as it flew between willows. Overhead a passage of lesser black-backs was just starting, they seemed to be all heading for the coast. A pair of ravens chased a carrion crow out of their patch of reedbed and in an obvious effort to replenish its self-esteem it flew over into the trees to join a gang of jackdaws barracking a buzzard.

The Harrier Hide 

Cattle egrets in the mist

The longhorn cattle were feeding in the fields close to the hides, accompanied by the now-inevitable cattle egrets. There were more gadwalls and teal with the shovelers at the Gordon Taylor Hide and a flock of pink-feet on the fields beyond. I was checking out the geese when I noticed a movement in the corner of my eye. As I lowered my binoculars a barn owl, glowing white in the low sun, flew down the drain and across the path in front of me then disappeared into the reedbeds.

I wandered back, feeling a bit giddy, and walked back to Burscough Bridge for the train home. I was so entranced by the sunset and mist-filled twilight I only caught the train by the skin of my teeth.

Red Cat Lane 

Near Crabtree Lane 

Looking towards Mere Sands Wood

By Red Cat Lane