New Brighton Marine Lake 20th January 2015

New Brighton Marine Lake 20th January 2015

Our birding group day out on the Wirral had started at Hoylake for the high tide. After we had seen what we could see there we moved on to New Brighton. I had seen Purple Sandpipers there on the 23rd December and got some nice video which the birding group had seen. Quite a few of the group had not seen this bird in the flesh so we thought we would try our luck.

As it happened, when we arrived there the pontoon was substantially empty with just a smattering of Redshank and Turnstones. We were a bit disappointed so we decided to go to the Caffe Cream of New Brighton for a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea hoping that some birds would arrive while we sat there in the warm. This is, in fact, what happened as eventually one of our group thought they saw a darker bird or two. Further inspection revealed that there were, in fact, two Purple Sandpipers newly arrived there but before we could get our scopes up something spooked them and they were all off leaving the pontoon deserted except for a few Herring Gulls. This was very disappointing for some people, particularly Anne, who didn’t quite catch them.

We decided to take a bit of a walk along the sea wall. The tide wasn’t as much as we had expected and there were still some rocks exposed. Some of the Turnstones had flown there and others were roosting on a little ledge half way up the seaward side of the sea wall. No sign of the Purple Sandpipers, however.

We got talking to a local who told us that if we walked along the sea wall away from the marine lake and the fort we would eventually get to a “raised bit in the pavement” and if we leaned over this wall at this spot at low tide we could probably see the Purple Sandpipers there. This was a very useful bit of information but not one we had time to pursue this day. I filed it for later as something to examine on a later occasion.

When we did next return it was high tide so not really when we would find them there but since we had to park a long way down the prom from the Marine Lake we tried to locate the likely spot. In fact there are several  “raised ramps”  along the promenade that act as walkways from the car parking to the pedestrian promenade and I think that this was what the chap was referring to. On another occasion it would be worth checking the first few of these. He indicated that it wasn’t too far from the Marine Lake so perhaps check out the first three.

Bird Sightings : New Brighton Marine Lake