Southport

Wigeons, Marshside 

It was another bright and lovely — and perishingly cold — morning. I headed for Southport with a view to getting the smew onto the year list and, hopefully, some of the scarcer geese. And just to celebrate the New Year the trains were on time.

Southport Marine Lake 

The smew had been showing well on Southport Marine Lake so I took a walk over there first. The wind was strong and bitterly cold and most of the waterbirds, even the great crested grebes and most of the dabchicks, were clustered about the leeward sides of the islands. Dozens of Canada geese, mute swans and cormorants jostled side-by-side with scores of greylags. A few mallards chugged across the lake, most of them lurked in the shadows of the banks. Here and there I spotted a tufted duck or two. I was seeing no sign of the smew. I checked the updates on my 'phone: the smew had been reported as being not found. Of course, not being able to find something isn't necessarily the same as its not being there so I kept looking.

Herring gulls 

Crowds of herring gulls floated in rafts on the lake or loafed on the pontoons. Black-headed gulls screeched from lampposts and the railings along the promenade. I kept looking for the smew and kept finding dabchicks. Three goldeneyes bobbed about midwater, a couple more flew in and joined them. Between the wind and the stiffness of my cold fingers camera shake became a feature of my photography. I wondered what I thought I was doing but I carried on doing it anyway. A white shape amongst the greylags on one of the islands gave me pause for thought. Was this the snow goose that's been floating round Southport the past few weeks in the company of greylags? No, it was a white domestic goose. The snow goose was six trees further along on the bank, deep in a crowd of greylags.

Dabchick

I gave up on the smew and walked over to Southport Links for the 40 into Marshside. It was nice to get out of the wind for a while. I got off the bus at the end of Fleetwood Road and walked up Marshside Road. This week the school field was covered in pink-footed geese and lapwings with ruffs and starlings skittering about between them and the molehills.

Kestrel, probably the same bird I met here last week

Rimmer's Marsh was still very wet but there was enough emergent grass for a hundred or so pink-feet to find grazing. There didn't seem to be as many lapwings and black-tailed godwits about and there were a lot more loafing herring gulls. I renewed my acquaintance with the immature kestrel which dropped down from its fencepost a couple of times to dig for worms in the mud before flying off to hover over Sutton's Marsh and put the wind up the teal and lapwings. A pair of stonechats in the roadside brambles seemed recklessly unconcerned by having a kestrel perched nearby.

Stonechat

Sutton's Marsh was awash with wigeons. There were also plenty of teal and lapwings but not many godwits.

Wigeons 

The smew had been reported at Nels Hide. I headed that way, stopping at Junction Pool as much for a couple of minutes' break from the wind as a look round. A small party of tufted ducks bobbed about near this corner, most of the gadwalls and shovelers were over by Nels Hide.

Junction Pool 

Pink-feet grazed on the salt marsh on the other side of Marine Drive. They were fairly close to the road and the people walking by so there were plenty of heads held above the long grass as birds played sentry. Every so often a cloud of skylarks and meadow pipits would explode from the marsh. The merlin causing the commotion was quite far out but quite easy to spot as it swooped beneath the flock, rose vertically then banked and stooped, the intention obviously being that what couldn't be knocked out of the sky on the way up might be caught on the way down. It didn't seem to be having a lot of luck.

Pintails and shovelers 

Junction Pool still extended to Nels Hide and beyond. A horde of herring gulls loafed on a grassy rise halfway out to the golf course. Closer to hand the pool was littered with ducks. Some of the rafts of busily dabbling ducks were pintails and shovelers, some were gadwalls and shovelers and some were just shovelers. 

Gadwalls, shovelers and coot

Teal and smew (front)

I looked through the viewing screen next to the hide and there was the smew in front of a pair of teal. I watched it having a wash and brush up before it decided to cruise about to and fro in front of the hide for its audience. It's been identified as a first-Winter drake. Watching it bathe and preen I could see why: there were hints of white plumage coming through the grey and the patterning of the adult drake plumage seemed to be foreshadowed in the shades of grey. Even so, had I found the bird myself I wouldn't be confident of identifying it as anything other than "a redhead smew."

Teal and smew

Teal and snew

Teal and smew

Smew

As I walked back to Marshside Road a steady stream of birdwatchers headed to the hide. I'd timed my visit just right, entirely by accident. I hope they all got cracking views of a very nice bird then enjoyed all the other ducks on the pool.

Teal, coot and wigeon

I had a sit down at Sandgrounders as a break from the wind. There were more wigeons and teal about than last week. The small birds scuttling about between the wigeons turned out to be a flock of goldfinches.

Reeds

Marshside Outer Marsh 

I decided I was feeling too cold and stiff for the walk round to Crossens Marsh and that if I jacked it in now I'd have the excuse for a return visit in the next week or so, so I walked round to Crossens Marsh. I don't know why I bother having these conversations with myself, I never listen.

Pink-footed geese 

The pink-feet on the salt marsh were plentiful and noisy, especially when great black-backs or harriers were flying low overhead. A ringtail hen harrier skimmed the tops of the grasses far out on the marsh. For all that they fly like they are as light as a feather hen harriers seem to fly with a greater sense of purpose than do marsh harriers. A female-type marsh harrier drifting over towards Crossens Marsh illustrated the difference.

Pink-footed geese 
This is the default view of them on the marsh 

Small flocks of starlings flitted between inner and outer marshes. Mallards and little egrets fussed about in small pools, all the more whenever the great black-backs or harriers passed by. Clouds of skylarks indicated another merlin and I found this one just as easily. It was using the same hunting strategies though I think by the sudden stoop and disappearance of the bird that this time was successful.

Crossens Inner Marsh 

Crossens Inner Marsh was awash and busy with wigeons and teal. A few hundred golden plovers glowed fiercely in the sunlight and became a thick line of white blobs on the camera. The usual crowd of black-headed gulls was over by the water treatment works, closer to hand mallards, shovelers and lapwings were busy feeding on the marsh.

Pink-footed geese 

I crossed over and scanned the outer marsh from McCarthy's. There were pink-feet all over the marsh and hundreds of Canada geese in the distance. Again, some of the first-Winter pink-feet looked small and very dark, again some of the ganders on sentry go looked tall and slim, and inevitably the strong light and shadows played tricks on shades of brown and grey. I got a bit giddy at the sight of a goose with bright orange legs until I realised that in every other respect it was a pink-footed goose. There's a small proportion of pink-feet that have orange legs and every Winter I seem to bump into one on the Ribble Estuary.

Golden plovers and lapwings

The golden plovers on the outer marsh glowed just as bright as the flock on the inner marsh but without the additional glare from a lot of low-lit water.

Pink-footed geese 

Pink-footed geese 

There were a few shelducks and little egrets, and a lot of wigeon, on the marsh with the pink-feet. A kerfuffle in the distance was caused by another marsh harrier. A wave of incoming pink-feet was caused by a pilot indulging in a bit of aeronautics above the estuary. I wandered down towards the wildfowlers' pull-in, checking out the geese as I went along and finding a couple of tundra bean geese hiding in plain sight in a crowd of pink-feet. I'd no sooner spotted them than there was a huge commotion and hordes of Canada geese flew in from the salt marsh. I quickly spotted the wildfowler and his dog striding through the distant, now empty, marsh but was beggared if I could find the bean geese again.

Pink-footed geese and shelduck

The size range of the Canada geese was ridiculous. Ordinarily a big gander will dwarf a small goose but it looked like there was something else going on out there. Some of the ganders were huge and some of the geese were tiny, even compared to the "average" Canada geese. I couldn't make any of the small geese into cackling geese, they were the wrong shape for them (in my very limited experience anyway) but a knowledgeable someone with a telescope could have spent some time scratching their heads as to whether or not there were some vagrant Canada geese out there. There were also a couple of geese that looked bigger and browner than the pink-feet which might have been white-fronted geese of one type or another. At that range I wasn't able to reliably identify them.

Canada geese 

Banks and beyond

Pink-footed geese, wigeons and teal crowded the banks of the River Crossens. I debated going on into Banks but the sun was setting on a very fine afternoon and it would be a shame to push my luck. I got the 44 back to Southport and watched the dying embers of twilight from my train home.

Crossens Inner Marsh