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| Black-headed gulls |
It was the start of meteorological Summer, so of course it was grey and cool and pouring down. I won't complain about it, for all that most of May was grey and cool and windy it was very dry and the ground needs the water.
I got me an old man's explorer ticket with a view to sitting in the dry as the landscape passes by. The Barrow train was the next one out so I thought I'd start the excursion by heading into Cumbria then coming back down again. I still haven't gone further up the Cumbrian coast this year and didn't today, the connections at Barrow are such that the train out to Corkicle (the line beyond is still under repair) leaves before the train from Manchester arrives. The early morning train to Windermere connects with the Corkicle train at Lancaster but is too early for the old man's explorer ticket, I'll have to use one of my Delay Repay tickets and get a visit to Hodbarrow sorted.
The question was where to get off? If I got off at Arnside I'd have ten minutes to look at the estuary before getting the train back to Preston and beyond. If I got off at Ulverston or Dalton (depending on how the train was running) the next train back stops at Lancaster so I'd have to spend an hour at Leighton Moss. Up as far as Arnside was the plan at first but the rain eased enough for an hour at Leighton Moss to look to be the better option. And so it was.
The rain kept most birds under cover and even the gulls were grounded, black-headed gulls and lesser black-backs loafing on lampposts and rooves, lesser black-backs and herring gulls sitting on their own in fields away from carrion crows and jackdaws. There was a good count of woodpigeons, when they're fed up they have a tendency to sit on railway architecture watching the trains go by.
The coastal pools at Leighton Moss were quietly busy. Mute swans and shelducks cruised, black-headed gulls loafed and there was much else there wasn't time to clock as we passed by. A distant big white blob on stilts was a sleeping spoonbill, a smaller white blob moving a white stick in the air was a great white egret, the other white blobs were either or neither or mute swans.
It was high tide on Morecambe Bay. Carrion crows, shelducks and jackdaws mooched about the salt marshes and little egrets haunted the creeks. There were lots of eiders on the Leven, I'm baffled as to where they were earlier in the year. The train was on time so I got off at Dalton for the short wait for the train back to Silverdale, a red deer grazing by the line near Meathop being the only additional highlight on the way back.
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| Pochards, mallards and mute swans with cygnets |
Arriving at Leighton Moss I headed straight for Lilian's Hide and, much to my surprise, I had it to myself. The little gulls have still been around, on and off, I saw no sign of them today. Every so often I'd get a rush of giddiness as one of the black-headed gulls looked different, they always turned out to be one of the second-calendar-year birds showing brown feathers on their wing coverts. The black-headed gulls were very noisy and I couldn't really see much calls for it unless something had happened just before my arrival. A few small chicks sat on the rafts with their parents. Over on the other side a mute swan pulled along a train of cygnets as it cruised over to where its mate was dozing with some mallards and a female pochard.
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| Black-headed gull |
A couple of drake gadwalls drifted about, as did a great crested grebe and a few coots. A bittern boomed from somewhere deep in the reeds over by the causeway. Over the other way a great black-back was on its nest on the osprey platform supervised by a cormorant. I'm surprised they countenance having the cormorants anywhere close but they do.
Swifts swarmed low over the water and swirled over the reedbeds and I'm really going to have to cut out this unconscious tendency for alliteration, it makes for a lot of editing. A female marsh harrier rose suddenly and gently out of the reeds and just as suddenly and gently disappeared back into them.
I checked the time, it was time I was off. Blackbirds, blackcaps, chiffchaffs, wrens and a Cetti's warbler sang as I passed through to the visitor centre. House sparrows and swallows fidgeted about at the station. It started pouring down again just as the train was pulling into the station.
I took a meandering route back home, milking the value out of the explorer ticket. Rishworth Reservoir looked very quiet as the train passed by. Wayoh Reservoir always looks quiet, I keep meaning to give it a visit to check it out. The fields by Jumbles Country Park were full of woodpigeons and rabbits.
I'd had a good day out despite the weather. I'd felt I needed to break out of the Mersey Valley after not really going far last week.
