High Tide on the Wirral 25th February 2020
February was the wettest on record with flooding in lots of areas of the country. Although Manchester got it relatively well, it did put a damper on the birding for most of the month. Additionally, Anne still had a cast on her broken wrist and I still had a bad leg. This meant that we only had two birding days out in all of February. Both were for high tides but this one, on the 25th, was nowhere near as dramatic as that of the 11th. It was compensated for by some nice bird of prey sightings though.
The high tide was 9.3 metres at 12:15pm but there was nowhere near the amount of wind as on the 11th. At Hoylake the sea was always a way out and there seemed to be very few birds on the shore. There were Grey Plover, Knot and Dunlin, but all in smaller numbers than usual. It was bitterly cold and I was glad when we headed off for Parkgate.
At Parkgate we got a Kestrel, two Marsh Harriers at least and a single, rather distant but nevertheless unmistakeable adult male Hen Harrier. There was also a Great White Egret but again not large numbers of birds.
We stopped for lunch at the Wheatsheaf in Ness before ending our day at Burton Mere Wetlands. There was a Long-billed Dowitcher showing from the Inner Marsh Farm hide but we didn’t have enough time to get there and back and, besides, I was confident that the hide would be rammed with photographers. The bird was apparently on the pool to the left so such an acute angle generally means that only a few people can see it from the hide.
It was a shame and we may even have tried for it had it been earlier in the day. Still, I got a Sparrowhawk there and the first Avocet at BMW of 2020. On our return home I got a Buzzard to round off a decent bird of prey day if not that spectacular all-round. Given that the weather has been so stormy and wet of late, it was just nice to get out of the house.