January 2019 archive

A moderately high-ish tide of 9.06 metres at 12:25 pm took us up to the Wirral again. We were obviously going to be a bit early if we left at our usual 9am, so we left at 9.15 and thought it was worth trying New Brighton Marine Lake to see if we could find any Purple Sandpipers. The only problem with that was we were not sure if the tide would be enough for waders to be roosting on the pontoon.

We got there about 10:15 am and it was clear that even at that time the water was quite advanced there and, whilst not all the way up to the sea wall, it wasn’t too far from being in. In any case it was not too early for the waders to be roosting and we found large numbers of Redshank, Dunlin and Turnstones on the pontoon and, among them, three Purple Sandpipers.
After a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich, we moved on to Moels and it was about mid-day when we got there and the tide was well in there so we walked down the prom a bit and ended up at the lifeboat station. It seemed clear that the water was not going to be coming very far in there but it was enough to get reasonably good views of the usual waders – large numbers of Oystercatchers, good numbers of Dunlin and some Knot and Sanderling and even a Grey Plover. There were, of course Redshanks and the usual flotilla of Shelduck and numerous Cormorants.

It was clea that there were many other birds just at the water’s edge but the water wasn’t going to come in much further despite a big onshore wind.

We decided to go to Parkgate but stopped off at West Kirby Marine Lake to see if there was anything on the lake. It was very quiet though there were a few waders on the rocks and a few distant Brent Geese.

Down at Parkgate it seem that they had already had three Short-eared Owls but we had missed them. I did think I might have got a distant one but it was too far away to be sure. There were plenty of Marsh Harriers – now to common to attract much attention – and we got a Peregrine and a Kestrel as well. There were large numbers of Lapwing again and plenty of Pink-footed Geese but they were often invisible until a bird of prey came near and they all rose up out of the marsh as if from nowhere. We got a pair of Great Egrets as well as many Little Egrets.
We stayed for a while but no Owls showed for us so we headed off for Burton Mere Wetlands. We got the usual birds from the reception hide but the highlights were a first winter Mediterranean Gull (really quite obvious when pointed out to us!) and I got the most fleeting of glimpses of two Bearded Tits from the main screen where there isn’t usually much to be seen. This was a pretty good year tick already, especially as I didn’t see any last year, but, of course, I look forward to closer and longer views later in the year.

The day ended with some good year ticks among the expected ones and a total of fifty-one species seen.
This is likely to be our last birding day out before our Lanzarote Holiday where we can look forward to some quite different birds.

Bird Sightings : New Brighton Marine Lake : 8th January 2019

Bird Sightings : Hoylake : 8th January 2019

Bird Sightings : West Kirby Marine Lake : 8th January 2019

Bird Sightings : Parkgate : 8th January 2019

Bird Sightings : Burton Mere Wetlands – Reception Hide : 8th January 2019

Bird Sightings : Burton Mere Wetlands – Environs : 8th January 2019

Bird Sightings : Burton Mere Wetlands – Marsh Covert Hide : 8th January 2019