Birding Group High Tide Burton Mere Wetlands and Parkgate 10th March 2020

Another Tuesday of mixed weather (and perhaps the coronavirus) led most of the birding group to stay at home and only two of us went up to the Wirral for a high tide of 10 metres at 11:30am. As it happened, the weather wasn’t that bad overall and it was worth the trip for one or two nice birds and a good inflow of water at Parkgate.

We were a bit early for the tide, so we dropped in at Burton Mere Wetlands for an hour and got a few Avocets, a Sparrowhawk and the first Mediterranean Gulls of the year.

We headed on to Parkgate where, amazingly, we managed to park, albeit not at the edge of the marsh but on the other bit of the main car park. The weather, which had been ok until now, got a bit drizzly and a wind got up making it hard to keep the scope clean. We got a couple of Marsh Harriers and a close view of a Merlin on a post. There were several Great Egrets and we saw one of these fighting with a Grey Heron over a vole – the Heron won. We also got another short-tailed Vole hiding in the usual bit at the rear of the car park where they hope to climb up the wall.

There were also very large numbers of Pink-footed Geese on the marsh and, as the tide came almost all the way in to the car park wall, they – and all the other birds – got very close and made for good atmospheric viewing. We didn’t see the (grey male) Hen Harrier that was reported and neither did we see any Short-eared Owls, which was a shame, but still not a bad day and we were glad we decided to get out and about. A notable feature of the day was that the tide still seemed to be coming in an hour after the supposed high tide time.

Bird Sightings Burton Mere Wetlands 10th March 2020

Bird Sightings Parkgate 10th March 2020