A winter plumage black-tailed godwit.
We left a still cool and cloudy Mere Sands Wood and headed to the coast a couple of miles to the west. This is more familiar territory - I've walked the Ribble Estuary salt marshes before, albeit always on the northern side. Just north of Southport (but on the southern bank of the river) is a huge expanse of open ground, forming RSPB Marshside. On the landward side of the coast road are a couple of massive stretches of (I guess fresh)water and grass, while on the other are marine mudflats, sandbanks, and apparently some dunes.
Wigeon are such cuties. This is a male...
But the females are lovely too, many subtle shades of brown.
Straight away my companion spotted some pintails far off, and there was a massive flock of roosting waders, but they were so distant as to be unidentifiable, even in photographs (though judging by size and colour, I'd say they were mostly godwits). We walked down to the main (only?) hide, which was positively luxurious, staffed, and full of visitors with serious-looking scopes and cameras. By this point the sun was out and the light perfect, and out of the wind it was pretty mild. Immediately in front of the hide a lot of birds were feeding, with wigeon, teal, and the odd black-tailed godwit coming especially close, and further off linnet, curlew, and gulls - with a massive flock of golden plover a few hundred metres away.
Sleekness or plumpness are often misleading identifiers in bird photographs. This is the same curlew - looking svelte...
...and dumpy with almost no neck, simply by virtue of having puffed up its feathers.
After taking some photographs, we went back out and followed the road. It's raised up above the marshes, so we had good views across and down, and saw more species - lots of pink-footed geese, some little egrets, pintail closer-to, and at last something new to me - a stonechat. She flushed as we walked along, but only to the nearest low hawthorn, and although partially obscured by twigs, I got photographs good enough for ID. I left satisfied.
Just part of one of the flocks of geese.
A closer crop reveals some diagnostic criteria (though where I live, all big flocks of geese seem to be pink-footed). Note the brown heads, and pink beaks with dark bases and tips. And pinkish feet, of course.
Once again, many thanks to David M for taking me along, and all his helpful and interesting advice and information. This is his take on the day.
A little egret in flight. A similar shot proved popular on Flickr, getting over 11,000 views in a week.
Part of a flock of hundreds of golden plover, taking flight due to a hunting great black-backed gull. Mixed in are lots of starlings, and there were some more godwits and a few lapwings, too.
A male pintail. It was in a pool by the road, affording unusually good views.
No comments:
Post a Comment