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.

Irlam Moss

Lapwing

It was a thoroughly dreich day. So much so that I watched the cup final and though I was happy with the result I wasn't impressed by the football. I decided to go out for a walk in the rain.

Astley Road 
It doesn't look right, flat and level like a normal road.

I got the train the couple of stops to Irlam and had a walk up Astley Road and back down Roscoe Road just to see what was about. The songbirds were in full song, possibly in defiance of the vile weather. Blackbirds, robins and wrens did the heavy lifting supported by blackcaps, goldfinches, dunnocks, chaffinches and song thrushes. The local blackbird population is booming and those male blackbirds not busy getting beakfuls of worms from the fields were in full song atop the tall hawthorn bushes. There weren't enough large bushes to go round so some had to share. There weren't many chiffchaffs about until after I'd passed the Jack Russell's gate and a couple of whitethroats sang out in the field margins.

By Astley Road

The turf fields were littered with blackbirds, woodpigeons, starlings and song thrushes. Every field margin had at least one pair of pheasants and an unmown section of one field was a jostle of pheasants and woodpigeons.

It's a good year for butterburs with ginormous leaves

At the entrance to Prospect Grange I scanned the field by the motorway. A swarm of swallows hawked low over the treetops way over on the motorway embankment. I had the impression that there were some house martins in there but it took a while for a couple to fly in front of the trees and have the flash of white rumps confirm it.

Blackbird, goldfinch and greenfinch

I wandered back down Roscoe Road in the pouring rain. It was cold and wet but none of my joints ached, which didn't and doesn't make any sense to me but I'm not complaining about it. Overhead there was a steady passage of lesser black-backs heading to the roost on Woolston Eyes. Robins, dunnocks and blackbirds rummaged about on the roadside while more of them sang in the hedgerows. Lapwings stood about in the fields on their own or chased after jackdaws that had pushed their luck. Titmice and greenfinches flitted about, goldfinches twittered from treetops and telegraph poles, and a couple of meadow pipits called as they flew across the road between stubble fields.

Butterburs with even more ginormous leaves 

By Roscoe Road 

I'd been looking for grey partridges and finally found one, but not where I had been looking. I'd been scanning the fields margins and stubble fields. One of the turf fields had been stripped, leaving black, peaty soil behind it. And there out in the middle of it was a partridge. It was a juvenile bird, not quite full-sized, very streaky with straw yellow on brown and it stood out a mile against the black soil. Had it hunkered down the same way in the stubble field across the road I'd have struggled to see it.

Three oystercatchers flew low over the fields then skimmed the rooftops as they flew into the distance. I wondered where they'd been and where they were going.

Hawthorn 

I had a while to wait for the 100 to the Trafford Centre and the connection there with the bus home wasn't clever so I decided to do the weekly shop in Irlam and get the train home. Which turned out to be a mistake, timetables and cancellations being as they are. Luckily, thanks to the good offices of the guard on the train into Manchester and the platform manager at Oxford Road I only got home half an hour late. The timetable said it should have been three hours.

Mersey Valley

Canada geese and goslings. coot, mallards, goosanders and lapwing, Broad Ees Dole

The thing that's struck me this year is how drawn out the dawn chorus has become. It's almost as if after a cold night the singers are waiting to get warmed up before joining in. The blackbird and robin are always early doors, though they were later than usual this morning. There was more than an hour's gap between their finishing their overtures and the woodpigeons and collared doves starting their vocals and an age before the blackcap joined in. I fell asleep before the wren made an entrance, if it did.

It had been a busy night and I didn't have the energy for any of the day's plans, nor indeed anyone else's plans to waste my time. I watched the spadgers coming in to inspect the back garden before going back to feed the kids, the first spadglings must be due soon, the baby starlings are mostly out and pestering their parents in the treetops. It was good to see the male blackcap doing his bit against gooseberry sawfly, much appreciated mate. It was late afternoon before I could shake off the weltschmerz and later yet I finally got my boots on.

The path onto Stretford Meadows on the left, the Transpennine Trail around the meadows on the right

I wandered over to Stretford Meadows, just because. It was bright and sunny and yet still cool, especially when the sun passed behind a cloud. The house sparrows were very busy along Newcroft Road and blackbirds, blackcaps and robins sang in the trees around the garden centre and car park. Despite yesterday's rain there was only a small patch of mud at the entrance to the meadows and scarce any on my wander round the meadows, it really has been a dry Spring even if this month is a cold one.

Stretford Meadows 

There was enough warmth in the sun to coax the orange tip butterflies out into the open. Unlike the birds. There were plenty of those about but they were keeping a very low profile. Titmice, dunnocks, sparrows and greenfinches fidgeted about in the cover of bushes and brambles, the magpies and woodpigeons rummaged about in the long grass, robins, wrens and whitethroats sang from the depths of bramble patches and heaven alone knows where the pheasants were calling from. Even the goldfinches were twittering from well inside hawthorns and oak bushes.

Red campion 

Often I find that I'm walking these meadows and seeing and hearing very little on the ground while there's busy traffic overhead. Today the reverse was true: the sky was deserted save from a high-flying lesser black-back and half a dozen jackdaws commuting between the fields South of the Mersey and town.

Stretford Meadows 
Looking up the mound

I was keeping an ear out for any hints of lesser whitethroats, without any success, which wasn't surprising given the weather. They tend to be the last warblers arriving locally and I can't imagine they'd be in any hurry to arrive before the warm weather returned. I did pick up on a pair of reed buntings quietly fossicking about in a willow herb patch.

Joining the Transpennine Trail 

Chiffchaffs were a notable omission from the songscape on the meadows, there were a few of them singing along the Transpennine trail as I walked down beside Kickety Brook. They struggled to be heard, song thrushes sang along the motorway embankment and ring-necked parakeets screeched in the trees by the recycling point.  Blue tits and long-tailed tits bustled their way through the hedgerows with huge beakfuls full of insects. There were yet more of them in the willows along the brook on the other side of Chester Road. I was surprised that the greenfinches outnumbered the sparrows in the brambles along here.

Walking by Kickety Brook 

Willow warblers joined the chiffchaffs singing on Stretford Ees. Aside from the sparrows in the hedgerows by the cemetery it felt quiet despite the rich songscape, the birds were keeping well into cover. Except the inevitable carrion crows and jackdaws flying overhead and the raven cronking its way over the Mersey Valley. A grey wagtail rummaged about the riverbank and took great exception to a couple walking down to sit on the bank.

Grey wagtail

A Cetti's warbler sang at the lakeside by the entrance to Sale Water Park. I've not heard one here for a while, I think it's a newcomer as the previous territories were around the pylons and hide by Broad Ees Dole. For a couple of minutes I thought the great crested grebe preening on the lake had a couple of humbugs nestling in its back feathers but it was the bird with the injured wing jostling its injured wing about. It's a tough old bird, it must be flightless but it's survived for years nevertheless.

Great crested grebe

Mallards, lapwing, Canada geese and goslings, coot and goosanders

A reed warbler sang in a patch of reeds the size of a pillowcase by the entrance to Broad Ees Dole. The teal pool was quiet, just a pair of gadwalls cruising by the reeds. The pool in front of the hide was heaving. Three pairs of Canada geese had goslings and I'm not convinced the goslings knew who they belonged to, one pair seemed to have more tagging along behind them after they left the island than when they arrived. A pair of goosanders and some mallards dozed on the island and a couple of coots were asleep on their nests. A couple of magpies made a nuisance of themselves. After the geese had made it abundantly clear the goslings were off-limits they bounced over to pester a lapwing that had been minding its own business. When that paled they moved on to a pair of dozing gadwalls that foiled them by slipping off the island and sleeping just offshore. A moorhen shepherded its youngster well away, just to be careful. Any time it had to walk away from the chick it made sure it was near the goslings.

Closer by, a heron lurked by the near bank before deciding to try its luck over on the far side by the trees. I don't know what it was catching there, it didn't look like fish.

Heron
About a quarter of a second after the photo I was hoping to get!

Sale Water Park 

Moving on, a few lesser black-backs bathed in the lake and a herd of mute swans cruised about like they were on naval manoeuvres. The songscape had all the usual suspects with reed buntings joining in from the hawthorn bushes by the lake. The islands at the Eastern end of the lake seemed to have as many singing birds as all the rest of the lakeside margins combined.

The ring-necked parakeets out-shouted the magpies, woodpigeons and blackbirds as I headed off home for a chippie tea.

Leighton Moss

Oystercatchers

It was a day of sunshine and thundery showers but at least the wind had calmed down a lot. I decided I'd visit Leighton Moss, if the weather turned dodgy I could shelter in the hides or get a cup of tea in the visitor centre and it wasn't a long walk for the train home.

I got the Barrow train and stayed on to Ulverston to have a look at the Morecambe Bay estuaries. As the train passed the coastal hides at Leighton Moss I could see there were plenty of mute swans and little egrets on the outer pools and a small flock of black-tailed godwits near the Eric Morecambe Hide. The pool by the Allen Hide is largely hidden from the train by trees, I could see bits of white islands which I guess would be the nesting black-headed gulls and it's likely there'd be avocets in there, too, as I didn't see any on the outer pools.

Small gaggles of greylags grazed in fields between Silverdale and Arnside. This time of year I'd expect to see plenty of swallows around Arnside, I just saw the one today. The salt marsh on the other side of the Kent was bone dry, a few jackdaws and carrion crows pottered about amongst the sheep. The salt marshes by the Leven were slightly wetter, a few pools had water and little egrets and greylags were dotted around.

A few pairs of eiders cruised on the Leven as the train passed over the viaduct, the drakes looking very spruce indeed. I wonder why the start of the year was so barren of them. The train startled a grey wagtail which flew up then returned to the rocks below, a flash of lemon yellow and grey. A couple of pairs of shelducks pottered about on the mud on the other side.

I had a quarter of an hour's wait at Ulverston. The station songscape was rich: blackbirds, robins and a song thrush did most of the work with a couple of wren solos; a blackcap and a chiffchaff sang further down the line. The lesser black-backs outnumbered the herring gulls but it was herring gulls that seemed to be sitting on nests, I'd seen a couple of lesser black-backs on nests on the edge of town on the way in.

There were about a dozen eiders on the inland side of the Leven viaduct on the way back to Silverdale, and also a common sandpiper on the mud. The first red deer of the day watched the train pass by just outside Cark, another was browsing the marsh by the Kent.

I got off at Silverdale Station where the house sparrows were bustling about their business and walked round to Leighton Moss. The weather was fine but some of the clouds upwind looked ominous. I kept my fingers crossed.

Though the feeders have been taken down by the Hideout there was still plenty of activity in the trees and bushes nearby. Chiffchaffs, robins and blackcaps sang and the mallards seemed to be getting by tidying up after picnics.

Getting a record photo of one of the little gulls (the white blob in the middle of the picture) would have been a challenge beyond my capability even before the camera's autofocus locked on the photo-bombing black-headed gull 

There was a clamour from the black-headed gulls nesting at Lilian's Hide. I'd barely sat down before I noticed there was a little gull amongst the cloud of black-headed gulls and swifts wheeling about the other side of the pool . In fact, there were two, both first-calendar-year birds. A few pairs of gadwalls, mallards and pochards pottered about and a shoveler dozed in the reeds. I also noticed that the great black-backs were back to nesting on the osprey platform in the distance. A big vote of thanks to the chap who spotted a bittern flying over the reeds over towards the causeway. 

Black-headed gulls on their nests

The willow scrub on the way to the reedbeds was quietly busy. The chiffchaffs gave way to the willow warblers, with backing vocals from Reed warblers and just the one Cetti's warbler, and a sedge warbler sang in the willows behind the seat at the corner. Great tits and robins fossicked about the pathside, blue tits bounced about in the trees, all were quiet and too busy to be bothered with people.

Heading for the reedbeds

The weather's been so cool lately it's been dismal for dragonflies and butterflies. I'd only seen the one damselfly so far this year, a blue-tailed damselfly at Pennington Flash. I added a couple more to the tally today, and was as slow on the uptake at identifying what I was looking at as I had been then.

For all that the swifts were swarming over the pools and drains there weren't many hirundines about, just a couple of swallows and a house martin. Perhaps they were all over at the causeway pool. Looking at the train times and the big black cloud looming over the horizon I wasn't going to be going that way today. Reed buntings, reed warblers and greenfinches sang in the reedbeds. I was struck by how dry the ground was, the margins by the path were hard-baked mud despite the cool weather. I thought I could hear bearded tits but concluded it was wishful thinking and dried reed stems cracking in the breeze.

The main drain through Leighton Moss 

A chap walking back enthused about the good views he'd been having of bitterns at the Griesdale Hide so i headed that way first. It was heaving, standing room only, I didn't linger. A few red deer hinds grazing by the side of the hide were the highlight. A couple of rolls of thunder reminded me to watch the time for the last reliable train home of the afternoon.

Oystercatchers
The changing of the guard on the nest.

It was considerably calmer at the Tim Jackson Hide. Gadwalls dabbled and bathed, mallards and coots sat on nests and kept beady eyes on a heron stalking round. The oystercatchers were back on their usual nest stop the sand martin nest box, one feeding on the mud and one sitting, until the time came to swap places. My only marsh harrier of the day, a female, drifted over from the coastal hides and headed towards the Griesdale Hide.

Walking back through the reedbeds 

On the walk back I could definitely hear bearded tits. I wondered where they were then a female flew across the path right in front of me and disappeared into the reeds. A fleeting view but it's always gratifying to get a close encounter with them away from the grit trays.

The sparrows were still busy at Silverdale Station, as was a coal tit ferrying food to its nest. The wind suddenly blew up and the sky went black. It started heaving down a couple of minutes before the train arrived. I couldn't complain, I'd struck very lucky with the birdwatching.

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