Hoylake : 29th September 2015

Hoylake : 29th September 2015

The last birding group day out of the month and, in fact, our last birding day out of September, was to Hoylake for an 11 metre high tide at 12.30pm. The weather was so good, however, that there was a bit of a shortage of birds. It was a lovely day for standing on the prom however and not without its own nice birds.

As usual, it started off with the mass of Cormorants and Gulls and the ever-marching column of Oystercatchers trying to keep ahead of the incoming tide. THe first sign of any other waders, however, was when a group of thee Knot landed in the distance but they were soon obscured by the Oystercatchers.

Eventually a single Knot landed directly in front of us but the poor creature appeared to have got something stuck in its throat that it could not dislodge. A while later when a rather larger flock of Knot flew in, the kept well away from this single ailing bird. Amongst the flock of Knot there was a single, smaller bird that we spent a long time pondering over before we decided that it was probably a Dunlin despite an ambiguous appearance. The ambiguity disappeared when a flock flew in and joined it. And so it stayed for a long time. Out, towards the Hilbre Island direction we eventually spotted a paid or juvenile Ringed Plovers and a single Sanderling. One of the group though they had seen some Common Scoter out near the horizon but my personal opinion was that they were just Cormorants.

By around 1pm we felt we had seen all we were going to see so we headed off for another of our Parkgate lunches at the Boathouse. We parked up at the old baths first to see what high tide had been like there but the general view of the assembled birders was that the weather was rubbish – too mild, sunny and pleasant, for any good birding. So it seems that even though we had a quiet morning at Hoylake, we probably made the right choice of where to go first. From the pub we saw Meadow Pipit, Skylark, Starling, Grey Heron and Little Egret.

We dropped in at Burton Mere Wetland to see if we could see the Pectoral Sandpiper that had been on the scrape there for a few days but we were told that a Peregrine had come through and got them all up. The Sandpiper had not returned though there were plenty of people looking for it. We didn’t have time to go down to Inner Marsh Farm and the lighting was so brutal up the main reception area that the dazzle gave you eye ache and it was really only suitable for id by silhouette.

We had had a very pleasant day however and if the birding wasn’t first rate the weather certainly was. You can’t have it all !