Birding Group Visit for High Tide on the Wirral 9th April 2024

We had a birding group visit to the Wirral scheduled for the high tide on the 9^th April but with a storm developing overnight and in full force during the day, most of the group decided to stay at home. Anne and I and three others in a car from Didsbury braved the weather, though, and hoped for the best.

There was to be a high tide of 10.2 metres at 12:19pm. We stopped off at Burton Mere Wetlands first where we found that the site was almost entirely closed. We were told that we could not go beyond the café due to flooding. The flooding, caused by an overnight storm, had turned the area in front of the reception hide into one long body of water from the bunker hide to the lake on the right of the reception hide. The flooding was to be typical of everywhere we went. We still managed some good birds, though, including hearing a Green Woodpecker close to the car park and getting the first House Martin of the year from the reception hide.

The Avocets seem to be arriving in big numbers this year and one of the staff told me that there had been at least 200 counted so far! We saw quite a few of them although, like many of the birds, they were hunkered down against the heavy rain and wind.

We moved on to Parkgate but the weather from the old baths car park was challenging and the road up from the Boathouse to the car park was already collecting large pools of water from the runoff from the fields. We were worried that they might get deep enough to strand us in the car park so we decided to go to Riverbank Road instead.

Even though it was still forty-five minutes before the high tide, the water was all the way in at Riverbank Road and the only roosting places for birds were in some of the more raised reed bed or on rafts of wrack. We did get Oystercatchers, Curlew and lots of Redshank but even these found finding a settling place challenging. In and around the reed beds we could see Linnet, Reed Bunting and Meadow Pipit.

It was blowing a gale and it wasn’t possible to use optics outside the car for long due to the rain so we decided to go back to Parkgate but to try to find a parking place on the promenade. As we drove down the promenade the water was all the way up to the sea wall and birds frantically tried to find a raft of wrack to settle on. Near the boathouse I got a quick view of a Water Rail rushing towards to Boathouse in search of safety.

We couldn’t park along the promenade so we decided to go into the Boathouse for lunch and see if we could get a window seat. A number of birders (?) had got there first so we had to have an inside table but we still managed to get good views from the doorway that leads to the outside seating area and even from inside the pub. In fact, I got even better views of the Water Rail from inside the pub and it ran around panicked. I saw a single vole scurrying around and rather hoped it managed to survive.

Around the Boathouse where the wrack was collecting we saw a Pink-footed Goose at close range and a – nearly as close – fly-by of a small group of Brent Geese. The wrack at the water’s edge was full of Redshanks – I estimated around 200 – all quite close to the shore. Smaller bids including Pied Wagtail and Reed Bunting were buzzing around.

All in all, it was an amazing day and we were glad we had defied the weather to see if we could manage to cope with the storm. Even though we were often restricted to viewing from the car or the pub we still managed to get good views of birds and, after all, any day that starts with a Green Woodpecker and ends with a Water Rail is a good day.

High Tide at Riverbank Road 9th April 2024

High Tide at Parkgate 9th April 2024

Bird Sightings : Burton Mere Wetlands 9th April 2024

Bird Sightings : Riverbank Road 9th April 2024

Bird Sightings : Parkgate 9th April 2024