High-ish Tide on the Wirral 16th February 2018

Poor weather had kept us from birding in February but a drier day and a highish tide on the Wirral (9.13m at 11:33am) got us out again and it turned out to be a pretty good day with visits to Hoylake, West Kirby, Burton Mere Wetlands and Connah’s Quay.

We decided not to go the King’s Gap route to the prom at Hoylake and, instead, take the right turning at Moels which gets you to the promenade much further down from the Lifeboat Station. Because it was a relatively low “high tide” we thought that this would give us a chance to see any birds a bit earlier and, in any case, it was worth checking out.

It turned out to be good decision because all the birds you might normally expect to see were there but much closer to shore – perhaps 40 feet from the promenade. This meant that Dunlin and Knot were just a few feet away and even the Sanderling and Grey Plovers were much closer. We had a good bonus of a dozen Bar-tailed Godwits as well as the usual suspects. Redshank and Curlew were in fair numbers if not exceptional. We walked along the prom as the birds marched with the tide.

The only real problem – as ever here – was dog walkers. The weather was good but we had the best of the birding before the lifeboat station on the Moels side because when we got to our usual spot on the Hoylake promenade the tide was reluctant to come very far in and the dog walkers were all out on the water’s edge.

A bit miffed at this, we drove over to Red Rocks but there wasn’t much to see there so we headed down to West Kirby Marine Lake where we thought we might find something on the water. We were disappointed in this nut we ended up having a quick chat with a warden from Hilbre who told us of the little roost of wades on the rocks just at the far end of the marine lake. We had never really looked that far but we found a clump of rocks that were fully occupied by waders including good numbers of Turnstones, Redshank and Dunlin.

After that we shot down to Burton Mere Wetlands where we had a cup of tea and a quick look around. I got the first Pheasant of the year but Marsh Harrier and Peregrine had to be the stars of the day there.

Down at the Marsh Covert Hide there were large numbers of Wigeon but we did not see the Water Pipit that someone was supposed to have seen. The staff at the reception were a bit sceptical about it and thought it was probably a Meadow Pipit.

A notable sighting at this hide was the first Avocet of the year – just the single bird. For some reason large numbers of Curlew have taken to the field on the side facing Inner Marsh Farm.

Refreshed, we headed off for our last stop of the day – Connah’s Quay. I was really hoping to get Twite before they moved off the site and we were rewarded with a group of about thirty. They soon enough went so I think high tide is really the best time to see them; they have too many other options at low tide.

Another remarkable feature was at least a thousand Pink-footed Geese still on the fields on the Burton side of the marsh. I don’t think it is possible to see then from the other side of the Dee Estuary though – not where they were.

Another remarkable sight was the very large numbers of Lapwing and Common Starling sharing one of the fields on the site.

In summary, a pretty good day all round

Bird Sightings : Hoylake

Bird Sightings : West Kirby Marine Lake

Bird Sightings : Burton Mere Environs

Bird Sightings : Burton Mere Marsh Covert Hide

Bird Sightings : Connah’s Quay