Hoylake, Parkgate and Burton High Tide 1st September 2019

There haven’t been many high high-tides on the Wirral recently so with a poor weather forecast for home and a better one for the Wirral we headed up there. It was a Sunday and we had forgotten that it was the “Wader Festival” as well so there were plenty of people at tall the sites. High tide was 9.89metres at 1:28pm.

We stopped off at Burton Mere Wetlands first since we thought we had some time to kill. There had been a Ruddy Shelduck down at Inner Marsh Farm the previous day so we decided to hot-foot it down there. Of course, it had gone but we got a couple of Snipe and a Greenshank anyway.

We didn’t have a lot of time to do much else so we returned quickly and headed off for Hoylake. We got there a little later than we had intended – about 12:15pm – a good hour and a bit before high tide but, even then, the water was all the way in and we thought we had blown it completely.

As it happened, there was still a strip of sand left and very large numbers of Ringed Plovers, Sanderling and Dunlin were present with smaller numbers of Knot and Grey Plover. In fact, in some respects, it was the perfect kind of high tide because there was always this thin strip of sand between the prom and the water – perhaps about forty feet.

Thankfully, there were very few dog walkers and the one person that had a dog had it on a close lead. The collected birders – around 40 of them – were antagonised when a group of three people (perhaps not British therefore without a clue as to what was going on) walked down right to the edge of the water and where taking photos with their phones and setting all the birds up. Those that were scanning the masses of birds looking for the two or three Curlew Sandpipers that were apparently among them, had to start their scanning all over again as the bird came back down randomly. The three people did this two or three times and then went off into the distance. On their return, they did the same again and one apoplectic birder called them to task about it in no uncertain terms. Even then I doubt they had a clue as to what was going on.

We had been hoping that we might get some other birds out at sea but the waves were very wild and the wind was whipping the water up.

When it started to rain a little we sought refuge in the car and thought we would go down to West Kirby Marine Lake to see if there were any Turnstones on the rocks there in the usual place. There were no visibly rocks! The waves were so high that they were washing over the pavement and into the road drains. This left us at a bit of a loss so we decided to drop down to Riverbank Road but we needed some refreshments so we ended up stopping at the Black Horde at Lower Heswall – a place I think we have been to before. Unfortunately, despite advertising food, they didn’t have any food. We stayed for a drink and a comfort break and then headed on to Riverbank Road. As we did we spotted a café just down the road a little bit that was open, even though it was a Sunday, and would have been the better option of we had known about it. For future reference it was Porcelli’s at 21 Village Road, Heswall CH60 0DX.

The water at Riverbank Road was pretty high but there really wasn’t a lot there and the wind was a bit too much for us. Instead we went on to Burton Mere Wetlands again and had a further scan of the scrape and dropped down to the bunker and the feeders. At the bunker we got a group of Barnacle Geese but otherwise it was business as usual. It seems to be the time of year when the Canada Geese start to collect. In previous years they have got to very large numbers indeed before suddenly all leaving in one go.

A pretty good day, all in all, with lovely close views of the waders at Hoylake being the highlight. We got a couple of Buzzards and a mini murmuration of Starlings on the way back home taking our daily species list to forty-six. With a visit to Slimbridge coming up on Wednesday 4th we can get off to a reasonable start to the month.

Bird Sightings Hoylake 1st September 2019

Common Wood Pigeon	10
Eurasian Oystercatcher	200
Grey Plover	5
Northern Lapwing	100
Common Ringed Plover	300
Red Knot	30
Sanderling	300
Dunlin	600
Black-headed Gull	100
Common Gull	10
Herring Gull	100
Great Black-backed Gull	30
Great Cormorant	3
Carrion Crow	20
Pied Wagtail	2

Bird Sightings Parkgate 1st September 2019

Common Redshank	10
Eurasian Spoonbill	6
Eurasian Marsh Harrier	1

Bird Sightings Burton Mere Wetlands 1st September 2019

Greylag Goose	4
Barnacle Goose	6
Canada Goose	300
Mute Swan	2
Northern Shoveler	8
Mallard	40
Common Teal	60
Tufted Duck	2
Little Grebe	1
Eurasian Collared Dove	1
Common Moorhen	8
Common Coot	20
Northern Lapwing	60
Black-tailed Godwit	100
Common Snipe	2
Common Greenshank	1
Grey Heron	1
Little Egret	2
Eurasian Kestrel	1
Eurasian Jackdaw	20
Eurasian Blue Tit	4
Great Tit	2
Barn Swallow	20
Common House Martin	4
Common Chiffchaff	1
Pied Wagtail	1
European Goldfinch	8