RSPB Leighton Moss : 27th March 2015

RSPB Leighton Moss : 27th March 2015

After we left Sizergh we drove down to Leighton Moss RSPB reserve again, this time parking at the top of the causeway first and walking down to the public hide. The star attractions here were at least three Marsh Harriers and possibly more and a pair of Otters.

I say at least three because we saw three all together but I am sure there were more. High in the sky above we saw four Buzzards. The Coots seem to rule the water here and there were some Teal and a few Mute Swans. Amazingly there was only a single pair of Black-0headed Gulls here. In the past there have been hundreds. A pair of Great Black-backed Gulls shared the little island with a pair of Lapwing and a pair of Oystercatchers. So pretty quite but who can complain at Marsh Harriers and Otters.

We didn’t have time to go to the more distant hides so we just popped into Lillian’s Hide again where we got lovely views of (yet another) Marsh Harrier and managed to add Snipe to our list for the trip. Over at the same tree where I had had so much luck the previous day I also managed to add Willow Tit.

On our return to the visitor centre we stopped off at the feeding station to see how the Nuthatch was getting on with the bird box only to find that it was actually occupied by two Blue Tits. We could only conclude that the Nuthatch had fancied the box for himself and that explained the behavior of the previous day – it was trying to wreck the Blue Tits nest !

We wanted to beat the rush hour traffic which is always bad on a Friday so we headed off home. It was a pity not to get down to the sea hides because there is supposed to be a Spotted Redshank and a Greenshank there but that will have to wait for another time !

Bird Sightings : RSPB Leighton Moss : Public Hide

Bird Sightings : RSPB Leighton Moss : Lillian’s Hide

Bird Sightings : RSPB Leighton Moss : Environs