High Tide at Riverbank Road, Heswall 24th January 2015

High Tide at Riverbank Road, Heswall 24th January 2015

This was a ranger-led high-tide watch. The tide was 9.9 metres at 1.46pm and the meeting time was 11.30am. We got there in plenty of time after being at Shotwick Lane first. It was a sedentary affair with a row of people lined up on the edge of the car park that fronts the marsh. It is a good elevated position and in one direction you can see the marsh at Parkgate and on the other side you can see the boat yard by the Sheldrake Restaurant and further on to Thurstaston. We stood here and waited for what the tide would bring; it brought at least one huge surprise and a nice year tick.

At first there were just Teal and Redshank in the little pools in the marsh. Out first interesting sighting was a single  Spotted Redshank among the Commons. Out on the marsh there were two Peregrines perched on posts and later a Merlin on another. We were lucky to be watching the Merlin when it took off after a flock of birds but we lost it in the melee – perhaps it caught something and hunkered down to eat it.

A large number of Curlew were also spread evenly across the marsh and out at the edge of the sea it was possible to see large nubers of Geese and Oystercatchers. A pool a little nearer attracted Shelduck as it grew on the incoming tide. In the end the tide came in quite a long way and whilst it was not a “spectacular” there were still nice displays of Knot out at the edge of the sea and the marsh was fulll of Meadoe Pipit, Skylarks and Linnets. There were flocks of Lapwing and large numbers of Gulls. Unfortunately there were no Short-eared Owls but we got nice views of Buzzard and, particularly, Kestrel at extremely close distance.By far the most amazing thing (no one had seen it before or even heard of it) was the appearance of a Red-throated Diver about 100 yards from the car park. You didn’t even need bins to see exactly what it was. We watched it sail past along a gutter in the marsh for three or four minutes. Several people got photos of it (not me though I didn’t have my camera with me)I don’t know how deep the water was but it managed to find enough depth to dive a few times. This rounded of a very interesting visit to a new site and whilst not spectacular, who can complain at Peregrine, Merlin, Spotted Redshank and Red-throated Diver !

Bird Sightings : Riverbank Road, Heswall