Trip reports
MERESANDS WOOD AND MARSHSIDE
Saturday, 17 November 2007
On to the Marshall Hide, a good variety of duck, including 14 tufted. Pochard & teal were scattered around the mere, with a smart male goosander accompanied by two females glowing in the intermittent periods of sunshine. There were also three shelduck, shoveler male & female and a male pintail (photograph) with its conspicuous white neck stripe. Three cormorants hung about on an island together with a pair of scrounging jackdaws. As we walked along the path that runs along the boundary of the reserve we heard great spotted woodpecker calling, robins singing and the chattering of the wren. From the Redwing Hide we watched a party of coot with some moorhen and some members were fortunate in seeing a sparrowhawk carrying a prey item. Back on the path again, Tom found a treecreeper on a mature birch tree, some siskins and party of long-tailed tits. We also had great tits and the ringing call of nuthatches. The path took us across the Meadow where small finches, siskin & redpoll flew overhead. Also a great spotted woodpecker in undulating flight. Our last stop was the Lancaster Hide where we saw gadwall and had a really close view of a water rail just out of cover. By the Visitor Centre door 2 siskins and 3 goldfinches lit up by sunlight were feeding on the cone-like fruit/seeds of an alder, whilst a pair of pinkfeet passed overhead.
On to the RSPB Marshside reserve where we arrived to a nice surprise; an American green winged teal anas corolinensis was swimming in front of the Sandgrounders Hide in company with three common teal. This rare vagrant N American ssp has a plainer head, lacking most of the thin yellow lines of the common and having a vertical white line on the side of its breast (not horizontal along the body). A rather flighty little egret was about, it kept hiding, but eventually it settled and we had a good view of it. Also we noted mallard, pochard, coot & moorhen. A kestrel hunted the marsh and there was a rather threatening looking greater black-backed gull. There were some black-tailed godwit and a few golden plover, which flock in their hundreds on the marsh when the weather becomes harsher.