Sefton

Meadow pipit, Crosby Marine Park

It was another day dominated by the pollen count. I headed for the seaside in search of seaborne breezes. Seaforth Nature Reserve has had visits from a roseate tern and a black tern the past few days, I thought I'd go over to have a look see, just in case I might get lucky, then move on for a gentle rummage about somewhere or other. It wasn't the weather for anything especially energetic, which was just as well as energetic was well beyond me today.

Crosby Marine Lake 

I got the trains to Waterloo and wandered over to Crosby Marine Park. A chiffchaff was giving it large from one of the gardens. The lawns by the lakes were liberally dotted with black-headed gulls, lesser black-backs and small crowds of starlings and house sparrows. They were feeding on insects emerging from the grass, any that escaped their attentions then had to run the gauntlet of house martins hawking overhead. Dozens of herring gulls loafed by the boating lake while a few mallards and mute swans drifted about.

Herring gulls

Sea holly

The sea hollies were coming into flower. Meadow pipits, house sparrows, starlings and linnets fussed about, eager to see if anything had been kicked up by the Army training team on a route march across the dunes.

Starling

Crosby Beach

It was a sunny Summer lunchtime and it was a toss-up whether there were more house martins than carrion crows on the beach. Just a handful of herring gulls and a cormorant flew by, it's that time of year.

It was raining in North Wales 

The lack of crowd scenes on the beach contrasted with the crowds on Seaforth Nature Reserve as I looked at it through the fence. Much to the disgust of the carrion crows lined up sitting on the fence. I'm entirely capable of walking past a crow without molesting it but they weren't convinced. Shelducks dozed on the close-cropped grass as rabbits did some more cropping. There were more shelducks on the pools, dabbling in the company of lapwings and a handful of redshanks. Oystercatchers were roosting on the big island, crowding out Canada geese, cormorants and herring gulls. It was pure luck that I caught the black-and-white wing and tail patterns of a few black-tailed godwits as they protested at being jostled off balance.

As always this time of year the tern colony provided most of the noise. As far as I could see they were all common terns, at this distance I would struggle to honestly pick out any arctic terns. A few dark, short-tailed terns caught my eye but were quickly identified as second calendar year common terns, the brown immature feathers on the back and wings catching my eye. And then I saw something different: a significantly whiter tern than the others with a stretched out look to the bill and wings. Was this a roseate tern? I decided I'd best make sure I wasn't stringing myself along by having a look at something else then coming back and seeing if the bird still stood out in the crowd. I couldn't find any dunlins amongst the waders on the island. I could, however, immediately find the tern as it swooped and banked in the midst of common terns its long tail steamers standing out from the crowd. I was very made up by the discovery. As if that wasn't surprise enough, a Cetti's warbler started singing from the bit of rank vegetation just over the bankside.

The nature reserve by the sailing club
A lot of hemlock water dropwort

I wandered down to the lake, which was busy with what looked like a school trip, and round to the little nature reserve by the sailing club. I would expect a singing Cetti's warbler here, I've often heard one. Today I heard two. A chiffchaff and a whitethroat also sang and titmice in stealth mode bustled through the undergrowth. Just outside the reserve the grass by the car park was littered with Southern marsh orchids.

Southern marsh orchid 

The bracing sea air had done me a world of good and would have continued doing so had I taken a route back into town that didn't pass lines of privet hedges in full bloom. 

I wasn't sure where I wanted to go next. I wasn't sure I wanted to go anywhere at all but it was still only lunchtime and I'd paid for my travel card. I had best part of an hour to wait for the next bus to Lunt and I didn't fancy hanging round that long. I got on the train and decided I didn't have the energy for the trawl up to Formby Point from either of the stations. And I didn't think the Alt Estuary at Hightown would be very productive, it would be a different matter next month. I really should have a walk across Ainsdale Dunes I told myself as the train left Ainsdale Station. So I ended up in Southport. I'd just missed the 44 and the 15 so I headed for the marine lake. And got as far as a coffee shop where, after a pastie and a pot of tea, I had to concede that I was done. Not by any means gracefully but concede it I did. Sometimes reality reminds me I'm not Peter Pan.