Birding Group Day Out on The Wirral 6 Nov 2025
The first birding group morning out was to Hoylake where there was supposed to be a high tide of 10 metres at 11:11am. This was only the second good high tide for a while so we changed the Tuesday slot when it would have been high tide at 9:52am to the following Thursday when we hoped that if we got there an hour before, we would be OK. Well, it didn’t quite work out that way as the tide was well past the Lifeboat Station when we arrived.
Fortunately, there were still a few spits of sandy land to the left of the station that still held some birds. The usual massed ranks of Oystercatchers were there but only about 300 at this point. There were a few year-tick Bar-tailed Godwits wading amongst the Redshanks and there were fair numbers of Dunlin that took the sky easily.
I was a bit cheesed off at this but anyway, we decided to make the best of it by going down to Riverbank Road to see what might be there. Fortunately the water wasn’t as far in as we have sometimes seen it and it turned out that we saw some excellent birds. A glance at the bushes to the left of the car park showed a bird that I am fairly confident as identifying as a Twite – quite a rare occurrence this side of the Dee estuary but common on the Welsh side at this time of year, when they come down from the hills in Wales.
On one of the posts, very near to shore, was a splendid Merlin that stayed perched for a very long period of time before eventually flying off. Over to the right where the boatyard is, a Kestrel hovered. On some land further out we spotted some Pink-footed Geese and on the water there were Shelduck and Pochard. The odd Stonechat put in an appearance now and again and there were Little Egrets, Teal and all the usual suspects.
As it was nearing lunchtime, we decided to head down to the Harp Inn where it was mild enough to sit outside. We got Marsh Harrier and a pair of Goosander but the most interesting thing was a mass of Starlings all over any dry land they could find; there must have been at least 600 but there might even have been more. They were very entertaining and created lots of mini-murmurations from time to time.
We rounded off the afternoon with a visit to Burton Mere Wetlands but it was a fair bit colder and duller so we just had a walk up to the barn and the outlook up there. There were numbers of the usual suspects but we did not have time to go down the walkway to the Marsh Covert hide or further than that.
So, in summary, although we were a bit disappointed at Hoylake, the day as a whole was very good> The weather was mild and sometimes rather balmy. The highpoints of the day were obviously the Twite, Merlin and Bar-tailed Godwits – all year ticks – but sometimes its just the day, as a whole, that makes for a great visit to the Wirral.
Bird Sightings on Wirral 6 Nov 2025
| No | Species |
|---|---|
| 1 | Bar-tailed Godwit |
| 2 | Blackbird |
| 3 | Black-headed Gull |
| 4 | Black-tailed Godwit |
| 5 | Blue Tit |
| 6 | Canada Goose |
| 7 | Carrion Crow |
| 8 | Coot |
| 9 | Cormorant |
| 10 | Curlew |
| 11 | Dunlin |
| 12 | Goldfinch |
| 13 | Goosander |
| 14 | Great Black-backed Gull |
| 15 | Great Tit |
| 16 | Grey Heron |
| 17 | Greylag Goose |
| 18 | Herring Gull |
| 19 | House Sparrow |
| 20 | Jackdaw |
| 21 | Kestrel |
| 22 | Lapwing |
| 23 | Little Egret |
| 24 | Magpie |
| 25 | Mallard |
| 26 | Marsh Harrier |
| 27 | Merlin |
| 28 | Moorhen |
| 29 | Oystercatcher |
| 30 | Pheasant |
| 31 | Pied Wagtail |
| 32 | Pink-footed Goose |
| 33 | Pochard |
| 34 | Redshank |
| 35 | Robin |
| 36 | Shelduck |
| 37 | Shoveler |
| 38 | Starling |
| 39 | Stonechat |
| 40 | Teal |
| 41 | Twite |
| 42 | Woodpigeon |