Crossens and Marshside (again)

Black-tailed godwits and Canada geese, Marshside 

It seems to be a month for having two bites of each cherry. The plan for today was to go for a wander round Martin Mere but a juvenile pallid harrier turned up at Marshside yesterday afternoon and was still around on Crossens Marsh first thing so I headed thataway.

That white domestic goose amongst the Canada geese had my whiskers twitching for a moment

I got the 44 to Crossens and walked down Marine Drive. There weren't as many teal and wigeon on the river as last week but there were significantly more Canada geese and pink-footed geese out on the outer marsh. Ahead of me, stretching round the curve of the road, I could see small knots of birdwatchers scanning the marsh. Which is precisely what I started to do.

Crossens Marsh, by the River Crossens 

The first of many birds of prey I'd be seeing here today was a kestrel hovering over the river bank. About ten minutes later a buzzard floated over the marsh and was ignored by everything except a passing black-headed gull that had one on it. Approaching the curve to the road I started checking out the fenceposts stretching out into the marsh, just in case I was going to be very lucky, but only found a woodpigeon.

Beyond the curve the marsh is ungrazed and is the haunt of skylarks and meadow pipits. Every so often one or other might fly up to move on to a fresh patch of marsh. But then I started to see explosions of larks and pipits erupting from the distant marsh near the river. Something was putting them up but i wasn't seeing anything. One panicky eruption of small birds might be due to a stoat or a mink. A chain of eruptions like this suggested a bird of prey flying very low. My guess was that there was a merlin about but i wasnt seeing it.

Crossens Outer Marsh 

A female-type marsh harrier rose from the distant long grass a bit further along,  putting the scares into some shelducks as well as the larks and pipits. A movement even further out turned out to be a kestrel. That flew inland and on towards the sand plant. I panned back round whence it came and spotted a male marsh harrier flying in and out of the marsh a few hundred yards out.

I'd been slowly making my way along the road for the best part of an hour. The plan had been to stop at McCarthy's watchpoint and linger there but I'd been so busy looking out at the marsh I'd walked straight past it. Small parties of pink-feet, a few family parties but mostly a couple of dozen at a time, flew to and fro. A kerfuffle over on Marshside led to a lot of lapwings and starlings flying over and onto the estuary. There was another wader with the lapwings and I took far too long to realise it was a bar-tailed godwit. Barwits tend not to come inland as much as the black-tailed godwits and they certainly don't congregate in their hundreds like the black-tailed godwits do here.

There was another chain of eruptions of panicked small birds way out on the marsh, this time heading left to right. I caught a glimpse of the culprit, a harrier skimming across the grass, disappearing behind bumps and rises. I immediately concluded it wasn't a marsh harrier by the long, thin shape of the wings then I got a better look at it and saw that it was a ringtail harrier of some kind. In the ordinary course of events I'd have immediately said hen harrier and been very pleased to see it. But there was the possibility it might be the juvenile pallid harrier. All the reading up I did last night highlighted the identication features on the head and neck and the underwings and all I was seeing was tail end on. So it's recorded as "unidentified ringtail harrier."

I carried on walking round, finding a merlin sitting on a post in the mid-distance and getting excited a couple of times by distant kestrels, my sense of scale goes to pot at more than quarter of a mile away. Another female-type marsh harrier put the wind up a distant flock of skylarks and they flew inland onto Marshside. I gave it another hour and packed it in. A tally of three marsh harriers, a buzzard, a merlin, at least three kestrels and a ringtail harrier is a pretty good bag even if i did dip on the pallid harrier. Which made a few more appearances later in the day after I'd gone.

Merlin

I crossed over and tiptoed my way past wall browns and small coppers to Sandgrounders. Some of the small coppers were very small indeed. Blue tits and a Cetti's warbler told me to move on as I passed their bramble patches.

Little egrets, wigeons and black-tailed godwits 

I'd been struck by a lack of little egrets on Marshside last week. There was an embarrassment of them today. There were also appreciably more wigeons on the pools and it looked like twice as many black-tailed godwits on Polly's Pool as there were last week.

Black-tailed godwits 

The godwits and teals on the pool by Sandgrounders were busy feeding. The wigeons, mallards, gadwalls and shovelers dozed in the sunshine.

Wigeons

I walked round and down Marshside Road and had less than a minute to wait for the bus back into Southport. For all that I'd dipped on the pallid harrier I couldn't say it had been a disappointing birdwatching visit.