Birding Group Visit to RSPB Marshside : 31st March 2015

Birding Group Visit to RSPB Marshside : 31st March 2015

The last birding group day of the month – indeed of the term – was to RSPB Marshside. As usual it was blowing a gale so hard that it was hard not to get blown over. Although it wasn’t raining when we got out of the car, it didn’t take long before it started. Happily we were inside the Sandgrousers Hide by then. The weather was having a dramatic effect on the numbers of birds to be seen but we did at least get one year tick there.

Among the very numerous roosting Black-headed Gulls was a single pair of Mediterranean Gulls; they took a bit of picking out, however, as they were hunkered down against the wind as were all the birds. There were certainly lots of Canada and some Greylag Geese and Wigeon and Shelduck in good numbers but often they were just a head popping out above of the grass. It was too windy for raptors which is a shame because we had high hopes of Merlin. A lot of the birds, however, may have gone inland to avoid the icy blasts.

We braved these blasts ourselves and left the Sandgrouser’s Hide to take a walk around the “mound” opposite the hide area and on the other side of the road.A quick scan of the marsh revealed numbers of Canada Geese but also a small group of Pink-footed Geese further back. A Kestrel suddenly roost up in front of us and displayed well before disappearing over the road and landing somewhere on the other side.

This may have been our last chance to see the “mound” as they had some heavy plant removing the whole area which is a terrible shame because it had become a haven for migratory birds or just birds needing a bit of shelter. Ironically Natural England is removing this to return the area to its original condition. It seems that the mound was originally created from dredged sand and heaped there. The obligation of Natural England was to return the area to its original condition – i.e. flat marsh. There is plenty of flat marsh – in fact perhaps nothing but flat marsh – there so it is hard to see how removing this valuable bit of habitat will “improve” things for the birds. Anyway we returned across the road to Nel’s Hide.

At Nel’s Hide the first thing we saw was a lovely group of around sixty Avocets all closely packed together in a roost. THey had obviously found just the right depth of water to stand in and sleep. Over to the left of the hide there were very large numbers of Black-tailed Godwits and the more you looked along the edge of the water back where the houses are the more Godwits you could see. The same was true of Wigeon of which quite a few still remained.

We spotted a single Ruff and a few Common Redshanks, some Shoveler and Shelduck and a nice pair of Pintail. There were Tufted Ducks, of course, and Coot and Moorhen.

By far the highlight of this hide, though, was the nicely packed group of Avocet. Rain continued to blast through and during one of the lulls in the weather we decided to stop for lunch. We tried a local cafe but it was full so we ended up at the nearby The Hesketh Arms where all of us could settle round a big table and over lunch we planned the next birding group “term”. There were only eight of us so I am sure there will be some changes made to the provisional schedule we made up.

After that some people fancied going to Mere Sands Wood Reserve but as we were leaving the rain started to chuck it down again so we didn’t bother and I think the others would have thought twice about it as well.

That was it for the last day of the term. A couple of weeks off and then we will be back at it. Or rather, they will be back at it because we are going to Port de Pollenca in Mallorca for two weeks of birding (and some other things) there so we will miss the first couple of weeks.

Bird Sightings : RSPB Marshside