Southport

Immature kestrel, Crossens Outer Marsh

I was up until half six listening to the most ridiculous, though entertaining, Test Match there's been in ages. Armed with a couple of hours' sleep I headed to Southport for a wild goose chase. The Manchester train was cancelled so I got the Liverpool train then the one up the Sefton coast to Southport. It's a long journey but twenty minutes quicker than waiting for the next train to Manchester then having forty minute connections (assuming no delays or cancellations). I struck dead lucky with the 44 bus and was walking down Marshside Road by lunchtime.

It was mild for February, let alone December. The sun was low and bright and the landscape was full of shades of blue and gold that ought not to be let out in the wild. In the midday sun I felt overdressed but soon changed my mind whenever I walked into shadows and that wind had an edge to it. The school playing field was more molehills and puddles than grass. Eighty-odd lapwings, a couple of dozen woodpigeons and a handful of ruffs rummaged about in the wet grass.

Kestrel
The same bird as at the top of the page. We'll be meeting it again.

Marshside was very wet and covered in waders and wildfowl. An immature kestrel sat on a road sign by the path and would have stayed put as I passed but I glanced up and we made eye contact. It glided onto the fence by the marsh, all of ten feet away, and waited for me to move along a bit before returning to its perch. We bumped into each other a few more times in the afternoon, it was one of three kestrels hunting the marshes.

Rimmer's Marsh 

Over the road Rimmer's Marsh (yes, I had to look it up again) was awash. Wigeons drifted about on the shallow water or loafed in groups on grassy islands. Starlings skittered and splashed about between the lapwings, sometimes bustling too close by a lapwing and getting an irritated peck as a reward. 

Junction Pool 

Nearing Junction Pool small groups of pintails and shovelers dabbled and loafed and a raft of a dozen tufted ducks dived and dozed by the viewing screen. Alliteration is evidently a by-product of lack of sleep.

Wigeons 

Sutton's Marsh 

Sutton's Marsh on my side of the road was probably just as wet but was showing a lot more grass. Wigeons and Canada geese grazed while black-tailed godwits probed the ground. I could only find the one curlew today, and that was distant. Shelducks, mallards, greylags and teal cruised about and there were crowds of gadwalls in the land drains. A green-winged teal had been on the marsh during the week, if it was staying around I wasn't finding it.

Wigeons and black-tailed godwits 

Wigeons

Every so often I'll bump into a drake wigeon with a green flash on the side of its head like the one on the right. When they're coming out of eclipse I have to look twice in case I've overlooked an American wigeon. I don't know if this is a recessive gene or a reflection of some past hybridisation — any hybrids in the family history wouldn't necessarily be recent and might involve some other duck species entirely, in ducks it's quite common for hybrids between A and B to look like C or D. Duck genetics must be an untidy business, they're not particularly fussy and over the millions of years of anatine evolution there'd be countless opportunities for gene flow between species and even genera.

Black-tailed godwits 

Black-tailed godwits 

Gadwalls

A heron spooked the godwits as it flew across the road, they were already jittery after a great black-back (a more likely danger) flew low over. They soon settled back down to their feeding. Short-lived eruptions of lapwings and starlings marked the passage of great black-backs or, a couple of times, the kestrel. Little egrets glowed white in the low sun, a flock of woodpigeons flew inland from the sand plant, a few herring gulls and black-headed gulls flew about or perched on lampposts, and three snipe flew across the road and disappeared into the crowd. It was a bit busy.

Gadwalls, shovelers and teal, black-tailed godwits in the background 

I didn't linger long in Sandgrounders, when the marsh is this wet the birds spread about a lot more and don't congregate at the pools by the hide.

Pink-footed geese 

As I walked by Marine Drive waves of pink-footed geese flew into the salt marsh from inland. Judging by the number of heads playing sentry in the long grass there were hundreds, if not thousands, already out there. Every so often clouds of skylarks and meadow pipits erupted from the marsh, I didn't see the male merlin until it perched on a fence post for a rest. The pink-feet by the fence post took no notice of the merlin but they were all heads-up when a ringtail hen harrier floated by. A male marsh harrier was greeted by a lot of angry honking.

Marsh harrier 

Kestrel

I'd been playing leapfrog with the kestrel I'd bumped into on Marshside Road. I suspect it was keeping an eye on me to see if I might disturb its next meal. As I reached the boundary fence between Marshside and Crossens Marsh it flew a little ahead of me and hovered for a few minutes before trying its luck across the road.

Kestrel

Crossens Inner Marsh 

Crossens Inner Marsh was crowded with wigeons, lapwings and Canada geese. The hundred or so golden plovers were infinitely easier to spot when they were spooked by a couple of low-flying herons, once they settled back down again they were shapes in the crowds.

McCarthy's 

I crossed over and had a sit down at McCarthy's viewpoint to look over Crossens Outer Marsh.

Pink-footed geese 

There were small parties of pink-feet and shelducks relatively close in. Further out there were more pink-feet and Canada geese and considerably more in the distance towards Banks Marsh. A snow goose has been reported on and off recently, the only white objects I was finding were shelducks and little egrets. White-fronted geese — both Greenland and Russian — have also been reported and there was always the chance of a barnacle goose or a tundra bean goose, or perhaps the regular Todd's Canada goose might be around. Realistically it was a job for a telescope rather than binoculars but don't look, don't see.

Pink-footed geese 

A couple of big brown geese turned out to be pairs of pink-feet standing closely side by side, one grazing and one on look-out. Some big, pale individuals turned out to be perfectly normal pink-footed ganders in a group of small, dark first-Winter female pink-feet. Small parties of pink-feet flew in and flew out, or rose up in a panic as a female marsh harrier drifted by, I checked them out for anything different but they were all pink-feet. When I finally saw a white-fronted goose I dismissed it out of hand until I asked myself was I sure and went back for a third look. No, it wasn't bigger and taller because it was standing on a mound and the difference in colour wasn't down to the angle it was catching the sun. (I was helped considerably here by the sun parking itself behind a big cloud for a while). At that distance in this light the bill colour wasn't reliably identifiable but its shape and the darker, rather inky, brown tones to the wings and underparts made me think it was a Greenland white-front.

Crossens Inner Marsh 

Looking over the river to Banks

Wigeons and teals crowded the bend of the River Crossens as I passed by. I was tempted to walk down into Banks and walk up to the marsh but realistically I wouldn't have had the legs for it, I was starting to notice the cold in my knees. I'd had an excellent afternoon's birdwatching and there was no call for spoiling it. I walked down and caught the 47 back into Southport. I checked the times and concluded it wouldn't be sensible to stay on past Ainsdale for a twilight walk down Plex Moss Road in the hope of finding a couple of tundra bean geese amongst the pink-feet, if they were still there and hadn't gone to roost. Instead, tired and a bit greedy, I had my head pressed against the train window up to Burscough Bridge, looking for owls in the gloom.