Martin Mere

Black-headed gulls

Sure as eggs, one of the young blue tits has tagged onto the troupe of sparrows. That should see it through the Winter. I noticed it as I was getting ready to go out. I hadn't got round to visiting Martin Mere yet this month, after planning to do so last week, so I made sure to take precautions for the hayfever, slapped on the factor thingy and headed out that way.

By Red Cat Lane 

It was a cloudy and unpromising sort of day, ideal for walking at this time of year. Crowds of jackdaws and woodpigeons rummaged about in the fields beside Red Cat Lane. Skylarks sang in the distance, blackbirds and wrens sang in the hedgerows, house sparrows and goldfinches fussed about the gardens and farmsteads. I don't know what it was that made me look twice at a sparrow on a telegraph wire but I'm glad I did, it feels like lifetimes since I last saw a tree sparrow down this way. Five minutes later I was being given the raspberry by a corn bunting and escorted out of its patch. I had honestly given up on both of them here. I'm glad to be wrong.

Corn poppies

Curlew Lane

I had a quick nosy up Curlew Lane. Swallows and house martins hawked over the fields and a few dozen black-headed gulls and lesser black-backs were following the ploughed a few fields down. It wasn't my day for yellow wagtails.

The field across the road from Martin Mere was carpeted with black-headed gulls, adults and their tea-stained youngsters alike. There were plenty more to come as I walked in.

Black-headed gulls and shelduck

As usual, I headed straight for the Discovery Hide. A chap already in there said: "There's a sandpiper right in front of you if you're interested." It took me a minute to find it, from my angle there were a lot of dock leaves in the way. Ironically, I got better views when it moved away onto the little spit in front of the hide.

Common sandpiper

Common sandpiper

Common sandpiper

Black-headed gulls

There were still black-headed gulls nesting on the mere. Some of the chicks were tiny, most had fledged and were capable of at least some weak flight. Mallards and their tiny ducklings seemed intent on losing each other. The larger ducklings stuck to their parents (actually, this is a guess: as well as mallard ducklings wandering off at the drop of a hat and tagging along with whatever, the ducks have a habit of hedging their bets by laying a few eggs in other ducks' nests, and not always are they mallards'). Shelducks had near full-grown ducklings, coots and moorhens had everything from tiny chicks to full-grown in tow and some of the full-grown juvenile moorhens had been given babysitting duty. A few Canada geese and greylags mooched about over on the far bank with a couple of common terns and some oystercatchers and lapwings. Otherwise, besides all these crowds of birds, it was fairly quiet.

Juvenile moorhen and chick

Black-headed gulls and mallard

Black-headed gulls

By the Hale Hide

Blackcaps, wrens and a song thrush sang in the trees as I walked over to the Ron Barker Hide. Titmice and robins were shadows in the undergrowth. I popped into the Hale Hide to get a different perspective on the mere and see what was on the little pool there. A few mallards and their ducklings pootled about and coots and moorhens fussed. Way over in the distance I could see a heron perched on a gatepost in the reedbeds. It took a while to work out what the smaller, darker figure was on the adjacent gatepost — I will admit I got my hopes up that the glossy ibis had returned — but eventually it woke up and turned out to be a juvenile heron.

The Mere View Hide 

The Mere View Hide was very quiet indeed save for a Cetti's warbler singing in the brambles and a sedge warbler singing in the flag irises.

The Ron Barker Hide was quietish. Families of well grown mallards and shelducks drifted about on the pools and tiny tufted ducklings dibbled about with their parents in the brook. Swallows dashed about with gay abandon. I looked in vain for the whooper swans I saw last time. The large white shape on the bank was two great white egrets sleeping side by side. Families of greylags grazed the near banks, Canada geese were in the tall grass with the longhorn cattle. I could see no cattle egrets about.

Great white egrets, tufted ducklings, coot, moorhen and mallards

A female marsh harrier was busy, it flew in stage left and was greeted by two immature birds. She rose up in the air, the two young birds following. She dropped whatever it was she had in her talons and one of the youngsters caught it in mid air. She did a couple more food drops while I was in the hide. While she was away the youngsters joined another couple of young birds I hadn't noticed sitting in a tree at the back of the reedbed.

One of the harriers passing close by caused a sudden appearance of a white object at the top of the reeds in the pool on the right. I noticed it and had a look, expecting it to be the head of one of the whoopers having a look round. It turned out to be a cattle egret sat on the back of a cow hidden by the reeds. Another pass-by saw three cattle egrets stick their heads up and judging by the erect crests and jabbing bills of the two adults they weren't best pleased at the harriers.

Cattle egret

On the way back I had to stop a moment while a water shrew ran across the path and into cover.

The Harrier Hide from the Reedbed Walk 

The afternoon was young so I headed over to the Reedbed Walk. The path by the United Utilities Hide was closed for resurfacing so I followed the path round from the Harrier Hide. I was very conscious that I'd been a couple of hours in a wetland reserve and hadn't seen any dragonflies. I quickly bumped into a handful of common blue damselflies, thin gruel after yesterday's Hodbarrow banquet. There was a thin background songscape, a few Reed buntings, a couple of Cetti's warblers, a reed warbler, the clamour of black-headed gulls, and the quiet fussing about of mallards, shelducks and coots talking in their sleep on the pools behind the reeds.

Black-headed gulls

Gatekeeper

For all the weather was dark grey and a bit cool there were loads of butterflies about. The waysides between the Discovery Hide and Rob Barker's were busy with meadow browns with a few red admirals, small tortoiseshells and commas fluttering about. The reedbeds were heaving with gatekeepers. A few red admirals and small tortoiseshells were about and the excellent year for painted ladies continued but there were two dozen gatekeepers for every other butterfly. The dragonflies were few and far between and all black-tailed skimmers.

The Reedbed Walk 

A working party with strimmers passed by in their little off-road vehicle (not quite a car but significantly more than a golf buggy). I'm putting years on myself admitting I thought: "Daktari" as they passed. For once I felt a bit self-conscious putting my mask on as I passed them working, it looked a bit pointed. Unfortunately the hayfever had already kicked in badly and I didn't want to give it any more encouragement.

Teal and black-headed gulls

A few teal and lapwings fed on the remains of the pool at the Gordon Taylor Hide. Teal are so secretive this time of year I rarely see the males going into eclipse plumage, a couple of them were well into the moult here. A few of the nesting black-headed gulls still had very young chicks, nearly all the older birds were flightworthy if clumsy. I looked in vain for any waders that weren't lapwings or oystercatchers.

A lot of black-headed gulls were making a racket overhead. A different gull call stuck out from the noise, something more like the sound of a penguin at the zoo. I was quite pleased to find the pair of Mediterranean gulls almost immediately I looked up. I was running lucky today. Even luckier in fact: I heard a chaffinch-like song coming from the hawthorns in the out-of-bounds part of the reedbed and just at the point I'd convinced myself that no, it wasn't a lesser whitethroat, it was a chaffinch having singing practice a chaffinch started singing from the trees by the water treatment works to remind me what they really sound like. It never fails to surprise me that when you compare the songs of common and lesser whitethroats it's the lesser whitethroat that sounds like Tom Jones.

At the Rees Hide

At the Rees Hide the pool was a distant memory.

Walking back to the visitor centre I was accompanied by a Southern hawker. There were plenty of midges and mozzies about so I was happy for it to make inroads on any coming my way.

Red Cat Lane 
Winter Hill had disappeared behind a bank of rain. It should be behind those trees.

The cosmic balance has to be respected. I hadn't gone far once I left Martin Mere before the heavens opened. There's some shelter on the way to New Lane so I could have walked that way and got the slightly later train, the trouble there was that depending which site I checked that train may or may not have been cancelled and as they only run every two hours it was a chance I was unwilling to take. There's no shelter between Martin Mere and Burscough Bridge and its half-hourly train service so there was nothing to do but grin and bear it.

Corn bunting

I'm very glad I did: the corn bunting gave me another good telling off and I spotted why it was so agitated. It's more than twenty years since I last saw a juvenile corn bunting.

Juvenile corn bunting