Purple Sandpipers at New Brighton Marine Lake : 23rd December 2014

Purple Sandpipers at New Brighton Marine Lake : 23rd December 2014

After a bit of a disappointing spell at Hoylake with a rather birdless high tide at Hoylake, I decided that it was worth a shot popping over to New Brighton to look for Purple Sandpipers. I had read that they were to be found at New Brighton but only recently had I discovered that the place to look was the pontoon on the Marine Lake. We parked up and headed straight for the spot. We immediatley spotted some birds that looked likely but on closer examination they appeared to be Turnstones.We followed the path round to the other side of the pontoon and we encountered another birder doing a count of the birds on the pontoon. Right at the very front of the birds that were crammed onto the pontoon we saw ten Purple Sandpipers. This was a great life tick and a nice one to get towards the end of the year. Of particular interest was seeing the Purple Sandpipers at close range right next to Turnstones, Dunlin and Redshanks. The Redshanks towered over the other birds which looked very small by comparison. I managed to get some phone-scoped video for the record and we spent quite a bit of time looking at them. The figures below are those logged on the Deeside Birding web site by the chap we spoke to.

An additional benefit was the discovery of a cafe, “Caffe Cream”, which did a fantastic bacon sandwich on granary toast – yummy !

Bird Sightings : New Brighton Marine Lake