Merseyside mini-bundle

Temminck's stint, Marshside

I had decided I was going to go to Marshside to see if I could add the Temminck's stints there to the year list, then I watched the sheet of water descending from the sky and decided to wait for the lunchtime train. Which worked: by the time I got to Southport it was dry and sunny, with most of the cloud cover inland. It was also ferociously windy.

Canada geese and goslings

The marshes looked a lot quieter than on my last visit. Woodpigeons grazed and Canada goose families pottered about. The starlings and house sparrows were mostly staying in the shelter of the houses and gardens. The few lapwings that were about hunkered down out of the wind and skylarks sang from the ground. A sedge warbler sang from the depths of the vegetation in the drain by the path. Watching a little egret flying sideways across the road I could understand why most of the birds were grounded. 

Swifts and house martins hawked at head height, flying into the wind and almost stalling in the process. Every so often they'd relax and let the wind blow them back up the road before banking and tacking their way back. I thought this was my opportunity to get close photos of the birds, for once they weren't just zipping past all the while. I got a lot of photos of sky and wing tips. The birds weren't the only ones being pushed about by the wind.

I managed to get just the one swift in the frame of a photo

Mute swans, mallards and gadwalls cruised about the junction pool. An avocet and a couple of lapwings fed in the margins and a dozen or so black-tailed godwits loafed at one side. There weren't any ruffs about and the few redshanks that were around took some finding.

Mute swans

There were a few people already in Nels Hide. I took my seat and had a scan round the marsh. A few mallards, shovelers, gadwalls and greylags cruised about the pools. I found a couple of dunlins in breeding plumage with their black bellies and a couple of ringed plovers skittered about the mud. At last someone said: "The stints are back!" and I looked over to the right hand side to find them and had no luck seeing them. I was looking too far away, a couple of the birders showed me where the stints were: on the near bank at the corner of the hide.

Temminck's stint

This was easily the closest unimpeded view I've ever had of Temminck's stints. Usually I go away with the impression of a pint-sized common sandpiper with plain upperparts. This closer view showed that the upperparts aren't so plain after all.

Temminck's stint

Temminck's stint

Herring gulls, lesser black-backs and coots

Half a dozen large gulls had a wash and brush up in one of the pools away from the hide. The other birds kept a wide berth, a ringed plover flying over and settling on the mud in front of the hide for a while before flying over to join the dunlins and ringed plovers on the other side of the pool.

Ringed plover

Ringed plover

A mallard passed by with her ducklings very close to hand. When I see mallards with huge clutches of baby ducklings I can't help wondering why the world isn't knee-deep in them. Then I watch the ducklings go about their business and wonder why they're not an endangered species. This family looked like they had a chance against marauding gulls.

Mallard and ducklings

The stints moved away from the hide and eventually out of sight. Soon I was the only person left in the hide. A sedge warbler hopped up and down the wire fence as if working itself up into song, each time changing its mind and going back to feed on the bank. The Temminck's stints reappeared further along the bank, any other time I would have been thrilled to see them so close.

Sedge warbler

A light breeze

I made my way back to Marshside Road and headed for the bus back into Southport. I decided I'd move on to another site rather than fight my way along Marine Drive to Crossens. In the end I decided to go and have a look at Crosby Marine Park, which I've neglected this Spring.

The wind hadn't eased any when I arrived in Waterloo and the clouds were looking ominous. I headed straight for the shelter of the little nature reserve to catch my breath and have a look over the lake in relative shelter. Black-headed gulls and common terns bobbed about in the wind low over the water's surface. There wasn't anything except black-headed gulls on the water as far as I could see.

Crosby Marine Lake 

I headed to the wire fence by Seaforth Nature Reserve to see what was about. I had already decided I wasn't for being windblown and sandblasted on the beach. Canada geese and rabbits grazed and shelducks dozed on the grass. Cormorants, oystercatchers, herring gulls, lesser black-backs and a couple of great black-backs loafed by the pools. The rafts over near the hides were busy — and noisy — with black-headed gulls and common terns. Keeping the binoculars steady in the wind was very hard work and I had to concede that trying to find any arctic terns or even, perhaps, a roseate tern in the churning masses was a mug's game in these conditions. 

I dropped back down to the lake and walked back, passing a family of carrion crows too intent on their beachcombing to be bothered by me. I headed for the station and thence home. For once after going out birdwatching the legs weren't tired but the rest of me felt like it had had a rough going over.

Tree lupins, Crosby Marine Park