Although the weather reports for the Wirral were poor, we decided to risk the weather to have a go at finding the Great Northern Diver seen recently on West Kirby Marine Lake. We knew that on a Sunday it might be busy but we had forgotten that the tide was as far out as it could be and people were Sunday-walking their dogs around the perimeter path. On top of that, there were dozens of boats and wind surfers and all sorts of other water-borne vehicles going up and down the lake. It was a surprise that any bird wouldn’t just fly off, especially since some of the dogs were jumping into the water for a swim.
Despite that we stayed and looked for a while and eventually it did show up but spent a lot of time under the water – understandably. Over the hour or so we were there we probably got about five quick looks at it before it went down again but I managed to get the scope on it a few of these times to confirm that it was our target bird. Oddly, our first Diver of the year!
There was a Little Grebe on the water as well but I could have sworn that there was another Grebe there as well. Recent reports had said that someone had misidentified a Little Grebe for a Red-necked Grebe and I could see why. It seemed to have a very long neck.
After we left Kirby we dropped in at the Old Baths at Parkgate getting a couple of Marsh Harriers and a Great White Egret. One of the nicest views was, however, of large numbers of Skylarks twittering and rising up in the air, some going very high indeed – just like it was Spring. In fact, there was something a little Spring-y about the day as the sun started to emerge and the rain failed to appear.
From Parkgate we dropped down to Little Neston for a toastie at The Harp Inn but we didn’t see any Owls there. Our last port of call was to Burton Mere Wetlands and we went straight down to the Marsh Covert Hide to see if we could get the Water Pipit that we have tried a few times for recently. We didn’t have any more luck this time but there were an unusually large number of birds there, mainly Curlew, Black-tailed Godwits, Wigeons etc. and, again, a big number of Pied Wagtails. We also got a couple of Marsh Harriers.
Going back down to the reception area we saw a huge flock of Lapwings but apart from the usual suspects there wasn’t anything much to get excited about.
However we had managed to go the whole day without rain and there were even some sunny patches and, most importantly, we got our Great Northern Diver!
Bird Sightings West Kirby Marine Lake : 2nd December 2018
| Great Northern Diver | 1 |
| Little Grebe | 1 |
| Great Cormorant | 1 |
| Eurasian Curlew | 8 |
| Black-headed Gull | 10 |
| Herring Gull | 3 |
| Common Starling | 8 |
| Pied Wagtail | 1 |
Bird Sightings Parkgate : 2nd December 2018
| Pink-footed Goose | 30 |
| Mallard | 6 |
| Common Teal | 1 |
| Grey Heron | 1 |
| Great Egret | 1 |
| Little Egret | 2 |
| Eurasian Marsh Harrier | 2 |
| Northern Lapwing | 200 |
| Bar-tailed Godwit | 1 |
| Black-headed Gull | 20 |
| Sky Lark | 20 |
Bird Sightings Burton Mere Wetlands Marsh Covert Hide : 2nd December 2018
| Common Shelduck | 8 |
| Gadwall | 2 |
| Eurasian Wigeon | 150 |
| Mallard | 30 |
| Northern Shoveler | 20 |
| Common Teal | 40 |
| Eurasian Marsh Harrier | 2 |
| Common Redshank | 5 |
| Eurasian Curlew | 20 |
| Black-tailed Godwit | 35 |
| Rook | 10 |
| Pied Wagtail | 16 |
Bird Sightings Burton Mere Wetlands Environs : 2nd December 2018
| Greylag Goose | 300 |
| Mute Swan | 30 |
| Eurasian Wigeon | 100 |
| Mallard | 20 |
| Northern Shoveler | 20 |
| Common Teal | 400 |
| Tufted Duck | 10 |
| Grey Heron | 1 |
| Little Egret | 2 |
| Common Moorhen | 40 |
| Common Coot | 8 |
| Northern Lapwing | 200 |
| Black-tailed Godwit | 40 |
| Black-headed Gull | 20 |
| Common Wood Pigeon | 6 |
| Carrion Crow | 40 |
| Great Tit | 6 |
| Eurasian Blue Tit | 8 |
| Eurasian Wren | 1 |
| European Robin | 1 |
| Eurasian Blackbird | 1 |
| Common Chaffinch | 4 |
| European Greenfinch | 1 |
| European Goldfinch | 20 |