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| Bonaparte's gull, Myerscough Quarry A small gull, too far away for the camera kit I carry these days but I finally got some sort of a record shot of one. |
Myerscough Quarry appeared on my radar when an American wigeon dropped in on there earlier this year. The wigeon moved onto the Ribble and I forgot about the place. Then a Bonaparte's gull made an appearance and I checked out directions for it, it's been a long time since I last saw a Bonaparte's gull. It turned out it wasn't difficult to get to despite its being in that part of Lancashire the trains steam past without stopping anywhere, it's about a mile's walk from either the top end of Barton or the bottom end of Bilsborrow depending on where you want to get off the Preston to Lancaster bus. Then the gull moved on and Myerscough Quarry became another on the list. And then this weekend the gull reappeared. So off I went.
I got the train to Preston then walked over to the bus station to get the 41 to Barton. Both the 40 and 41 head that way to Lancaster so there's a bus every half hour. I reckoned I'd have a lunchtime walk then move on so I got a Lancaster Day Rider ticket.
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| Rookery, White Horse Lane |
When the bus reached Barton I got off at White Horse and walked down White Horse Lane to the Lancaster Canal. It was a glorious Spring day with cotton wool clouds in the sky and I felt distinctly overdressed after paying attention to the weather forecast. The roadside rookery was in full swing with lots of gruff noises from sitting parents-to-be, I didn't hear anything suggestive of any youngsters in there.
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| White Horse Lane |
Chiffchaffs, robins, wrens and chaffinches sang in the hedgerows, the blue tits and great tits were happy to stick with contact calls and the occasional scold when I passed by too close. The sun brought out the butterflies, equal numbers of peacocks and orange tips and a few green-veined whites, and there were heaps of hoverflies and bumblebees buzzing about.
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| Chiffchaff I'm not sure which of us was too fast for the other. |
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| Chaffinch I find clear blue skies a challenging backdrop. That's probably down to lack of experience on my part. |
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| Lancaster Canal |
The quarry is just to the side of the canal. Google Maps told me to walk along the towpath and cross a bridge a way down. Luckily, a birdwatcher coming back from the quarry saw me and told me I needed to follow the footpath through the field opposite the towpath. Which I did, and many thanks to him, it saved me having to double back on myself.
It was perhaps quarter of a mile's walk. The walking was easier most of the time following the trail of a big wheeled tractor though a couple of times it got a bit boggy. A reed bunting joined the songscape from the canalside.
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| Myerscough Quarry |
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| A pool by the quarry |
I knew I'd reached the quarry when I saw three men with telescopes standing by a fence. It turns out it's a small quarry which can be overseen from this spot, which is just as well as there didn't seem to be any alternative. I'd been hearing black-headed gulls and here they were, just a dozen or so of them. And some coots and mallards, tufted ducks and moorhens. And a Bonaparte's gull.
The thing about Bonaparte's gulls is they look very similar to black-headed gulls. The key difference is the size: if you see one near a black-headed gull it's appreciably smaller, especially if you're seeing them side-on. Head-on the size difference is a bit subtler. The bill colour is different, Bonaparte's has a black bill though some black-headed gulls can look to have a black bill from a distance (close up it's a dark garnet red). The size and black beak could suggest a little gull, especially if you don't see the bird in flight. Bonaparte's, like black-headed, has pointed wings with a white flash on the primary feathers; little gulls, besides being smaller yet, have slightly rounded wingtips, young birds have black leading edges to their wings, adults have black underwings. But when they're loafing on the water it isn't so obvious. And the white flashes hardly show at all in the only photo I got of it in flight. The kit I'm carrying these days wasn't equal to a small gull on the other side of a quarry pool in bright sunlight, after a dozen tries I gave up on trying to get a good record shot.
A couple of Canada geese wandered onto the pool. A pair of shelducks flew in and flew back out again. Then two pairs of shelducks flew in and flew out again. I stayed a while then made my way to the track by the canal. Or rather, made a muck of making my way there. I followed what looked like a path heading straight there, I should have gone over a dodgy stile a little to the side. You know how I was banging on about quicksand on my last visit to Elton Reservoir? Well this time I had to go back and rescue my boots. Twice.
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| Lancaster Canal |
I walked down the track to the bridge, casting envious glances at the towpath on the other side of the canal as I went. It wasn't actually bad walking, I was just feeling the aches and pains of getting myself out of the mud and wanted dead easy going. It's pathetic really, I'm at that age where you can put your back out looking at an advert for a tin of peas in a newspaper. When I got to the bridge I switched over to the towpath and an extremely nice walk it was.
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| Small tortoiseshell |
Titmice and chaffinches bounced about the hedgerows. Most of the butterflies along the towpath were small tortoiseshells. I struck lucky and found a couple of hares sunbathing in one of the fields.
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| Hares |
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| Approaching Bilsborrow |
I got into Bilsborrow as the Preston bus passed the bus stop. I had ten minutes to wait for the 41 to Lancaster so I decided to head North. Sometimes the 41 goes on to Morecambe, this wasn't one of those times but I'd been presented with the idea so in Lancaster I got the 100 and got off at Morecambe's West End for a walk back along the prom.
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| Morecambe Bay, looking towards the Kent Estuary |
The tide was well out and I could understand why people would be tempted to try and walk over to the other side of Morecambe Bay. Most of the birds were well out, too, gulls and cormorants were white and black dots and oystercatchers could be heard but not seen. I did spot a little egret stalking a distant rill, though.
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| Rock pipit |
Closer to hand there were plenty of herring gulls, pigeons and starlings. As I walked along the prom I was accompanied part of the way by a rock pipit.
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| Morecambe Bay, looking towards Cartmel |
As birdwatching goes the trip out to Morecambe was a bit of an anticlimax but it was a nice walk and the scenery was splendid.
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| Morecambe Bay, looking towards the Lake District |
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