Wet in the Wirral

Juvenile herring gull begging from its parent

I'd been hoping for the opportunity for a day at the seaside and, as today was set for Rain Stopped Play I thought it would be safe to give it a go. The plan was to use a combination of an old man's day explorer on Northern and a Merseytravel all-day saveaway to have a wander on the Wirral coast and then move up the Section coast and get one of the Lancashire lines back home. That was the plan. It was only when I got on the train I realised I hadn't taken my waistcoat off before donning jacket and raincoat. "I'll be sweating cobs," I thought. I needn't have worried.

I got the train out from Manchester to Liverpool, thence on the Wirral Line down to Moreton. I had considered starting at West Kirby but there's not a lot of cover there if the weather wasn't going to be fun whereas there's some tree cover around Leasowe Lighthouse.

Swallows, Kerr's Field

I wandered down from the station to Kerr's Field. As I looked over the paddocks I felt a bit sad at having missed the Spring passage here this year. I've caught up with yellow wagtails since and I expect I'll bump into a wheatear on Autumn migration but I suspect I'll have to write off white wagtails for this year. As it was, the thistles were full of goldfinches and swallows were already lining up along the fences and the telegraph wires. Half a dozen black-headed gulls loafing in a field in varying stages of greyish and white faces completed the late Summer feel of things.

The weather had cleared into a drizzle so I headed for the walkway above the beach. The tide was receding and already there was a quarter of a mile of wet mud before the waterline. The first things to strike my eye were a couple of large groups of oystercatchers, a couple of hundred all told many already showing their Winter collars, and the groups of half a dozen little egrets in each of the three largest pools.

Little egrets

There were plenty of gulls overhead but only a few dozen on the ground and they evenly scattered about. Even numbers of herring gulls and lesser black-backs. Here and there were an obvious family group. A third-Summer great black-back was chased off by an angry lesser black-back despite both its young being fully-grown. One of the immature herring gulls was making a nuisance of itself.

Herring gulls. Enough is enough, the parent got tired of the youngster's begging

Oystercatchers

There were plenty of redshanks dotted about, mostly working the soft mud on the edges of the pools. There was a couple of dozen curlews, too, showing a wide range of sizes and bill lengths. I think the smaller individuals were young birds still not quite full grown though a couple of them (females?) had unmistakeably long bills. Whimbrels stop off on the Wirral on passage so I scanned round hopefully. It was a bit of a challenge — a combination of gloomy light, the presence of the small curlews and the fact that they all had pale eyebrow stripes that were picked out in the gloom — but eventually I found a couple in the mid-distance. After a couple of minutes they decided to fly off towards Meols, the clean bright whites of their rumps and lower back confirming the identification.

Curlew

The weather was deteriorating by this stage and the wind picking up so I thought I'd best crack on towards Meols.

Approaching the groyne that's the halfway marker between Leasowe Lighthouse and Meols I noticed a couple of turnstones and a linnet were feeding on the seaweed stranded at the base of the breakwater. A little further on the edge of the breakwater became defined by a line thirty or so redshanks, a combination of adults still in Summer finery, adults taking on greyish Winter hues and youngsters still in their tiger pyjamas. A dunlin in full Summer plumage flew in.

Redshanks

More little egrets, gulls and redshanks by the groyne with a couple of curlew close in. Halfway to Meols there was another dark patch of oystercatchers. The weather was pretty grim now. I was barely ten yards beyond the groyne when the wind decided to blow a hooley and the rain came lashing down.

You know the weather's taken a turn for the worse when even a curlew's fed up of it.

I took the hint and turned back for the comparative shelter of the wooded area by the lighthouse. Three sand martins whizzed past me into the wind, which goes to show they're more aerodynamic than I am. A couple more dunlin flew in and hunkered down amongst the redshanks.

The worst of the rain had passed by the time I arrived at the pond near the lighthouse. A couple of dozen swallows and a few swifts were feeding about the treetops.

Leasowe Lighthouse

I carried on down the road past Kerr's Field, in the hopes that I might spot a stonechat or two (I didn't). A few more black-headed gulls had settled on the field, joined by some herring gulls and lesser black-backs and a couple of common gulls. A sedge warbler had a despondent moment of song from the ditch by the road. This was the only warbler of the day. Three ravens in one of the paddocks was a bit of a surprise, an adult and two beardless youths hopping about the long grass by the fence.

The wind had almost blown my trousers and raincoat dry and there were tantalising hints of blue sky on the horizon. I'd spent a couple of hours here so I wandered back to the station and debated where to go next. By the time the train got to Bidston the weather had persuaded me to go home. I went the indirect route via Wigan, which turned out to be lucky as while I was waiting for my train at Wigan Wallgate another raven flew by towards the bus station (I don't know how ominous that is). Ravens seem to be on the increase in Greater Manchester.