Burton Mere Wetlands, Parkgate and Denhall Quay 20th January 2022
A cold sunny day took us up to the Wirral on a cold but dry day. We got some good birds and, of course it being January, some good “year ticks” right at the start of the birding year that we hope will be better than the last two Covid dominated years.
We didn’t make it down to the Inner Marsh Farm Hide (I can’t stop calling it that) but we did the rest of the site. The water was largely frozen so there weren’t many birds on the water but we did get a nice little mixed group of Godwit, Redshank and Dunlin. The best birds were in the woods and included a Great Spotted Woodpecker (first of the year) and very close views of a small flock of Siskin. We had seen some Siskin last outing to Pennington but these were very close and fantastic views. We got the usual Finches and Tits as well.
We headed up to Parkgate which was quite busy but there wasn’t much there. There were good numbers of Pink-footed Geese and nice, if distant, shows of Skylarks and Stonechats.
The highlight of the day came at Denhall Quay which was also very busy. There was another article on the Deeside Birding web site about the problems caused by photographers walking on onto the marsh. The post said:
“NOTE: Most of you know the problems we have had recently with people encroaching onto the marsh at Denhall Quay (Neston Marsh) in order to photograph the Short-eared Owls, causing much disturbance and driving the birds away. I would highly recommend to read Dan Trotman’s article which has just been published on the RSPB website called ‘Denhall Quay: What’s owl the fuss about?‘. “
Our experience was a good example of this. Although some photographers kept to the quay (in fact dominated it so that no one else could use it) there was a photographer in full camouflage gear, from head to toe, walking out onto the marsh. We stood outside the Harp Inn and got chatting to a couple of people and we were all agreeing about how bad it was for the birds for people to go out on the path all the time. A woman approached us and started talking to us and obviously overheard what we were saying. The next time we saw her she had walked out onto the permissive path with her telescope! Something needs to be done about this. The reserve is not a photographers club nor a dog walkers pub. There are perfectly good views to be had from the road and it is about time someone did something about it.
Anyway, it was quite a cold day and the more we stood around waiting for something to show, the colder we got. A Peregrine at a distance helped a little but we were getting to the point when we were considering leaving, when the show began. Firstly, a group of us got onto a Short-eared Owl hunting over the marsh giving really good views. As we were updating each other about where exactly the bird was, it became evident that two of use were looking at one Owl and the other two were on a different bird. Eventually both came together to confirm that this was the case. Eventually a third appeared so we ended up with three Short-eared Owls altogether and showing really well.
We had some of these beautiful, and deadly, animals towards the end of the year but this gave us a good early year tick for them which we were very pleased with because it has been a couple of years when they seem to have either been very elusive or not there at all. oh, and we managed a Marsh Harrier too.
Bird Sightings : Burton Mere Wetlands, 20th January 2022
| Species | No |
|---|---|
| Black-tailed Godwit | 1 |
| Blackbird | 3 |
| Blue Tit | 6 |
| Canada Goose | 20 |
| Carrion Crow | 4 |
| Chaffinch | 1 |
| Coal Tit | 1 |
| Coot | 20 |
| Dunlin | 6 |
| Dunnock | 1 |
| Goldfinch | 6 |
| Great Spotted Woodpecker | 1 |
| Great Tit | 6 |
| Greenfinch | 1 |
| Jackdaw | 6 |
| Mallard | 30 |
| Moorhen | 2 |
| Pheasant | 1 |
| Pink-footed Goose | 80 |
| Redshank | 4 |
| Robin | 3 |
| Shelduck | 1 |
| Shoveler | 4 |
| Siskin | 10 |
| Teal | 50 |
Bird Sightings : Parkgate, 20th January 2022
| Species | No |
|---|---|
| Black-headed Gull | 20 |
| Blackbird | 2 |
| Curlew | 1 |
| Kestrel | 1 |
| Lapwing | 100 |
| Pied Wagtail | 1 |
| Pink-footed Goose | 130 |
| Skylark | 6 |
| Starling | 300 |
| Stonechat | 2 |
Bird Sightings : Denhall Quay/Harp Inn, 20th January 2022
| Species | No |
|---|---|
| Blackbird | 1 |
| Canada Goose | 30 |
| Carrion Crow | 6 |
| Great White Egret | 2 |
| House Sparrow | 6 |
| Little Egret | 6 |
| Mallard | 10 |
| Marsh Harrier | 1 |
| Peregrine | 1 |
| Pink-footed Goose | 100 |
| Robin | 1 |
| Short-eared Owl | 3 |
| Shoveler | 1 |
| Starling | 100 |
| Stonechat | 1 |
| Teal | 20 |
| Teal | 30 |
| Wigeon | 2 |