Tour of Lancashire, 21-25th September 2011

This is a long one!

Our journey up North was uneventful apart from a closure of the M5 which sent us on a round the houses trip around Worcestershire. Undaunted, we arrived at Mere Sands Wood near Rufford at lunchtime in the hope of seeing some tree sparrows as they’re rare where we’re from and were missing from my year list. We asked in the visitor centre where the best spot might be and I think the warden was a bit amused to be asked about sparrows! He suggested the feeders at the picnic area and so we sat patiently and ate our sandwiches despite the close attentions of the resident cat. Who knew cats ate lemon cake? No sparrows, but a nice pair of bullfinches and several tits (blue, great and coal), a couple of robins and three dunnocks (well there would be, wouldn’t there?)

A little disappointed we went for a trudge around the woods, and saw very little, until my mood was brightened considerably by a stoat, at close range who somehow hadn’t noticed us! He soon did, and off he ran! We spent some time in the hides, mostly the reliable Rufford hide, but weren’t to be rewarded with a kingfisher, and other than some more of the same at the feeding station, we didn’t see a great deal. As we approached the visitor centre again I thought I’d duck in and check the feeders again, and the first bird I saw was a tree sparrow! Happy, we logged our stoat sighting with the staff and moved on.

Our next stop was Hesketh Out Marsh, where we drew a complete blank, and as time and tide was against us, we quickly made the decision to move on to RSPB Marshside, where we saw an unfamiliar gull from Nel’s hide which I initially took to be a ring-billed but eventually settled for a common gull (which it was!). We also saw our first ever pink-footed geese and our first large groups of wigeon and teal of the autumn with a few shovelers amongst them, a lot of black-tailed godwits and a few lapwing. From Sandgrounder’s hide we saw more of the same, a load more geese come in, a little grebe and a couple of snipe.

On arriving in Morecambe we initially headed to Heysham and got thoroughly confused by our Where to Watch Birds book (not for the first time!) and ended up nearly queuing to board the Isle of Man ferry. We had a short walk along the shore and a small dark bird that caught me unaware might well have been a storm-petrel sp. of some sort. Eventually, we found the nature reserve/bird observatory, but although the gate was open the advertised closing time was 6 o’clock and we were past that so we put it off for another day.

Thursday dawned with a short visit to Hest Bank but again the tide was against us so we quickly moved on and took the tidal causeway to Sunderland Point (via Lancaster for breakfast) which was a great experience (its exactly like a mini Lindisfarne!). Not a great variety of birds, but loads and loads of redshank, a single dunlin, a couple that might have been knot, and several curlews. We walked around the point, and visited Sambo’s grave, and then headed back to the mainland! On the way, we twice stopped the car, firstly to identify a big flock of linnets, and secondly to identify an odd looking wader which turned out to be a juvenile redshank (its pinkish bill and lack of legs was troubling me, but the book told me it what it was at the exact same time that it got out of the water and showed us its legs).

From here we drove back down the M6 to Brockholes near Preston. In a word, it was disappointing. The famous lake village struck me as a bit pointless, they have plenty of higher ground they could’ve built on and they have to shut when it floods anyway because the access road is cut off! We joined a guided walk but to be honest I soon wished we hadn’t. The guide was very nice and knew his local history and geography, but he wasn’t much of a birder and we spent a lot of time looking for things on our own. We got brief views of a kingfisher (perched, would you believe against a plastic blue background rendering it mostly invisible), but other than that the best birds on the reserve were another linnet flock, a kestrel having a scrap with two magpies, a great crested grebe and once we’d left the guided walk, a tufted duck, gadwall and little grebe. The reserve itself seems very immature, which is fair enough as it is brand new, but is already beset by vandalism (all of the hides have been got at and one has been burned to the floor already) and I cant help thinking the place needs a bit of help.

We returned to Morecambe and returned to Hest Bank; the tide was coming in, and a walk along the beach produced lots more redshank, some curlew, a flock of small waders that were mostly dunlin and a few ringed plovers, some distant shelduck, all the commonest gull species, a couple of terns and a mystery duck which by a process of elimination could only be an eclipse eider (I checked it in the book later on, and it was.) We then had to wait an eternity for the level crossing to open, as a nuclear train was about to come through!

Friday morning began with an early visit to Heysham bird observatory where were shown a crimson underwing moth, then had a short walk around the reserve which produced nothing much more than loads of robins, and a kestrel. We then headed to the area behind the nuclear power station, and immediately saw a kingfisher fishing the rock pools! I’d never seen them do this before and was delighted. A walk along the seawall produced more redshank and curlew, various gulls (one might have been a me gull but I’m not certain), shelduck and we spent a great few minutes watching four arctic terns (an adult and three juveniles) fishing in the outflow from the power station! Continuing on, we saw a single turnstone and more assorted gulls.

We then swapped birding for walking and headed through the scenic Trough of Bowland for a 7.5 mile walk in the area famous for the Pendle witches. Very hilly and very muddy, with the notable birds spotted being three grey wagtails, several meadow pipits and lots of goldfinches.

Saturday morning dawned with the Forum Outing to Leighton Moss, where we had a great time but has been covered elsewhere (by Alan's great blog which I can confirm is accurate!), and so I will move on to describe Bristol Rovers magnificent 3-2 away win at table-topping Morecambe in detail…only joking but it made a great day even better!

After the game, and on a whim based on Devonsue’s suggestion to Peter earlier in the week, we headed for Glasson Dock not knowing what to expect. As we approached the village, we noticed a group of birders by the side of the road with all their scopes trained in a specific direction. To be honest, my mind wasn’t really focussed on birdwatching after the days excitement and so we got out of the car intending to go for a short walk without the binoculars. That soon changed when we saw the immense flock of waders twirling in the estuary. One half were clearly lapwing, but the others were smaller. As I watched them alternate between yellowy and white, as they twisted and turned in the air I realised I was looking at a massive flock of golden plovers which was confirmed when first my binoculars were produced from the car, and then once I had the scope set up and the birds had settled back on the ground I picked out what I think was a single grey plover amongst them, and also a fine golden plover still in the majority of its summer plumage.

Emboldened by this, I wandered down the road to casually ask what the others were looking at, and they very kindly showed me a lesser yellowlegs (my second of the year!) through their scopes! It was in the company of two snipes, all showing well in the one view! There were also lots of gulls and herons around.

So all in all Saturday was a pretty good day.

Today, we went into Lancaster and visited the castle (fascinating tour although it will be better if or when they open up the prison to visitors now that it has shut down), and then we headed to Wigan Flashes on our way home. Our book promised us a lovely wetland home to a variety of birds and habitats but to be honest, it felt more like a very local reserve full of kids and dog walkers. We didn’t stay long, the best bird we saw being mallards and instead headed to nearby Pennington Flash.

Much better here, our first bird was a great spotted woodpecker, but our target bird was willow tit, and apparently they are regular at the Bunting Hide feeding station, according to another of my books. We made our way to it, and found the busiest feeding station I have ever seen! The first bird I saw was probably a willow tit, but it was soon off, leaving us to enjoy the masses of chaffinches, greenfinches, bullfinches (at least three), great tits, blue tits, coal tits, and dunnocks, as well as the comical attempts of the magpies and a grey squirrel to obtain food from the feeders through the cages designed to prevent them doing exactly that! The willow tit came and went several times, but eventually I got good enough views to see the differences from the marsh tits seen yesterday at Leighton Moss, these being the scruffier appearance, the thick neck, the more extensive black bib and the fact that the cap extends down the back of the birds head as if it has longer hair! Despite my careful inspection, I couldn’t see the pale panel on the wing but I am in no doubt as to the identity of the bird, which is a lifer for me, due to its location which is famous for willow tit and the fact there was a picture of presumably the same bird stuck to the wall of the hide which also didn’t show the wing panel.

All in all, a great few days away which takes my year list to 196 with only two lifers but provided great views of birds that I’ve previously only had very sketchy ones of, specifically arctic tern and bearded tit, and the opportunity to compare ‘shanks’ at such close range won’t be forgotten in a hurry, and nor will the golden plovers!

Thanks for reading