Martin Mere

Whooper swans and mallards 

It was going to be another very pleasant Autumn day and I decided I should use it to go and have a visit to Martin Mere. I'm still trying to catch up with myself after being confined to barracks last week, Martin Mere's always a good place to visit this time of year.

I got the train to Burscough Bridge and walked down Red Cat Lane. My first song thrush since August was sitting in a tree in the last garden before the fields. Robins, great tits, chaffinches and blackbirds fidgeted in the hedgerows and gardens and skylarks and starlings called as they flew overhead.

Rooks, off Red Cat Lane

The stubble fields were busy with rooks and woodpigeons. The crowds of jackdaws preferred the fields over towards Mere Sands Wood and were very fidgety for no cause that I could spot. Goldfinches and skylarks flew overhead and I nearly overlooked a couple of stock doves because each was flying on its own amongst the woodpigeons shuttling between fields. A few starlings peeled off from the flocks feeding in the fields to bubble and squeak from the tops of telegraph poles. Pied wagtails flitted about the farm buildings as I chatted to a farmer about the potato harvest. There was a lot of fidgeting about in the stubble by Brandeth Barn which turned out to be a couple of dozen meadow pipits.

Meadow pipit, Brandeth Barn 

Harlequin ladybird

By the time I got to Martin Mere I had to conclude that I was dressed too warm for the day. The wind was light and warm and the pedestrian entrance to the visitor centre was fizzing with tiny hoverflies and ladybirds.

Whooper swans and mallards 

As usual I went straight for the Discovery Hide for a sit down. The mere was very busy, a few dozen whooper swans were very vocal, rafts of a couple of dozen mallards each were very frisky. There were plenty of coots and tufted ducks about, a couple of dozen pochards were dotted about and mostly asleep, the teals, pintails and shovelers took a bit of finding and there were fewer shelducks than I'd expect this time of year. There were scores of wigeons, mostly asleep in the company of loafing lapwings, or as close to loafing as anything as fidgety as a lapwing can manage. A few dozen greylags and Canada geese were scattered about. Way over on the Plover Field a thick, greyish brown band across the field proved to be scores of pink-footed geese.

Whooper swans and mallards 

Shelduck, tufted ducks and ring-necked duck (third left)

It took a while to spot the drake ring-necked duck despite its being dead ahead. It was fast asleep amongst some dozing tufted ducks and every time I thought I had it a raft of randy mallards would barge across my line of view and I'd have to start all over again. Oddly enough, the tufties and the ring-necked duck managed to stay asleep as the cavalcade passed by.

Mallards, lapwings and greylag

Lapwings and teals

The path on the left goes to the Raines Observatory 

The walk to the Rob Barker Hide was picturesque but not especially productive. A family party of long-tailed tits bouncing through the bushes by the Hale Hide was the birdwatching highlight. A brimstone butterfly fluttering about the brambles in front of the Mere View Hide was a nice surprise.

From the Mere View Hide 

At first sight there wasn't much doing at the Ron Barker Hide. A couple of little egrets and a great white egret lurked in the drain between the marshes and there were no ducks on the pools. A buzzard soared over the fields by the railway line, a female-type marsh harrier drifted in and settled in the reeds. Family groups of pink-footed geese flew in from the farmlands towards the Plover Field. A couple of dabchicks fussed about in the drain in front of the hide.

After about quarter of an hour a flock of about fifty teals flew in and settled on the pools. Then another. And another. Where they'd been and why they were turning up now wasn't apparent. Another great white egret flew in, bothered a little egret then flew over to the bank to watch a heron reducing the local brown rat population. Perhaps it was hoping the rat might escape from the heron and be easy pickings. And perhaps that sort of thing is the reason why herons get on fine with little egrets but are very aggressive to great white egrets.

As I was leaving I noticed half a dozen gadwalls in the pool behind the trees at the corner of the Mere View Hide.

Shelduck

I walked back then over to the United Utilities Hide. It was afternoon nap time on the mere for most everything except the lapwings and black-headed gulls. The trees and bushes lining the path were busy with titmice and goldfinches. A chiffchaff squeaked from the top of one of the willows, a treecreeper creaked quietly as I passed an elderberry bush. As I turned the corner at the Janet Kear Hide I heard redwings in the treetops, I spotted a couple of fieldfares before I found the redwings, just half a dozen of them and very restless as if they'd just arrived.

Common darters sunned themselves on the wooden railings up to the United Utilities Hide. There were maybe a couple of hundred pink-footed geese on the Plover Field, all lined up at the far side as if queueing for a bus. I scanned each and every one of them at least twice, it wouldn't be the first time I didn't notice a barnacle goose in the crowd until somebody said something. They were all pink-feet. A couple of fields away at least a dozen cattle egrets were bouncing round the grazing longhorns.

From the Harrier Hide 

A couple of Cetti's warblers sang in the rough as I walked round to the Harrier Hide. The pool in front of the hide was quiet, just a crowd of mallards and a dozen bathing black-headed gulls. I debated taking a walk round the reedbeds and had to concede that I only had the legs for a walk to a railway station.

Marsh Moss Road 

I walked over to New Lane Station and made it with ten minutes to spare for the train back to Manchester. It was a low key sort of walk despite there being plenty of birds about. The hedgerows were busy with titmice and finches quietly going about their business. The fields were sparsely dotted with magpies and woodpigeons. Small skeins of pink-footed geese passed overhead.

As always when travelling on the Southport line it's the last leg of the journey that spoils the day out. Getting the stopping train from New Lane means I have to wait half an hour at Bolton or twenty minutes at Salford Crescent for the train to Oxford Road that on paper gives me two minutes to run across the platform for my train home but invariably gets stuck at signals at Castlefield and misses the connection by five minutes. Today it was complicated by that train home being cancelled because the train crew were stuck on a late-running train. Luckily, this time of day I only had half an hour to wait for the next overcrowded train. What larks, Pip!