Mere Sands Wood & RSPB Marshside

Bit tardy posting this - I went a bit HDR-crazy on this trip and it's taken me a while to find time to process all the photos!

Last Sunday I was off with the West Midland Bird Club again for our monthly trip. This time we were heading to Lancashire to visit two places new to the Club - Mere Sands Wood and RSPB Marshside.

Mere Sands Wood was first up but before we'd even got there the day was off to a great start with a hunting Barn Owl spotted from the coach en route, hurrah! Upon arrival we first inspected the feeders outside the visitor centre where we found a fairly standard line-up of the usual suspects; this included a nice Nuthatch. We then set off around the reserve which consists of woodland of varying ages surrounding a few lakes; from the hides overlooking the lakes we found various waterfowl including Goosander, Shoveler, Pochard, Great Crested Grebe and plenty of Teal, as well as a Kingfisher nice and close! In the woodland we found quite a few mixed feeding flocks of Goldcrests, Blue, Great and Long-tailed Tits; myself and a few others also saw a shy Treecreeper. There were also other woodland birds aplenty including Great Spotted Woodpecker, Jay, Mistle Thrush and Redwing. Towards the end of the route as we approached the visitor centre again we also found Bullfinch and Siskin in the treetops, and back at the feeders the cast had expanded to include Coal Tit and three lovely Tree Sparrows. I was well pleased with these as it was a year tick....nice to still have my year list expanding at this late stage!

Mere Sands Wood (HDR).

Mere Sands Wood (HDR).

Mere Sands Wood (HDR).

Mere Sands Wood (HDR).

Mere Sands Wood (HDR).

Mere Sands Wood (HDR).

Mere Sands Wood (HDR).

Mere Sands Wood (HDR).

Mere Sands Wood (HDR).

Next we trundled over to RSPB Marshside; before we'd even got off the coach I'd already spotted a couple of Snipe flying over! The reserve looked very promising with its expanses of marshland peppered with waders and waterfowl; we decided to walk a clockwise circuit down Marshside Road, past the golf course then back towards the saltmarsh and along Marine Drive. We were soon enjoying hundreds of Wigeon, Teal, Black-tailed Godwit, Pink-footed Goose, Lapwing, along with smaller numbers of Grey Plover, Redshank, Golden Plover, Curlew and Snipe. We also saw Lesser and Great Black-backed Gulls helpfully in close proximity to aid comparison, and a couple of Meadow Pipits and Pied Wagtails. The most exciting moment came when we bumped into some other members of our group who had seen a Ross's Goose from the visitor centre.....I tried to dredge up what I could remember about Ross's Goose (North American, white, small and cute like a Barnacle Goose!). We hot-footed it over there and were soon enjoying the goose for ourselves. The RSPB volunteer working in the visitor centre told us it had visited the previous winter too, and that although it was most likely to be an escapee from a collection rather than the genuine article, they couldn't say for sure. It mainly associated with Mallards which suggested an originally more domesticated setting, but didn't have a ring or any other identifying marker to indicate a captive origin. Anyway it was indeed a cute little chap regardless of its origin.

Distant Ross's Goose.

Flock of Black-tailed Godwits.

RSPB Marshside (HDR).

RSPB Marshside (HDR).

RSPB Marshside (HDR).

We ended our day as the sun set watching over the saltmarsh for any signs of hunting owls or raptors; unfortunately we didn't see any but didn't mind too much having already had a fairly splendid day.

Saltmarsh (HDR).

Sunset over the marsh (HDR).

Sunset over the marsh (HDR).