Marshside

Snipes

We're in the new normal where "cooler and fresher" means high seventies. It was certainly cloudier. I set out for a nosy at Marshside. 

The trains behaved themselves and lunchtime found me walking down a very quiet Marshside Road. The house sparrows, starlings and pigeons were keeping a very low profile and I didn't see any house martins overhead. A cool sea breeze made the walking very pleasant indeed.

Sutton's Marsh from Marshside Road 

I got to the reserve and looked over the marshes either side of the road. My first impression was that they looked lush and green then I realised that I was comparing them to the bleached straw colours I've been seeing the past few days, including the roadside verges here. Still, dry though they were the marshes had green grass and Sutton's Marsh was busy with greylags and Canada geese but only in the corner by Marine Drive where the ground was still damp. The white shape tiptoeing about the grazing cattle's legs was a little egret. A heron stood to one side watching for anything to be disturbed in its direction.

Greylags

The land drains and little pools away from that corner were dry and cracked. Flocks of starlings and handfuls of linnets and meadow pipits fossicked about in the grass. Black-headed gulls were few and far between. A couple of house martins hawked over the marsh and a swallow flew by. A flock of a dozen lapwings flew over the road into the marsh, followed by a couple of curlews and three snipes. They'd been disturbed by a tractor over by Nels Hide.

Tansy and, I think, white mignonette

There were still flowers in bloom along the verge but there were hardly any butterflies, just a few large whites. For all that tansy is a mass of tiny flowers it doesn't seem to be much favoured by insects. Nor were there any signs of warblers and the stonechats I sometimes see along here weren't in evidence.

There was nothing on the remains of Junction Pool except a couple of sleeping Canada geese. A sign told me Nels Hide was closed until the end of the month. I walked over to Sandgrounders. There were plenty of goldfinches twittering about and a dunnock and a chiffchaff squeaked from the old sand plant.

Canada geese, standing room only

The lagoon was crowded with Canada geese. Even the usual great black-back had to muscle its way through the throng. It found a carcass in the water and dragged it ashore to feed on it. I honestly couldn't tell what it was, it was a limp bag of whatever and looked rancid. It evidently tasted rancid, too: the gull took two bites then left it and took a long drink to take away the taste. The carrion crow that has been hanging round for seconds wasn't enthusiastic once it got its chance for a closer look.

A couple of tufted ducks and a gadwall drifted about as best could, mallards dozed, coots and moorhens pottered about the sides. A few dozen gulls, mostly herring gulls with just a few lesser black-backs, loafed in the grass beyond. Beyond them, starlings and lapwings fossicked in the grass. There was a conspicuous lack of godwits or ruffs.

At Sandgrounders 

The pool in front of Sandgrounders had been reduced to an expanse of mud with a shallow channel either side. Canada geese and coots thronged the banks. A few teal dabbled, a couple of wigeon, arrived early and still in eclipse gingery browns, grazed as best could on the island. Black-headed gulls and a lone common gull dozed in the grass further out. Little ringed plovers, mostly juveniles, skittered about on the mud.

Little ringed plovers, not so easy to spot when they're still

Snipes

The star turns were the snipes. There were over a dozen of them all told feeding in the channels. Most were juveniles with broad buff bracelines down their backs and gingery tiger-striped plumage. Four of them came close to the hide and showed exceptionally well.

Snipe

Snipes 

Snipes

Snipes

Snipe

Snipes

Snipes

Also showing well was the charm of goldfinches feeding on the thistledown on the marsh. Small family groups would break out to go for a drink before rejoining the feast, the young birds always following an adult, never going out on their own. Some of them were still young enough to be fed when they begged, they can't have been long out of the nest as adult goldfinches very quickly put a block on that. At least two juvenile linnets had attached themselves to the flock.

Goldfinches 

A last scout round found a common sandpiper lurking in a corner. I left Sandgrounders and asked myself if I wanted to walk round to Crossens and the answer was no. A scan over the salt marshes found a few herring gulls, carrion crows and swallows. A couple of cormorants flew out into the estuary. As I walked down Marshside Road a pair of stock doves flew into Sutton's Marsh and a flock of pigeons flew over to the rooftops of Marshside.

As I waited for the bus back into Southport a buzzard circled overhead with the inevitable pair of carrion crows suggesting it might want to move out of their patch.

Much to my surprise the day's tally came to forty-eight. I wasn't sure whether to enjoy the pleasant surprise or be frustrated it hadn't reached the fifty mark.