Started off calm at Marshside but wet, then a raging hooley picked up _ force 5-6 SWly so I tried a few wader shots from the hides.
The blackwits are coming into full summer plumage now, as were a flock of Golden Plover. Bazzo and I also had two Greenshanks and a Little Stint on Marshside Two, from the Sandgrounders Hide.
Plenty of Swallows low down, and three singing Reed Warblers in the SSSI ditch. Some nice Ruffs lekking on Marshside One, but I couldn't see yesterday's Green Winged Teal.
At least two Common Sandpipers and five White Wags, singing Whitethroat (4), Willow Warbler (3) and Greenland Wheatears (3) on Marshside Two, but otherwise quiet (unless you count the dicey Barnacle Geese and a flyover male Peregrine.
We drove over to Martin Mere, where there was a VERY distant Wood Sandpiper from the Millers Bridge Hide (a fairly early date) and a few Swifts, but no sign of the pair of Garganey, or the two Tawny Owls that roost in the tree just past Gladstone Hide (but it was bloody windy).
At least this Pheasant was more obliging, croaking away by the path _ nice plumage when close up!
That's all for now...
Eyes to the skies everybody, eyes to the skies...
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It was indeed breezy at Marshside, but not THAT quiet ... a male whinchat just south of the sandworks, huge clouds of knot and dunlin at high tide with the odd red knot and sanderling ... and a male garganey from Sandgrounders in the late pm!
Very pleased to have found your blog; I'm a Marshside nationalist (it's in Merseyside, don't you know, not Lancashire)
Welcome aboard SiG....looks like I left the marsh too early on Monday!
Marshside is certainly in Merseyside, but the Lancashire recording area (as covered by the annual Lancashire Bird Report)has included North Merseyside ever since the local government boundary changes of 1974 which took the Southport area out of 'old' Lancashire. It's therefore understandable that almost all local birders view Marshside/Crossens records (as well as those from Formby Point, Crosby etc) as belonging on their Lancashire List
Thanks for that Barry; having been born in Liverpool, Lancs in the 1960s I'm aware of the background and it was a glib comment. It's become something of a personal bugbear, though, that newcomers to the interest (of which I am one), visitors and youngsters in particular find it hard to contextualise the location and brilliance of "the Sefton Coast" from literature and publications. I was pleased to see that Birdwatching magazine now includes Marshide and other relevant sites under the heading of "Lancashire and North Merseyside" - being the defined region of the superb breeding atlas to which, if I recall, you contributed so much.