Birding Group Visit to Point of Ayr 12th February 2013

Birding Group Visit to Point of Ayr 12th February 2013

We planned this visit to coincide with a high tide (10 metres) and we thought that if we arrived at the viewing site by an hour bebore this we would be well in position to observe the tide come in. Unfortunately , even before we got to the new hide, it was clear that the tide was already a long way in. If I had read my notes for our previous visit there I would have noticed that you need to be there two hours before ! Oh well, I wasn’t the only one who thought an hour before would be good enough so we all learned a lesson. Be that as it may, it did not mean that we did not get some good sightings.

While the others were getting ready at the car park, I had walked up to the embankment already. I watched a bird fly over the marsh and as soon as I had got by bins on it I could see it land. It was a Crow and as it landed near another crow they both flushed what was clearly a ringtail Hen Harrier. It lifted up and flew across the marsh and over the path I was on before disappearing beyond the trees to the right. Unfortunately no one else saw this bird but I got such good views of it I was in no doubt about its identification.

As we walked along the embankment we spotted another bird perched in the distance but standing out clearly against the sea in the background. At first it looked like it was a Peregrine but after some discussion one of the group pointed out the small size of it and it became obvious that it was a Merlin – my second in a couple of weeks ! It remained perched for quite some time so we managed to get scopes on it and after reference to the field guide it was actually rather unmistakeable.

We continued along at a bit of a pace because we could see that the tide was coming in really quickly. We did manage to see that there were very Many Curlew roosting on a sandbank and Meadow Pipits and Skylarks were popping up over the marsh.

When we got to the hide the tide was already almost all the way in which was a shame but we made the best of it and we had good views of large numbers of Curlew and Oystercatcher and smaller numbers of Shelduck and Pintails. In the meanders of the marsh there were Redshanks including some juveniles with distinctly yellow legs.One of our group thought he had seen a Short-eared Owl among the Curlew and, indeed, something was getting them up but I didn’t manage to see it. There were also a fair number of Teal and lots of Gulls. As we sat there a flock of around twenty birds went past us and kept to-ing and fro-ing for quite at while. At first it was difficult to get a long enough view of them to give  a positive id but eventually they settled down on the beach and the consensus was that they were a small flock of Linnets.

On our way back along the embankment we also saw a Little Egret. We did take a quick walk on the other side where the sand dunes are and we did see a couple of Reed Buntings but we could not see anything new so the group decided to call it a day but they intended dropping off at Flint Castle on the way back. There is a short coastal walk there just next to the car park at the Castle so it is very convenient and can be usefully visited as the tide goes out. We had planned to visit friends on Prestatyn so we went off to do that but we also dropped in at Flint Castle on our way back later in the afternoon. When we got there we just had a short walk but the light was starting to fail and there didn’t seem to be much new to see that we had not already seen earlier in the day.

As often happens in these situations we had more or less decided to call it a day and take the short cut back down the main road to the car park and as we walked downhill to the carpark I could hear a high pitched and vaguely familiar series of notes. I looked in a tree, not in the trees in the grounds of Flint Castle, but on the opposite side of the road where there was a factory in grounds surrounded by high fencing. There was just one tree there and at the top were seven Waxwings settling down to roost for the evening ! A very nice parting shot and all the more pleasant because we were not looking for naything at that point and because it had been their contact sounds that had drawn our attention to them. It seems that we cannot help but see Waxwings this year !

Bird Sightings : Point of Ayr