High Tide on the Wirral : Burton and Hoylake – 14th August 2018

After a long break away from birding, taking in all of July and the first half of August, we at last managed a day out to the Wirral for a high tide. We got a good range of birds including two year ticks and even a life tick!

We started out at the reception hide at Burton where our attention was immediately drawn to one of our year ticks, a Green Sandpiper, and a quick look on the scrape got us a pair of Black Swans. We walked to the outside for clearer views and got the Cattle Egret skulking in and out of the bullrushes. Also at the waters edge were a Ruff and a Common Snipe More scanning got us a pair of Avocets still lurking around and there were a few Black-tailed Godwits.

We walked up to the feeders but only managed the usual suspects and that was the case down at the Marsh Covert hide and the blind by the bridge. We didn’t have time to go to Inner Marsh Farm as we wanted to catch the tide at Hoylake.

We headed for Moels first because we figured that the birds are a lot closer in there but, even though we were 90 minutes before the tide the water was already largely in and we had to go as far as the end of the gardens by the lifeboat station before we found some mud. There were good numbers of Dunling and Ringed Plovers and the usual Oystercatchers. One of the reasons we wanted to come to Hoylake was, however, the presence recently of a Boanaparte’s Gull. We could see a group of birders, some with cameras, about a third of the way doen the prom. They were on a platform that seems to have been created out of the defunct toilets that used to be there and gives quite a good elevated view.

The chaps there had seen the Boanaparte’s Gull the previous day but hadn’t seen it from wehre they had been this day. They pointed out some birders way down past the corner of King’s Gap right out on the sand. I figured that I didn’t have much to lose for a while, anyway, so I headed down the length of the prom but I didn’t venture any further since the birders there didn’t look over-excited. I passed some time looking at more Dunlin and a nice group of Sanderlings. The Sandwich Terns with their young were good value and there was also a smattering of Common Trens.

Eventually a chap next to me rockoned he had the Gull, a long way out, going up and down on the surf. I tried but couldn’t figure out exactly where he meant but then he offered to get it in my scope and I then got good, prolonged, views of the bird – a life tick!

Happy with that we headed back home – 3 year ticks including one life tick. Not too shabby.

Bird Sightings : Burton Mere Wetlands 14th August 2018

Bird Sightings : Hoylake 14th August 2018