Martin Mere

Canada geese, mallards, black-headed gulls, ruff and lapwings

Short, heavy showers were forecast for the morning and short, heavy showers are what we got. I sat at Bolton Station waiting for the Southport train, sheets of water pouring onto the platform and I asked myself not for the first time, and certainly not the last, why I do this to myself. I was heading for Martin Mere and I hoped the production of a fine but cloudy afternoon was going to be as accurate as the morning's forecast.

Along Red Cat Lane 

As I got off the train at Burscough Bridge a cloud of jackdaws and rooks blew into town leaving the fields just beyond empty. Walking down Red Cat Lane in the rain there were plenty of woodpigeons about but little else until I got to the approach to Curlew Lane, starlings massing on the telegraph wires, and swallows and house martins hawking low overhead. The stubble fields were dotted with suddenly alert heads as I passed by. Most were woodpigeons, one was a cock grey partridge. I looked in vain for the rest of the covey, they'll have been there but crouching low and looking more like stubble than the stubble did. A couple of tree sparrows cheeped and disappeared into the hedgerow, a flock of house sparrows chivvied me on my way.

Martin Mere 

The rain stopped, I got to Martin Mere, sat down in the Discovery Hide and looked out at an almost empty mere. Six shovelers dabbled by one of the islands and a couple of moorhens pootled across the water. There were Canada geese on the far bank and swallows, sand martins and house martins hawked over the mere. The coots, mallards and teal took a lot of finding in the vegetation on the islands.

The Raines Observatory was empty and at first sight it looked like that end of the mere was, too. I found a few coots and a lapwing on an island but there seemed to be nothing on the bank. Then a green sandpiper flew out of the vegetation and a few yards further along, bobbing its tail as it landed on a rock before skittering back under cover.

From the Mere View Hide 

The Hale Hide was a bird-free zone, the Mere View Hide would also have been but for the distant view of Canada geese and greylags in the fields. Half a dozen migrant hawkers seemed to be hunting as a pack over the brambles in front of the hide.

At the Ron Barker Hide: two pools, one teal

There was literally nothing on either of the pools at the Ron Barker Hide, it was a relief when a teal flew in. Squadrons of woodpigeons set out across the fields to the distant woodlands. Way over to the right of the marsh, half a dozen whooper swans grazed in the long grass and beyond them a dozen or so cattle egrets fussed around the longhorn cattle. Whooper swans and cattle egrets, so typical of an August day in Lancashire.

Walking back from the Ron Barker Hide 

Longhorn cattle, cattle egrets and Canada geese 

I walked back and headed for the United Utilities Hide to have a better look at those geese. There was something white in the mix and I was curious as to what it was. What it was was uncooperative, a white farm goose keeping deep in a patch of tall grass and sedges so as to make it difficult to even work out its size, let alone any details. At one point I wondered if it was two of the cattle egrets that were with the cattle at the edge of the field. Frustrating though that was, the three pink-footed geese on the edge of the flock made themselves nicely conspicuous. A passing marsh harrier provoked raised heads and mutters amongst the geese. A buzzard flying in and joining them while it dug for worms didn't raise a feather.

Cuckoo pint berries

The United Utilities Hide had been deserted. The Harrier Hide was packed to capacity. And so was the pool in front of it. Mallards, gadwalls, lapwings, ruffs and black-headed gulls jostled for space amongst the Canada geese at the water's edge while great crested grebes, dabchicks and tufted ducks bobbed about on the water.

At the Gordon Taylor Hide 

The sun hinted at poking through the cloud. The reedbed walk would have been very quiet but for family groups of greylags flying low over to the fields and a Cetti's warbler singing by the Rees Hide. The pools by the hides were still just damp water meadows.

Winter Hill from Red Cat Lane 

I walked back to Burscough Bridge, stopping for a cup of tea at Brandeth Barn and feeling the better for it. The fields were busy with woodpigeons, rooks and jackdaws and the hedgerows busy with house sparrows. Every farmstead had its pair of collared doves. It had been an odd sort of a day's birdwatching but not unproductive.