Marshside

Shoveler ducklings and mum

I really wasn't sure what the weather was going to be like today so I spent a lot of time carrying my coat around. The pollen count was set to High so I set off for the coast in the hopes that a sea breeze would keep things manageable. I had errands to do first thing so I missed the easy connection for the Southport train, rather than muck about with hanging about for connections in Manchester and Bolton I got the Liverpool train and got the Northern Line up to Southport. It takes about the same time but none of the connections are more than ten minutes' wait and the trains to Southport are every fifteen minutes.

After a grey and gloomy morning I arrived at Marshside on a bright and sunny afternoon. House sparrows, starlings and goldfinches zipped about Marshside Road, there weren't many house martins about, they turned out to be hawking over the marshes.

The marshes were largely empty stretches of grass. A few Canada goose families were dotted about Sutton's Marsh, across the road there was hardly anything to be seen. Handfuls of lapwings and redshanks were about and an oystercatcher rummaged in the grass, and I could hear skylarks and meadow pipits, but nearly all the bird life was by or in the pools and creeks. Nearly all. Three spoonbills — an adult and two youngsters — lurked in the long grass on Sutton's Marsh near the junction with Marine Drive. I wouldn't have noticed them had one of the youngsters not been skittish and chased after a little egret. I have to say that "skittish" is not a word I would usually employ concerning spoonbills.

Spoonbills, adult (left) and two youngsters

I hadn't heard much birdsong on the walk down Marshside Road save a bit of twittering of goldfinches. It came as a relief to hear a sedge warbler quietly singing to itself in the bushes near the Junction Pool and a reed warbler in the drain by the opposite corner.

Redshanks, avocet and curlew sandpiper (centre)

Four curlew sandpipers had been reported on the Junction Pool and lo and behold, there they were. Three kept together in a group feeding besides redshanks and a couple of avocets. One kept wandering about, making me keep checking to make sure there weren't five of them after all. 

Avocet, redshanks and curlew sandpipers 

A Cetti's warbler sang from the drain as I walked over to Sandgrounders. I was keeping an eye out for bee orchids on the bank, they never seem to flower from the same place two years running. This time I found two plants flowering close together with a Southern marsh orchid in between them acting as a handy marker.

Bee orchid

Southern marsh orchid

Bee orchid

The black-headed gulls nesting on the pool were unsurprisingly noisy, clamouring whenever a herring gull passed by. Canada geese, mallards and tufted ducks dozed by the banks. It felt very much like we were already in the Midsummer quiet period.

Black-tailed godwit

The black-headed gulls on the island in front of Sandgrounders and the marsh beyond sounded busy but I couldn't see much in the way of youngsters, the grass already being tall enough to hide most of the adults. Lapwings and black-tailed godwits rummaged about, all the godwits looked to be non-breeding yearlings. The shovelers had been productive and one pair paraded their brood up and down in front of the hide.

Shoveler duck

Shoveler drake

Shoveler duck

Shoveler ducklings

The avocet chicks were striking out on their own but their parents would suddenly arrive on the scene if anything remotely threatening appeared on the horizon. That included the little ringed plover having a bath in the corner of the pool.

Canada geese, avocet chicks (the tiny white figures in the centre) and tufted duck

I spent a while watching the the young birds pottering about then I glanced at the time. The day's errands were not all done yet and it was time to move on. As very pleasant interludes go, this was a good one.

Merseyside mini-bundle

Temminck's stint, Marshside

I had decided I was going to go to Marshside to see if I could add the Temminck's stints there to the year list, then I watched the sheet of water descending from the sky and decided to wait for the lunchtime train. Which worked: by the time I got to Southport it was dry and sunny, with most of the cloud cover inland. It was also ferociously windy.

Canada geese and goslings

The marshes looked a lot quieter than on my last visit. Woodpigeons grazed and Canada goose families pottered about. The starlings and house sparrows were mostly staying in the shelter of the houses and gardens. The few lapwings that were about hunkered down out of the wind and skylarks sang from the ground. A sedge warbler sang from the depths of the vegetation in the drain by the path. Watching a little egret flying sideways across the road I could understand why most of the birds were grounded. 

Swifts and house martins hawked at head height, flying into the wind and almost stalling in the process. Every so often they'd relax and let the wind blow them back up the road before banking and tacking their way back. I thought this was my opportunity to get close photos of the birds, for once they weren't just zipping past all the while. I got a lot of photos of sky and wing tips. The birds weren't the only ones being pushed about by the wind.

I managed to get just the one swift in the frame of a photo

Mute swans, mallards and gadwalls cruised about the junction pool. An avocet and a couple of lapwings fed in the margins and a dozen or so black-tailed godwits loafed at one side. There weren't any ruffs about and the few redshanks that were around took some finding.

Mute swans

There were a few people already in Nels Hide. I took my seat and had a scan round the marsh. A few mallards, shovelers, gadwalls and greylags cruised about the pools. I found a couple of dunlins in breeding plumage with their black bellies and a couple of ringed plovers skittered about the mud. At last someone said: "The stints are back!" and I looked over to the right hand side to find them and had no luck seeing them. I was looking too far away, a couple of the birders showed me where the stints were: on the near bank at the corner of the hide.

Temminck's stint

This was easily the closest unimpeded view I've ever had of Temminck's stints. Usually I go away with the impression of a pint-sized common sandpiper with plain upperparts. This closer view showed that the upperparts aren't so plain after all.

Temminck's stint

Temminck's stint

Herring gulls, lesser black-backs and coots

Half a dozen large gulls had a wash and brush up in one of the pools away from the hide. The other birds kept a wide berth, a ringed plover flying over and settling on the mud in front of the hide for a while before flying over to join the dunlins and ringed plovers on the other side of the pool.

Ringed plover

Ringed plover

A mallard passed by with her ducklings very close to hand. When I see mallards with huge clutches of baby ducklings I can't help wondering why the world isn't knee-deep in them. Then I watch the ducklings go about their business and wonder why they're not an endangered species. This family looked like they had a chance against marauding gulls.

Mallard and ducklings

The stints moved away from the hide and eventually out of sight. Soon I was the only person left in the hide. A sedge warbler hopped up and down the wire fence as if working itself up into song, each time changing its mind and going back to feed on the bank. The Temminck's stints reappeared further along the bank, any other time I would have been thrilled to see them so close.

Sedge warbler

A light breeze

I made my way back to Marshside Road and headed for the bus back into Southport. I decided I'd move on to another site rather than fight my way along Marine Drive to Crossens. In the end I decided to go and have a look at Crosby Marine Park, which I've neglected this Spring.

The wind hadn't eased any when I arrived in Waterloo and the clouds were looking ominous. I headed straight for the shelter of the little nature reserve to catch my breath and have a look over the lake in relative shelter. Black-headed gulls and common terns bobbed about in the wind low over the water's surface. There wasn't anything except black-headed gulls on the water as far as I could see.

Crosby Marine Lake 

I headed to the wire fence by Seaforth Nature Reserve to see what was about. I had already decided I wasn't for being windblown and sandblasted on the beach. Canada geese and rabbits grazed and shelducks dozed on the grass. Cormorants, oystercatchers, herring gulls, lesser black-backs and a couple of great black-backs loafed by the pools. The rafts over near the hides were busy — and noisy — with black-headed gulls and common terns. Keeping the binoculars steady in the wind was very hard work and I had to concede that trying to find any arctic terns or even, perhaps, a roseate tern in the churning masses was a mug's game in these conditions. 

I dropped back down to the lake and walked back, passing a family of carrion crows too intent on their beachcombing to be bothered by me. I headed for the station and thence home. For once after going out birdwatching the legs weren't tired but the rest of me felt like it had had a rough going over.

Tree lupins, Crosby Marine Park 

Marshside and Crossens

Ruff

Marshside's having one of its golden patches for waders and it's getting its share of a very good passage of wood sandpipers so I headed that way to try my luck.

The weather was officially "changeable" but started cool with light cloud and got warmer. I thought the Canada geese had abandoned their nest on Pomona Dock so I was pleasantly surprised to see the goose with three goslings as the train chugged into town.

The train passed the woodpigeons, rooks and jackdaws of West Lancashire without incident and I didn't have long to wait for the bus into Marshside. It was a bright and sunny, but still cool, lunchtime when I arrived. The spadgers and starlings of Marshside were frantically busy with mouths to feed and the first couple of house martins were hawking over the rooftops.

Lapwing

The marshes looked deceptively quiet. An illusion quickly ruined by the arrival of flocks of starlings and house sparrows and a pair of lapwings taking exception to a passing jogger. The regular networked layout of greylags, Canada geese and lapwings had been disrupted, there were few greylags and lapwings dotted about, the greylags that were around were mostly in small groups, there just weren't many lapwings. The very few pairs of shelducks took some finding, I saw more shovelers in flight than on the ground and the crowds of wigeon and teal of just a few weeks ago were a vanished memory. 

Sutton's Marsh 

A reed warbler sang from a tiny patch of reeds and somehow remained invisible, all I could find to see was a couple of wrens twitching about in the depths. Over the road, goldfinches and whitethroats sang from the remaining patches of hawthorn hedge.

Junction Pool 

First stop was the Junction Pool where a few mallards and a drake wigeon puttered about and a handful of redshanks and ruffs fossicked about in the mud. A smaller, slimmer bird could have been a wood sandpiper but as a silhouette against dark, wet mud it wasn't a safe identification. 

I moved on to the Halfway Viewpoint for a better look, with the sun behind me. I found that the ruffs and reeves (female ruffs) easily outnumbered the redshanks, most were hidden from view from the junction by muddy ridges as they rummaged about in a couple of channels. The ruffs were also quite dark individuals, which wouldn't have helped with the light behind them. The russet ruff on one of them would have showed up a treat had he fluffed it up. Two had black ruffs, an all-dark bird disappeared into the shadows, the other was betrayed by his bright white horns.

I was struggling to find the potential wood sandpiper, the change in angle of view foxed me for a bit and the group of waders in question had dispersed. My eye kept being caught by redshanks and reeves as they skittered about. Then a smaller, slimmer wader dashed across a small pool and into some tall grass and I had me a wood sandpiper on the year list. There might have been two but I wasn't confident of the brief glimpse I had of the second candidate.

The path by Marine Drive 

The high bank between the marsh and the path to Nels Hide was smothered in a blue haze of alkanet. I noticed that some of the Duke of Argyll's tea trees that had been cut down were bouncing back, a very active sedge warbler sang from one, always keeping a few twigs and branches between itself and the would-be photographer.

Reeve (left) and ruffs

Even before I'd sat down at Nels Hide I'd noticed the ruffs on the mud immediately in front. A fluffed-up dandy of a ginger-ruffed male stood out a mile, a darker bird with his ruff flattened down most of the time was less conspicuous. The ginger lad sported himself about a lot and every so often would dash over to a passing reeve to show off a bit. The reeves played hard to get.

Redshank (top), reeve (left) and ruffs

Ruff

Ruff

Ruff

Ruff

Ruff

Ruff

Ruff

Reeve and ruff
The ruff noticed the reeve walking his way so he ran over and started displaying to her. 

Ruff
The darker bird only erected his ruff once the ginger bird had flown off.

Ruffs come in a bewildering variety of plumages and not all the males have ruffs, a tiny percentage look like reeves. There was a nice mixture peppered about the marsh between Junction Pool and Nels Hide.

Ruff, one of the dark birds from the Halfway Viewpoint 

Ruff
I don't know if this bird is still moulting into breeding plumage or has completed it and doesn't have a ruff.

Besides the ruffs there were a few redshanks, coots and mallards had fluffy youngsters in tow, and a couple of dozen herring gulls were having a wash and brush-up. I was feeling so perked-up by the views of ruffs that I started scanning the marsh between Nels Hide and Hesketh Road for spoonbills, ibises and who-knows-what and it serves me damned well right I didn't find any. There's no need to be greedy.

Spindle tree

Walking back in the warming sun I noticed the spindle trees by Nels Hide were in full flower, hopefully they'll be spectacular in Autumn. On the way over the skylarks and meadow pipits had been quietly flitting about the outer marsh, on the way back the sunshine seemed to coax some of the skylarks into song and meadow pipits fussed about on the bank by the path, vanishing into the alkanets whenever I passed too close by, just leaving a short, sharp call behind them.

Alkanet

Pollen beetle on burnet rose

On the way over to Sandgrounders I noticed the vetchlings and dewberries on the verge were in flower and I started to have half an eye out for orchids. And I tell my father off for being impatient. The burnet roses were already in full bloom and were busy with insects.

Black-headed gulls, moorhen and tufted ducks

The pool by Sandgrounders was noisy with nesting black-headed gulls. A few tufted ducks, coots and gadwalls loafed about, avocets and redshanks paddled round the edges and Canada geese dozed on the banks. It was more of the same at Sandgrounders, with a few mallard families and pairs of shovelers also cruising about and a handful of black-tailed godwits rummaging about on the marsh. Over on Polly's Pool about a couple of dozen black-tailed godwits lined up in a roost.

I didn't stop long and carried on walking by Marine Drive. Over on the outer marsh all the geese were Canada geese and a dozen little egrets shrimped in the bigger pool. A female marsh harrier drifted over from the marsh towards the road then veered off into the estuary. The sun brought out the butterflies and I found myself tiptoeing round peacocks, small tortoiseshells and wall browns that were basking on the path. I also found myself keeping having to apologise to the linnets and goldfinches disturbed as I passed too close to the dandelion patches they were feeding in.

By Marine Drive 

Walking along the bund by Crossens Inner Marsh 

I crossed over to have a look at Crossens Outer Marsh from McCarthy's. It looked deserted, the dark bands of thousands of geese replaced by grey hazes of scores of woodpigeons. There were meadow pipits, skylarks and starlings out there feeding in the grass, small flocks erupting when a kestrel hovered over or a buzzard passed overhead.

I wondered if I had the legs for the walk round to Banks Marsh to see if the American golden plover reported yesterday was still about. Regretfully I had to admit I hadn't. I crossed back over and walked back into Marshside along the bund. A couple of swallows hawking over the marsh and water treatment works were, hopefully, a precursor to the Summer crowds.

Avocet chicks

A lapwing was having a running spat with a couple of avocets. At first I thought the avocets had wandered too close to the lapwings' chicks. It turned out to be the other way round: the lapwing had been warned off by the avocets and it was having a tantrum about it.

Avocet and chicks

I had a sit down on the bench at the boundary between Marshside and Crossens Inner Marsh and surveyed the scene as house sparrows, starlings and dunnocks rummaged about the brambles nearby. Neither marsh looked crowded though there were plenty of birds about. On Crossens lapwings, redshanks and avocets paddled about while mallards, shovelers and a mute swan cruised the pools and channels. On Marshside Canada geese and lapwings were peppered about the nearby marsh and the black-headed gull colony was heard as much as seen. It was an easy and uneventful journey home after a very nice walk.

Avocet