Leighton Moss

Marsh harrier

The weather front presaged by that swarm of sand martins in Flixton came to pass. It heaved down Monday night and there were intermittent heavy showers throughout Tuesday. In between the showers it was like being in the steam room at a Turkish bath and I quickly gave up on my effort at having a walk. It was cooler today, low sixties with a strong wind knocking it down a lot, and fresher. I decided it would be a good day to be dodging showers on the train and nipping between the hides at Leighton Moss. The day had started very early and I wasn't up to anything energetic.

I got myself an old man's explorer ticket and headed North. There was not a lot of anything in the fields of Lancashire as the train passed by. The pools by the coastal hides at Leighton Moss were bone dry and cracked, a few black-headed gulls and little egrets seemed to be loafing there by habit. The tides were highish so the Kent and Leven were running high as the train passed over the estuaries. A couple of curlews and some lesser black-backs prodded about on muddy river banks, little egrets lurked in creeks, the dry salt marshes in between were left to carrion crows and swallows.

There had been a couple of very heavy showers along the way. I got off at Dalton and was treated to another in the ten minutes I had to wait for the train back. Even the herring gulls and jackdaws were grounded.

Coots

It was raining steadily when I arrived at Leighton Moss. I can't complain, it's badly needed. The pool at Lilian's Hide was crowded with gadwalls, mallards and coots clustered in the deep bits where the water went halfway up the shins of one of the three great white egrets, most elsewhere it barely wet the ankles. (Yes, I know a bird's "knee" is actually the ankle, the alternative non-technical label is: "bit the toes stick out of," which is more typing.) Four adult mute swans loafed on a mud bank that is usually a thin line of short reeds, I could see no sign of any cygnets. And all the while a swarm of sand martins and a couple of swifts whizzed low over the pool.

Gadwalls

A moorhen chick demonstrated why they're part of the staple diet of gulls and marsh harriers. In the end its parent gave up trying to call it back into the reeds and came out into the open with its sibling so it could keep an eye on it.

Moorhens

Great white egret, gadwalls and mallards

Luckily for the moorhens the marsh harrier that came over to the pool stayed on the other side, putting the wind up the gadwalls which all flew into the deepest channel they could find on the pool, which was dead centre and not very deep.

Marsh harrier

Me and the camera have a fight nearly every day but every so often we do something like the photos I got of that marsh harrier.

Marsh harrier 

Marsh harrier 

From the Sky Tower the reserve was a sea of reeds with pockets of mud and puddles. The rain tried its best.

From the Sky Tower 

The walk down to the Tim Jackson and Griesdale hides were mainly quiet. The squeaks of robins, chiffchaffs and willow warblers. A quietly singing reed warbler. A telling-off by a wren.

Walking down to the reedbeds

The main drain on the reserve

At the Griesdale Hide 

At the Tim Jackson Hide 

A white-rumped sandpiper had turned up at Meols. I toyed with the idea of chasing after it on the way home but the two o'clock early alarm call asserted itself. I went home, did not pass go, did not collect £200.