It was lashing it down as I approached Windle Island just after lunchtime
today. If I hadn't already arranged to meet Ray in Dairy Farm Road I might
even have turned back for home there and then. But I had arranged to meet him
so I just carried on, but not particularly convinced that we were going to be
able to do much.
However, the rain had almost stopped when I reached my destination and we
hadn't been out of the car two minutes before we heard a quail calling in the
field to the south of the road, and right alongside the footpath that leads to
Inglenook Farm. Presumably one of the birds that was at the junction with the
Old Coach Road a couple of weeks ago.
While were listening to the quail a quick scan of the now ploughed
ex-sunflower field revealed two breeding plumage adult Mediterranean gulls in
amongst about 80 large gulls, mainly lesser black-backs but also a few herring
gulls. There were also a large number of corvids in the field, with around 350
rooks and 50 jackdaws. Suddenly a red kite appeared over a woodland to the
south of Inglenook Farm and soared around for a bit with a couple of
buzzards.
We hadn't been here more than 10 minutes, but the rain from earlier was now a
distant memory.
We walked down Dairy Farm Road and then along the Old Coach Road to Clare's
Moss where a juvenile marsh harrier got up from the field and started hunting
briefly before dropping down again. Nearby we found a distant little owl.
Not a bad couple of hours walking through farmland in St Helens!
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