High Tide at Holake, New Brighton and Parkgate 16th December 2024
The last reasonable high tide of the year was on 16th and 17th December. We decided to go on Monday 16th to see if we could get any birds we had not got already this year and weren’t disappointed.
We started off at Hoylake. The tide was supposed to be 9.4 m at 11:24am but it was clear that it had done its best by around 10:45am. Unusually there wasn’t a lot in the way of variety; apart from good numbers of Redshank and Oystercatchers and a few Curlew, there weren’t any waders. What it lost in breadth of species it made up for in numbers and there was a particularly large showing of Cormorants – and they were much closer in that usual. There were Shelduck on water but not a lot else so we decided to move on.
Up at New Brighton we struggled to find a couple of Purple Sandpipers but were pleasantly surprised when a couple of Sanderlings also appeared; both of these were year ticks. The usual Turnstones, Dunlin and Redshank were present
We finished off our day down at Parkgate which seemed little affected by the tide. We got a few Marsh Harriers and a big display of Lapwing. Great Egret sometimes seem to be more frequent there now than Little Egrets
We finished off with lunch at The Red Lion in Parkgate where the food was actually better than The Boathouse.
It was a lovely day – bright but just the right light levels for birding. Visibility was incredibly good and the winds were mercifully quite mild. We had a very nice day out even though it wasn’t a Hoylake Spectacular.
Bird Sightings : Hoylake 16 December 2024
| Species | No |
|---|---|
| Black-headed Gull | 20 |
| Buzzard | 1 |
| Carrion Crow | 10 |
| Cormorant | 400 |
| Curlew | 30 |
| Herring Gull | 30 |
| Lapwing | 200 |
| Lesser Black-backed Gull | 12 |
| Oystercatcher | 600 |
| Redshank | 300 |
| Shelduck | 40 |
Bird Sightings : New Brighton 16 December 2024
| Species | No |
|---|---|
| Species | No |
| Dunlin | 30 |
| Purple Sandpiper | 2 |
| Redshank | 120 |
| Sanderling | 2 |
| Starling | 30 |
| Turnstone | 40 |
Bird Sightings : Parkgate 16 December 2024
| Species | No |
|---|---|
| Great White Egret | 3 |
| Lapwing | 300 |
| Marsh Harrier | 3 |
| Pink-footed Goose | 50 |
| Woodpigeon | 6 |