Southport

Lapwings and wigeons, Crossens Inner Marsh

It was another grey morning after another night's rain. As I watched the spadgers, goldfinches and titmice plundering sunflower seeds I pondered the day's options. There's been a huge influx of Russian white-fronted geese into the country with big flocks turning up all over the shop. The big flocks in the Northwest have all been found North of the Ribble in places that are logistically tricky, but mostly not impossible, to get to by public transport. I could give that a go. Alternatively, there have been smaller groups seen on and off on Crossens Outer Marsh… that seemed a more sensible place to try first.

Not even half-past February and the daffodils are in flower

Once the Southport train managed to escape the congestion at Oxford Road it behaved impeccably, I had two minutes' wait for the 44 bus and it was still morning, just, when I started walking down Marshside Road. There was more molehill than grass on the school's rugby pitch and instead of the crowd scenes I'd been seeing earlier in the Winter there was one woodpigeon and a pink-footed goose looking decidedly under the weather.

Sutton's Marsh 

Both Rimmer's Marsh to the left of the road and Sutton's Marsh to the right were awash. Wigeons, teal and lapwings littered the marshes in their hundreds; starlings, mallards and shovelers by the score. A few small groups of Canada geese loafed on Sutton's Marsh, as did mute swans, shelducks and a heron. Pintails and tufted ducks cruised about on Rimmer's. Every so often the lapwings on Sutton's Marsh would erupt. Most of the time it was one of the great black-backs passing by or the immature kestrel. One time the lapwings were up and stayed up a while while a female merlin tried — and failed — to knock one of them out of the sky. 

Tufted ducks blowing in the wind

A female scaup had been reported earlier amongst the tufted ducks on Junction Pool. I wasn't seeing it but as the pool was one big lake between Marshside Road and Hesketh Road it could have been anywhere by now. (I learned later that it had gone over to the pool by the Hesketh Road platform.) What I did see, though, was lots of Springtime friskiness amongst the ducks and coots, and even amongst a pair of great black-backs.

Shoveler, pintail and tufted duck

I walked down to Nels Hide, pausing to have a scan round at the refurbished Halfway Viewpoint. For most of the length of the path the vegetation on the bank has been chopped down so I could see most of the marsh as I went along. Shovelers, pintails, mallards and tufted ducks cruised about apparently aimlessly.

The Halfway viewpoint 

The view from Nels Hide 

I didn't linger at Nels. Long enough to find a redshank and a snipe in the nearby flooded vegetation and a lone black-tailed godwit wading by one of the islands across the way.

Across the road the salt marsh was quiet. A few black-headed gulls, herring gulls and woodpigeons flew about. Way out a female-type marsh harrier was floating low over the edge of the marsh. 

Sandgrounders was very quiet of both people and birds. A ruff, one of the white-headed males, rummaged about in the grass amongst some lapwings. A charm of goldfinches twittered in the hawthorns behind the hide as I left.

Pintails and mallards

The salt marsh North of the sand plant was livelier. Mallards and pintails clustered in the pools with a couple of little egrets. The pink-feet were numerous but distant, betrayed by sentinel heads poking up from the long grass. About a hundred of them suddenly exploded out of the marsh and flew over towards Banks, panicked by a buzzard that had emerged from the marsh and was slowly wheeling up on the thermals. A later panic was occasioned by a female-type marsh harrier floating over the distant marsh.

Snowdrops

On the inner marsh there were plenty of teal and wigeons crowding the little islands and shallows. The mallards, shovelers and gadwalls seemed to be mostly paired up. Another eruption of lapwings — a passing great black-back — brought up a flock of starlings as well as a single golden plover. A few goldfinches twittered about and a couple of robins fossicked about in the brambles but there weren't many small birds about. I had nearly reached the boundary fence with Crossens Marsh before the first skylarks started singing.

Pink-footed geese 

Marshside Inner Marsh 

Crossens Inner Marsh 

Crossens Inner Marsh was jam-packed with wigeons, teals and lapwings. Mallards, shelducks and black-headed gulls played supporting roles. I spotted another ruff skittering across a small puddle and that led me to a flock of a dozen dunlins fussing about between the wigeons on a larger puddle.

Crossens Outer Marsh 
There are thousands of geese out there

On Crossens Outer Marsh the geese were numerous but mostly very distant. There were less than a dozen near the road and all very skittish.

Pink-footed geese

I had a sit down at McCarthy's viewpoint and did my best to scan the distant geese. There wasn't a cat in Hell's chance of my identifying any bean geese or white-fronts, I had to assume that the thousand or more small grey geese were pink-feet. The small black, white and grey geese were two barnacle geese and I felt very pleased with myself for managing to pick them out.

A passing aeroplane brought up a lot of the geese on Banks Marsh and a few dozen of them flew over this way. Most of them didn't settle long and were soon back over with the distant crowds. It wasn't just the daffodils and frisky waterfowl that were giving off end-of-March vibes, the geese definitely had itchy feet.

Pink-footed geese

Curlews

Rather despite myself I found myself walking down the bund back to Marshside. Pintails and shovelers joined the wigeons and teal on this side of Crossens Inner Marsh. A few curlews passed over, a couple roamed the marsh. Black-tailed godwits were in ones and twos, a very different picture to the crowds earlier in the Winter. A few pied wagtails skittered about, displaced by from the water treatment works by a maintenance crew.

Wigeons and teals

Wigeons and teals

Wigeons

As I approached the point where I drop off the bund and go past the school for the bus back to Southport I debated carrying on down past the golf club to Hesketh Road to see if I couldn't get the scaup into the day's tally. I got the bus back and was grateful to get a seat on the train with enough leg room to do the knee and ankle stretch exercises.