High Tide on the Wirral : 9th February 2016
High Tide on the Wirral : 9th February 2016
The birding group morning on the 9th February landed on a moderately high tide of 9.7m at 11.33 GMT (Liverpool) so it was decided to go to a number of Wirral sites. We started at Hoylake where, even 90 minutes before the official high tide, the sea was already up to the boat scultpture at the bowling green. Be that as it may we still got smallish numbers of Dunlin and a few Knot. There were also a few Curlew and Redshank but the Gulls were best represented with Great and Lesser Black-backed, Herring, Black-headed and Common Gulls also present in large numbers.
Given the lack of waders and the advanced nature of the tides we decided to go to New Brighton where the raft, though not full, was full of good numbers Purple Sandpiper, Dunlin, Turnstones and Redshank. There was also a single Greenshank (again). After a cup of tea and bacon sandwich at Cafe Creme we speculated that it might be interesting to go to Riverbank Road in Heswall, which was a site that most people had not been to. Even though the high tide was over there were still some birds to see including a nice pair of Red-breasted Merganser. The Marsh was also full of Meadow Pipits.
We topped the after noon off with a rather late visit to Parkgate which was not too inundated but still had a few birds.
We repaired to the Boathouse for lunch and then returned home. We were pretty pleased that we had managed to avoid the rain even though it was prety cold. We didn’t see any Owls or Harriers but we intend going back up on Friday where there is a higher tide of 9.9 metres.
Bird Sightings : Hoylake
| Species | Count |
|---|---|
| Common Shelduck | 60 |
| Great Cormorant | 40 |
| Common Buzzard | 2 |
| Eurasian Oystercatcher | 200 |
| Common Redshank | 4 |
| Eurasian Curlew | 4 |
| Red Knot | 2 |
| Dunlin | 100 |
| Black-headed Gull | 100 |
| Mew Gull | 6 |
| Herring Gull | 30 |
| Lesser Black-backed Gull | 8 |
| Great Black-backed Gull | 8 |
Bird Sightings : New Brighton Marine Lake
| Species | Count |
|---|---|
| Common Greenshank | 1 |
| Common Redshank | 100 |
| Ruddy Turnstone | 40 |
| Dunlin | 200 |
| Purple Sandpiper | 16 |
| Eurasian Magpie | 2 |
| Carrion Crow | 4 |
| Common Starling | 20 |
Bird Sightings : Riverbank Road
| Species | Count |
|---|---|
| Canada Goose | 30 |
| Common Teal | 200 |
| Red-breasted Merganser | 2 |
| Grey Heron | 2 |
| Little Egret | 6 |
| Common Redshank | 30 |
| Eurasian Curlew | 10 |
| Dunlin | 100 |
| Common Kestrel | 2 |
| Sky Lark | 1 |
| Eurasian Blue Tit | 1 |
| Meadow Pipit | 40 |
Bird Sightings : Parkgate
| Species | Count |
|---|---|
| Common Teal | 100 |
| Great Cormorant | 4 |
| Little Egret | 4 |
| Northern Lapwing | 150 |
| Common Redshank | 40 |
| Eurasian Curlew | 4 |