A week at Banks Marsh

Photo: Richardson's cackling goose,
Banks Marsh.

I've spent much of the past week in between jobs at Banks marsh near Southport. It's always an awesome experience and this week has been especially so with stormy and wet low pressure weather systems sweeping in from the west. Sometimes it's been difficult enough to stand up let alone look at birds through the optics, while at other times it's been painful and tiring, battling forwards against strong winds and ferocious hail showers. The weather though is exhilarating and fits the scenery perfectly, vast landscapes and vast skyscapes, these are the kind of views to feed the soul, is there a wilder habitat anywhere in the UK?

The marsh is full of birds, wildfowl, waders, passerines and raptors. Huge flocks of wigeon and teal feed on the saltmarsh, where the commonest waders are curlew, redshank, dunlin, oystercatchers and lapwings, but there are also flocks of golden plover and when a high tide drives them in, knot and grey plover. Passerines include flocks of starlings, skylarks and meadow pipits.

These birds get little peace from a selection of raptors including merlin, peregrine, hen harrier and short-eared owl, and often the whole flock flies up and swirls around, the enigmatic whistles of the wigeon filling the air. 

There are thousands of pink-footed geese on the marsh but they are spread out over large distances and picking out anything different can be a challenge. This week with the flocks there have been Todd's Canada, snow goose and the star attraction, a Richardson's cackling goose, but none are easy to see. Today I spent five hours walking back and too along the sea wall, scanning the salt marsh on one side and the farmland on the other yet only at the end of the day did I eventually catch up with the cackler, and had no sighting at all of the other two rarities. 

Fortunately about half way between Crossens pumping station and Old Hollow Farm I met a birder who had just relocated the cackler and he got me onto it straight away. It was distant, the photo above was taken on 45x scope, 3x phone and then cropped, so goodness knows what that makes it. Probably about 200x magnification. The bird was over 1km distant and by the time I saw it at 14:45 the light was rapidly fading. Still, a great bird and one I hope to see a bit closer in the coming days. I've seen several Richardson's cackling geese over the years, but this bird has the best credentials of all to be a wild bird. I have seen wild cackling goose previously on Islay and at Caerlaverock, but these were all Ridgeway's cackling goose minima.

There are also about 300 Canada geese on the marsh but they are usually way out and the Todd's Canada and the cackling goose don't associate with them, they stick with the pink-foots. The Todd's is a very dark bird and slightly larger than the pinkies but smaller than the regular Canada's, whereas the cackler is paler and smaller than the pinks.

As I walked along the sea wall I came across this hunting short-eared owl. In the background you can see the wigeon going up.

There are about eight barnacle geese with the flocks. Wild barnacles from the Solway are known to occasionally attach themselves to flocks of pink-footed geese and move south with them to visit Lancashire, so I have no hesitation in calling these wild birds, because they certainly weren't here in the summer. I've even seen Svalbard ringed birds with these flocks in the past.

Pink-footed geese.

Wigeon.

At the start of the week there were some very high tides which pushed many birds off the marsh.