Birding Group Visit to Hilbre Island 14th February 2011
This week the birding group’s visit was to Hilbre Island on the Wirral. There were around 12 of us and we were fortunate to pick a really fine day for it – even if it was a little cold.
We saw a very large flock of Oystercatchers which amounted to at least 200 birds (but probably much more) mixed in with around 50 Black-tailed Godwits, 30 Redshank, 20 Dunlin and a dozen or so Turnstone.There were 3 Grey Heron, a Cormorant, Black-headed, Great Black-backed and Herring Gulls and around 50 Brent Geese. We also had a great view of a singing Wren. As we were coming back we encountered a small flock of birds bouncing around the sand and rocks and what little grass there was and after much humming and hawing we concluded that it was a flock of a dozen or so Linnets – though, subsequently it crossed my mind that they just might be Twite but they seemed a bit too dull peachy around the chest for Twite.
Anyway we spent nearly 2 hours on the island and also had the added bonus on the way back of seeing a group of 40 Atlantic Grey Seals lying around on a sandbank a few hundred metres from one of the islands.