Birding Group Visit to RSPB Leighton Moss 9-10 Oct 2025
The first birding group outing of October was to RSPB Leighton Moss and, in a break from tradition, it was on a Thursday. This was chosen over the usual Tuesday was because the high tide would be at 1:15pm rather than 11:15am which would fit it better with us because we normally want to spend the fist couple of hours at the main reserve looking for Bearded Tits before going down to the sea hides. Changing to Thursday meant that we could do the main reserve and then get down to the sea hides in good time for the tide coming in which would allow most of us to return home about 3pm which is a good time with respect to traffic etc. The high tide was due to be a 10 metres at 1:15pm
It didn’t quite work out as expected, however, as only two other people came to join us, the others having various reasons for not turning up despite thinking it was a good idea during our last planning session. Be that as it may, our small group had a good day of it one way and another.
We had a quick cup of tea before heading down to the Causeway to see if there were any Bearded Tits on the grit trays; the sightings book had suggested that there were good numbers around, but they were mostly seen around 8:45am. By the time we got down there, it was more like 11am and we didn’t manage to see any at those grit trays. We went to the hide where the water level, like the rest of the site, was very high. There was a single Snipe asleep off to the side and mainly it was Coots and a few Mallards. We headed back to the Lilias hide but apart from good numbers of Coots and Gadwall.
We continued on to the grit trays at the Grisedale Hide and were very lucky to immediately see a male and a female Bearded Tit on one of the grit trays. They stayed there for just enough time for me to get good, scoped views before they were off again. At the Grisedale hide we got a Marsh Harrier but, again, there were mainly Coots and Gadwall.
Back at the feeders near the main building we got good – if sporadic – views of Marsh Tit and lots of Coal Tits and a Goldfinch, Robin, Chaffinch, Great and Blue Tits. But then it was time to head off to the sea hides.
At the sea hides we were amazed to fin that the sea was really close in, and the water was very high – too high for waders which were all squeezed onto a few strips of land. Along the edge of the water there were hundreds of Oystercatchers lined up in typical fashion and good numbers of Cormorants. It took a bit of time to get one’s eye in but when you did large numbers of other birds became evident among the long grass. There were good numbers of Black-tailed Godwits and Redshanks. On the water there was a brief showing of a couple of Red-breasted Mergansers – another good year tick and, somewhat hard to believe, a Snipe was also a year tick! A flock of Starlings took to the air occasionally but most of the birds were laying low in the grass and the water was just too high for waders.
When we were sure we had seen what there was to be seen we had a drive around Arnside before heading to the Silverdale Hotel where we were staying the night. It turned out to be reasonably OK and the food wasn’t bad. The room was small, but we have stayed in worse.
After breakfast on the next morning, we returned to the reserve and went straight down to the Grisdale Hide grit trays, but we didn’t have any luck with any more Bearded Tits; we had obviously exhausted our luck with the two-minute sighting of the day before. We got good views of Marsh Tit back at the feeders and added Nuthatch to the feeder station list of bird sightings, but our main hope was to get to the sea hides to see if it was any better earlier in the day. The high tide time on Friday was due to be 2pm but we were there about 11:30 and there were waders in the water quite close to the hide. A long line of Redshanks clustered along a narrow strip of land in the water featured a single Spotted Redshank and two Curlew Sandpipers. We had seen Spotted Redshank quite recently but the Curlew Sandpapers were a year tick along with the pair of Greenshank that we had already seen from the first hide but they were very visible from the Eric Morecambe hide as well.
The water was quite high but there were more birds in the water including hundreds of Black-tailed Godwits and more Redshanks. There were good a number of Lapwings and Starlings occasionally rising in a flutter for no obvious reason. There were Shovelers and Teal and on another strip of land there were some Wigeon. We watched a Marsh Harrier being mobbed by some Crows for a long time and it looked rather like the Marsh Harrier was enjoying the contest rather trying to fight them off or fly away from them.
So, our overnight stay that allowed us two shots at RSPB Leighton Moss had given us 45 species in all including 6 year ticks were
- Bearded Tit
- Marsh Tit
- Red-breasted Merganser
- Common Snipe
- Curlew Sandpiper
- Greenshank
Bird Sightings : Nerja, Spain June 2025
| No | Species |
|---|---|
| 1 | Bearded Tit |
| 2 | Black-headed Gull |
| 3 | Black-tailed Godwit |
| 4 | Blue Tit |
| 5 | Carrion Crow |
| 6 | Cetti’s Warbler |
| 7 | Chaffinch |
| 8 | Coal Tit |
| 9 | Coot |
| 10 | Cormorant |
| 11 | Curlew |
| 12 | Curlew Sandpiper |
| 13 | Dunnock |
| 14 | Gadwall |
| 15 | Goldfinch |
| 16 | Great Black-backed Gull |
| 17 | Great Tit |
| 18 | Great White Egret |
| 19 | Greenshank |
| 20 | Grey Heron |
| 21 | Greylag Goose |
| 22 | Lapwing |
| 23 | Little Egret |
| 24 | Magpie |
| 25 | Mallard |
| 26 | Marsh Harrier |
| 27 | Marsh Tit |
| 28 | Mute Swan |
| 29 | Nuthatch |
| 30 | Oystercatcher |
| 31 | Pheasant |
| 32 | Red-breasted Merganser |
| 33 | Redshank |
| 34 | Robin |
| 35 | Rook |
| 36 | Shelduck |
| 37 | Shoveler |
| 38 | Snipe |
| 39 | Spotted Redshank |
| 40 | Starling |
| 41 | Stonechat |
| 42 | Teal |
| 43 | Tufted Duck |
| 44 | Wigeon |
| 45 | Wren |