Martin Mere

Moorhen chick

It's going to be a coo what a scorcher bank holiday weekend so I thought I'd best get a visit to Martin Mere in before it all kicks off. Most years we have a few weeks' gradation between Britain Shivers and Coo What A Scorcher but this year we're doing it over four days and I'm not convinced my system's quite caught up yet. It felt odd leaving all the coats at home, including the Summer raincoat. I had an atavistic yearning for a Packamac. It wasn't needed.

Some of the nests in the rookery by Burscough Bridge Station are either still active or active again. Most probably they are latecomers or pairs whose first attempt was predated and they're hoping second time lucky.

By Red Cat Lane 

The walk down Red Cat Lane to Martin Mere was oddly quiet but busy. The noise of rooks and jackdaws in the ploughed field just outside town gave way to the hints of woodpigeons, starlings and skylarks in the arable fields beyond. Robins, blackbirds chiffchaffs and goldfinches sang in the trees and hedges. Swallows and house martins twittered overhead, and all the more when a kestrel passed by. A yellow wagtail flew across the road from Curlew Lane and disappeared into the depths of a field of corn and there was a close pass-by by a male marsh harrier. 

A little further on, and to my utter astonishment, I had a nice suprise. A bird caught my eye as it flew into one of the horse chestnuts across the road from Brandeth Barn. It didn't look right for a sparrow and had too much back end for a chaffinch so I had a quick shufti with the binoculars. I can't remember how many years it is since I last saw a corn bunting along here, I'd given up on them. A surprisingly sleek-looking female brought the year list to 181.

Oystercatcher 

At Martin Mere I dived into the Discovery Hide for a bit of shade as much as for the birds. It's that time of year when mallards and shelducks conduct trains of ducklings past nesting black-headed gulls and non-breeding oystercatchers gather to celebrate their lack of responsibilities. There were a few lapwings and Canada geese about the far side of the mere, they were heavily outnumbered by greylags.

Black-headed gulls and chicks

Black-headed gulls and chicks

A walk down to the Mere View Hide included an encounter with a grey squirrel kitten that was out unsupervised and hadn't a clue. When I encountered it on the way back it was sunbathing after exhausting itself by running up a lady's trouser leg.

This grey squirrel kitten hadn't worked out it was supposed to be scared of people

The songscape along the way was light but persistent: if you weren't hearing song thrushes and/or robins you were hearing blackbirds, blackcaps and/or chiffchaffs, with background helpings of wrens, woodpigeons, a Cetti's warbler and a sedge warbler. A whitethroat added to the concert at the Mere View Hide and a reed warbler was seen but not heard, which is a distinct reversal of the norm.

From the Ron Barker Hide
Out in the distance a whooper swan sits on its nest.

I'd barely sat down at the Ron Barker Hide before a chap asked if I'd seen the whooper swan on its nest. I'm used to there being the odd one or two lingering over Summer because they couldn't join the migration because of injury or whatever and the past couple of years there's usually been a couple lurking around this end of Langley's Brook, the drain heading away from the hide. This year they've decided they may as well make the most of it while they're here.

Swallow

A few black-headed gulls were also nesting, bothering any passing lesser black-backs or herring gulls to keep them moving on. A few mallards, gadwalls and greylags drifted listlessly on the pools. Swallows twittered about the drain, some of them settling down for ten seconds of song before getting back to the business of flying about twittering. The long grass in the field at the side of the marsh was high enough for the calves to just be disembodied ears and tops of heads careering about in a giddy fashion. The cattle egrets with them and their parents were only visible when they took flight or sat on one or other's backs.

The afternoon was but young and the weather dead clear so I headed for the reedbed walk. I didn't think I had the legs to do the long walk round but I wanted to check out at least some of the hides and I was desperate to see some dragonflies. I lingered on the bridges over the brooks and drains like some lovelorn sailor in a bad movie and just got pitying looks from mallards for my pains. No dragons, no damsels.

The pool at the Rees Hide was busy though most of the birds were a fair way away from the hide. Black-headed gulls sat on nests with avocets on sentry duty chasing off lesser black-backs, coots, lapwings, swallows, butterflies, whatever caught their eye. I almost missed a Mediterranean gull sitting amidst the mêlée.

Tufted ducks 

The birds were closer and the whole scene a little calmer at the Gordon Taylor Hide, except when male black-headed gulls brought sticks back to shore up the nest when the family was expecting dinner. Pairs of tufted ducks, shovelers and teals quietly cruised about in and out of the reeds and between the nesting islands.

Black-headed gull

Black-headed gulls 

Black-headed gulls and chick

On the way out I glanced over the bridge and a female banded demoiselle landed on the reeds just underneath. Just the one damselfly for the day but one is infinitely better than nothing.

Banded demoiselle

It was lazy afternoon time at the Harrier Hide. Mallards, greylags, gadwalls and shovelers dozed and a great crested grebe slowly cruised around to no apparent purpose.

Creeping buttercup and flax

It was busy-quiet again on the way back. There was another fly-by by the marsh harrier though this time he was well away from the road. The starlings and swallows were starting to settle on telegraph wires ready for their teatime singsong, some were already warming up. All in all the day was like that, a deceptively calm day's birdwatching that somehow got 69 species on the tally.

Martin Mere

Black-headed gull

I had a few errands to do this morning then spent an hour waiting at Urmston Station for the train into Manchester, which was posted as being "on time" until the last bus that would get me in quicker had gone. The songscape at the station, while delightful, was scant consolation, the blackcap in the bush behind me has a particular case for being aggrieved at a poor audience. Luckily for me, the Southport train wasn't allowed to leave platform 5 before the train I was on had arrived and stopped at platform 4 so the habitués of Oxford Road Station were regaled with the ungainly spectacle of an old man hurtling across the platform and diving through the doors just before they closed. And so I was off to Martin Mere.

The journey to Burscough Bridge went well. Lesser black-backs in ones and twos replaced the Winter crowds of black-headed gulls in Bolton town centre. Woodpigeons and collared doves canoodled in trackside trees; magpies, carrion crows and jackdaws — and the occasional pheasant or buzzard — rummaged around in fields; and the coots, tufted ducks and Canada geese on the lake at Pemberton Park were cruising about in pairs.

The rookery at Burscough Bridge Station was in full swing and noisy with it. I had feared it largely abandoned, instead the birds have left most of the large nests by the car park and have rebuilt in the trees by the football pitch behind the supermarket. It's good to find there are still some eternal verities.

By Red Cat Lane 

It was nice walking weather. The breeze was there but not as wild and unlovely as it has been. There weren't any crowds of birds in the fields, even the jackdaws were a scant dozen, but there was a lot of birds about, mostly betrayed by song. Skylarks sang over the fields. Dunnocks, robins, wrens, chiffchaffs and great tits sang in hedgerows and gardens. Goldfinches and greenfinches sang from treetops, starlings from telegraph poles and blackbirds from chimney tops. A pair of lapwings chased off a buzzard and made a kestrel feel unwelcome. A pair of grey partridges would have done a good job of being invisible if the stubble on a field margin had been a couple of inches higher. They and I pretended that they had succeeded and I passed by without incident. I had hopes to hear the song of a corn bunting, they used to be as regular along here as the tree sparrows and it's a long time since I saw either. Perhaps next time.

Small flocks of black-headed gulls — never more than half a dozen — had been flying to and from overhead all the time I'd been walking down the road. Just past Brandeth Barn another flock came over and didn't sound right. As it got closer I picked out the call of a Mediterranean gull amongst the others — to me they sound like penguins — and I managed to spot it as they passed directly overhead. My first of the year, they'd really become a bogey with me.

Martin Mere 

At Martin Mere I went straight to the Discovery Hide as usual. The mere was transformed: the acres of wigeons, teals and greylags and noisy crowds of whooper swans had been replaced by black-headed gulls noisily asserting territorial rights to nesting sites or noisily jostling for prime loafing spots on islands, and often noisily both. There were few waders, just a handful of oystercatchers and a couple of avocets. And nearly all the waterfowl were mallards, I had to work to find the teals and shovelers and even the shelducks and coots were keeping a low profile. The cattle were grazing the far bank with cattle egrets dancing attendance. A great white egret stalked the edge nearby. In the field behind a pink-footed goose grazed on its own.

Male fern croziers

Turning towards the Mere View Hide 

I headed for the Ron Barker Hide. The trees along the path held singing chiffchaffs, blackcaps, great tits chaffinches and blackbirds. Woodpigeons lumbered about, greenfinches and goldfinches bustled through the trees, wrens and moorhens skittered about.

Little egret

At the Mere View Hide, the Kingfisher Hide as was, I had a chat with a chap who was taking his new big lens for a walk and had got some fine photos of marsh harriers. A little egret was striking poses in the trees in front of the hide and a few mallards were keeping under cover. The reason being the pair of marsh harriers building a nest in the reedbeds beyond. Every few minutes one or other would sail by with a stick in its mouth before disappearing into the reeds.

Everything at Rob Barker's was keeping its distance
Whooper swans, black-headed gulls and black-tailed godwits 

A chap was leaving the Ron Barker Hide as I approached it. "The glossy ibis is showing," he said. It took me ages to find it feeding in the grass over at the side with a flock of wigeon. I was about to give up on it when I realised there was a flock of black-tailed godwits there. If I could overlook forty-odd rusty red godwits I could be overlooking the ibis. Sure enough one of the carrion crows playing hide and seek in the grass turned side on and had a long neck. The godwits were spooked by a passing marsh harrier, rose and eventually settled on the water's edge. In the confusion I lost the ibis, it took ten minutes to pick it up again. It had run about fifty yards along and was showing better in the patches of close-cropped grass in that area. It was still only a dot in the camera viewfinder though. As was everything else, even the couple of whoopers asleep on the bank. The two pairs of marsh harriers building nests and squabbling over territories in the reedbeds were even more distant.

The marsh harriers were showing well but stayed way in the distance. This male had just dropped off some nest-building material.

Oxlips

I wandered back slowly, taking in the seasonal changes, not just the birdsong and the departure of so much wildfowl: there were oxlips and campions in bloom and a brimstone butterfly passed by.

I had time to wander over to the United Utilities Hide and perhaps have a quick look at a corner of the reedbeds but I wasn't convinced I had the energy. It had been a very productive and enjoyable walk but I needed the reserves for getting back to Burscough Bridge Station. I called it quits and headed back.

By Red Cat Lane 

It was a quieter walk back. Most of the songbirds were quietly going about their business, rather to my surprise the songscape was dominated by greenfinches. A wet field by one of the farmsteads was awash with goldfinches, blackbirds and pied wagtails. And the rooks were heading back to the rookery, each new arrival in the trees welcomed by a chorus of raucous croaks.

Burscough Bridge Station rookery

I would have got home by late teatime but I either got my second wind or had a rush of blood to the head. I got off at Bolton and went for another walk.

Martin Mere

Whooper swans, mallard and ring-necked duck

The blackbird started singing at twenty to four.  It was a lovely sunny April day in February. At a more reasonable hour I checked on the patient to ask how he was doing after yesterday's eye operation then I headed out for a walk to Martin Mere.

Getting off the train at Burscough Bridge it looked like my fear that the rookery had been abandoned was unfounded. A couple were making proprietorial noises and a third flew in with a twig in its beak. I noticed similar activity on the way in as we passed Hoscar Station and again as we crossed Sutch Lane. The warm weather brought out the singing robins and blackbirds in the gardens and a dunnock sang from the hedgerow of that bit of fallow field near the edge of town.

Passing the last of the traffic calming measures out of town I noticed a little egret in the stubble field by the road. The next field had a dirty big puddle in it and a crowd of birds were taking advantage of it to get a bath on a warm day. Most were black-headed gulls and jackdaws, a couple of the rooks from the next field along flew in and joined them and there was just the one common gull. Oh, and eight cattle egrets. They flew over and joined the little egret and gave me the eyeball while I tried to take photos. Taking photos of strongly lit bright white birds against a dark peaty brown soil is a challenge that largely defeats me and so it pretty much did today.

Cattle egret

When I recorded my observation on BirdTrack I got an "are you sure?" flag against one of the records. For the common gull, not the cattle egrets. I've been recording common gulls along this road every Winter for the past never you mind so the element of doubt wasn't coming from my data.

Curlew Lane
I'm really going to have to do test walk over to Mere Sands Wood. 

The big surprise of the walk to Martin Mere was the singing chiffchaff in the trees just further along near Crabtree Road.

Pochard (left) and tufted duck

As always, once I arrived at Martin Mere I headed straight for the Discovery Hide and squinted into the sun to see what was about. There were dozens of whooper swans and they were very noisy. Many had the fidgets and there was lots of barging about and squabbles between pairs. The warm weather seemed to be giving them the travel bug. There were scores of pochards, pintails, shelducks and tufted ducks, rather more wigeons and mallards and very few shovelers and all they on the far side. That bank was lined with greylags, oystercatchers and lapwings. The lapwings were very skittish, unhappy with the pair of great black-backs sitting on one of the islands. 

Whooper swan

Whooper swan

Whooper swan

A few dozen black-tailed godwits mooched about on the islands, occasionally getting themselves caught up with the panicky lapwings. A handful of ruffs and a redshank hid amongst them in plain sight.

Mallards, black-tailed godwits and pintails

Mallards, redshank, ruffs, and black-tailed godwits

The ring-necked duck took some finding. Which was mad because it was right in front of the hide. It woke up and dawdled about a bit to let folk get a good look at him backlit in the sunlight.

Mallard and ring-necked duck

Whooper cygnet and ring-necked duck

Ring-necked duck

Ring-necked duck

Ring-necked duck

Ring-necked duck

Pochard

Pochard

Whooper swans

Whooper swans

Whooper swans

Mallard, whooper swans and ring-necked duck

Mallards, whooper swans and ring-necked duck

Pintail

Mallards, whooper swans, wigeons, pintails and pochards 

I decided I'd not got to the Ron Barker Hide as usual, I would go and have a potter about among the reedbeds, in lieu of my coming in the long way from New Lane.

At the Janet Kear Hide 

The feeders at the Janet Kear Hide were busy with great tits, blue tits, chaffinches and goldfinches. There were plenty of reed buntings bustling about so I lingered awhile in the hopes the local celebrity, a partially leucistic male bunting, would turn up. Alas, it wasn't my day for him. I hope other people had/have more luck with it.

There were hundreds of pink-footed geese in the field by the United Utilities Hide even though it looked deserted at first sight. They were easily overlooked because they were all lined up with their heads down feeding on the far side. There was no overlooking the hundreds that flew in to join them. Luckily I'd spotted a barnacle geese in the crowd before they arrived.

Pink-footed geese

Pink-footed geese

Pink-footed geese

Pink-footed geese

Pink-footed geese

Pink-footed geese

Way over in the reedbeds near the Ron Barker Hide two female marsh harriers floated low over, upsetting a couple of carrion crows but not much else.

A grey ghost of a wader with dark wings shot across the field and headed for the crowd of lapwings in the pool by the Rees Hide. I don't often see greenshanks here.

At the Rees Hide 

I walked round to the Rees Hide. I couldn't find the greenshank but found a couple of ruffs and a black-tailed godwit in the crowd. Teals whistled and quacked in the reeds margins and a few shovelers dabbled about. There was a steady stream of black-headed gulls and herring gulls overhead, heading to all points of the compass at this stage of the afternoon.

The Reedbed Walk 

The Harrier Hide 

It was a glorious walk around the reedbeds. Upwards of a dozen Cetti's warblers were singing in the reeds and a chiffchaff sang from the trees by the Harrier Hide. Mallards and pochards loafed about the roots of drowned willows; tufted ducks, Canada geese and shelducks cruised about the pools, the shelducks being very noisy about it with their chuckling calls. The gulls flying overhead started heading for Southport. Every clump of hawthorn bushes had a singing robin or a couple of blue tits or a troupe of long-tailed tits in it. Despite the warm weather I didn't see any butterflies. I was more relieved than disappointed, there's a cold snap next week and they'll be safer keeping under wraps a couple of weeks longer.

Walking past snowdrops to the Hale Hide

I didn't think I had the legs or the time to walk over to the Ron Barker Hide but the glossy ibis had been reported at the Hale Hide so I decided to walk that far and try my luck. The little pool was busy with moorhens and teals, pintails and greylags nibbled at the last of the potatoes on the dump. But no glossy ibis. So I moved on to the Mere View Hide to see if a higher viewpoint might help. It didn't but I enjoyed watching the rabbits in the brambles.

Rabbit

It was approaching locking-up time so I didn't bother with the Ron Barker Hide (ironically, that's where the ibis was). On the way back I stopped and poked my camera through the wire fence to get some photos of the thirty-two cattle egrets (plus a little egret) feeding on the field across the road.

Cattle egrets

Red Cat Lane 

Looking over to the Pennines

The light played pretty tricks with the landscape on the way back to Burscough Bridge. The hedgerows were busy with house sparrows, goldfinches, singing dunnocks and robins. Woodpigeons and jackdaws went to roost. Hares had staring contests in fields, they'll soon be boxing. 

I shouldn't be surprised to find four cattle egrets feeding by the roadside near Crabtree Road but I was. They were so fiercely backlit they were impossible to photograph.

Looking over towards Mere Sands Wood the lapwings were courting in the stubble fields and, just beyond, a barn owl quartered some rough grazing. The first barnie of the year for me, I hope I'll be getting some less distant views in the future.

The cattle egrets, and little egret, on the edge of Burscough were still there and the lighting let me take some photos. It was an opportunity to get some comparison shots and the backlighting picked up the plumes on the little egret's rump.

Cattle egrets

Cattle egrets and little egret (centre)

Cattle egret

Cattle egret (left) and little egret

Little egret (left) and cattle egrets

Little egret (left) and cattle egrets

I was happy to get to the station and have ten minutes' sit-down before the train arrived. The rookery still wasn't as busy as I should have expected but noise was making up for numbers.