I made a repeat trip to this excellent bird reserve located in Silverdale in the district of Cumbria. The reason: haven't gone for birding in a long, long time and wanted to do it as I was missing it sorely.
The repeat visit came on a weekend that the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) had announced as the Annual Garden Bird Counting weekend. The aim of this was to watch birds that visited one's garden for an hour and to record all the birds that visited the garden during that hour. I realised early on that this would not work for me as I live in hospital quarters, and there isn't much of a garden there.
Hence, I decided to go back to his lovely reserve at Silverdale. Silverdale is located north of Lancaster. It is a small town, and is advertised as the best location for a quiet holiday by the authortities themselves. Just five minutes walk from the station is the Leighton Moss Nature Reserve. It is owned and maintained by the RSPB. There is no entrance fee. As you enter, you are into their visitor centre which also has a display of the best ornithological books on sale, a mix of other kinds of merchandise including tee-shirts, cups, etc. and a row of sales counters. Just behind is a staircase that takes one up to their cafe. To the right of the sales counters, one goes past the sales items to a door that opens out on the back of the building and directly on the reserve area.
Here, one can stroll to their main show area with a canopy from under which you can see and photograph garden birds that stroll the grounds (such as pheasants and dunnocks) or that alight on the feeders to eat the delicious bird food left there by the reserve volunteers (such as tits, robins, chaffinces, redpolls, finches, blackbirds, and even doves and the wood pigeon). Once you are done taking these photos, you have the option to walk to any one of the five different bird hides spread out over the grounds.
In the event, I visited all five. While the first one is located a very short distance away, there are hides that are upto 2 km away. I had great fun observing birds that wade or swim in the various water-bodies, as well as those that fly here and there. I saw various kinds of these water-birds today. But, most of all, I saw my first bittern today from the Lower Hide (the one that is farthest from the visitor centre).
Not surprisingly, there were a fair number of casual and more dedicated visitors. Many, like me, were birder-photographers, and some had cameras far more advanced than mine and lenses that looked oh-so-mighty. Some even had telescopic viewers. I did chat a bit with some of them, and learned that they were into serious birding only since the last several years (like me, too).
After my birding, I visited the cafe for lunch. They routinely give a 10% discount to guests who visit the centre by public transport or on bikes. I used that to get a dicount. I had a vegetarian quiche, (as the kitchen had run out of chicken-based items) that tasted quite delicious.
Here are some pictures that I took:
I returned home again via train. The journey was as unexciting as the journey I had undertaken TO the reserve in the morning. The only note of interest might be the fact that since the past two weekends, and for the next 6-8 weekends, train services from Blackpool North to Preston do not run and are replaced by BUS services. This is because the railways are carrying out repairs and renovation work between these two stations. While the buses are luxury buses, it does take nearly an hour to travel by a bus as conpared to a train journey which takes only 28-30 minutes.
The repeat visit came on a weekend that the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) had announced as the Annual Garden Bird Counting weekend. The aim of this was to watch birds that visited one's garden for an hour and to record all the birds that visited the garden during that hour. I realised early on that this would not work for me as I live in hospital quarters, and there isn't much of a garden there.
Hence, I decided to go back to his lovely reserve at Silverdale. Silverdale is located north of Lancaster. It is a small town, and is advertised as the best location for a quiet holiday by the authortities themselves. Just five minutes walk from the station is the Leighton Moss Nature Reserve. It is owned and maintained by the RSPB. There is no entrance fee. As you enter, you are into their visitor centre which also has a display of the best ornithological books on sale, a mix of other kinds of merchandise including tee-shirts, cups, etc. and a row of sales counters. Just behind is a staircase that takes one up to their cafe. To the right of the sales counters, one goes past the sales items to a door that opens out on the back of the building and directly on the reserve area.
Here, one can stroll to their main show area with a canopy from under which you can see and photograph garden birds that stroll the grounds (such as pheasants and dunnocks) or that alight on the feeders to eat the delicious bird food left there by the reserve volunteers (such as tits, robins, chaffinces, redpolls, finches, blackbirds, and even doves and the wood pigeon). Once you are done taking these photos, you have the option to walk to any one of the five different bird hides spread out over the grounds.
In the event, I visited all five. While the first one is located a very short distance away, there are hides that are upto 2 km away. I had great fun observing birds that wade or swim in the various water-bodies, as well as those that fly here and there. I saw various kinds of these water-birds today. But, most of all, I saw my first bittern today from the Lower Hide (the one that is farthest from the visitor centre).
Not surprisingly, there were a fair number of casual and more dedicated visitors. Many, like me, were birder-photographers, and some had cameras far more advanced than mine and lenses that looked oh-so-mighty. Some even had telescopic viewers. I did chat a bit with some of them, and learned that they were into serious birding only since the last several years (like me, too).
After my birding, I visited the cafe for lunch. They routinely give a 10% discount to guests who visit the centre by public transport or on bikes. I used that to get a dicount. I had a vegetarian quiche, (as the kitchen had run out of chicken-based items) that tasted quite delicious.
Here are some pictures that I took:
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| Male pheasant |
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| Male Chaffinch |
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| Male Mallard duck |
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| Female pheasant |
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| Nuthatch |
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| Female Blackbird |
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| Great Tit |
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| Brown squirrel eating up the bird grain |
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| Egret with fish in its bill |
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| Teals |
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| Teals again |
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| Marsh harrier, record shot |
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| Blue Tit |
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| Robin |
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| Female Blackbird |
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| Grazing cow on the reserve |
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| Cormorants |
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| Pintail (centre) |
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| The entrance to the lower hide |
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| Cormorant drying its wings |
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| My attire on this day |
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| Watch tower built from Heritage Lottery Fund |
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| The Quiche I had for lunch |
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