Wirral

Snow bunting, Leasowe

All the weather forecasts said wet and windy but not as bad as yesterday so I decided to have a day at the seaside while sensible people stayed at home.

After having a carriage to myself into Liverpool I just missed the West Kirby train at Lime Street Station. The new Merseyrail timetables are running every half hour so I got the next Wirral-bound train, which was the one to New Brighton.

It had been raining all the length of the journey from Manchester, on arrival at New Brighton it was sunny. As it happens, it only lasted half an hour before the wind brought in some filthy weather but the light was brilliant for photography.

Carrion x hooded crow, New Brighton

The tide was in retreat and most of the gulls on the beach were black-headed and lesser black-backs, the herring gulls were loafing by the shoreline. Just singles of great black-back and common gull. As usual there were a few dozen redshanks and just under a hundred oystercatchers. 

One of the crows flying into the beach was interesting. When it landed it looked like it had a scruffily-moulting breast with lots of pale underfeathers showing. When in flight it looked quite different: a grey breast and grey back like a badly defined short tabard. A carrion crow/hooded crow hybrid. I bump into birds like this perhaps once every other Winter.

Redshank, New Brighton

Little egret, New Brighton

I moved on to Leasowe, the idea being to have a nosey round Kerr's Field and Leasowe Lighthouse, have a quick scan of the beach then jack it in before I got too wet.

Walking along the Birkett from Leasowe Station it was certainly wet and windy though the trees provided some cover. (I'm always a bit nervous of willow trees in high winds). No ducks on the river, just a few moorhens, and a juvenile raven high up in one of the willows made it quite clear it didn't like me.

Grey wagtail, Kerr's Field

The weather calmed down a bit as I approached Kerr's Field. A flock of mallards dabbled in the big puddles in one of the horse paddocks. The paddock that's a magnet for yellow wagtails and wheatears in Spring held three lapwings, a small flock of starlings and a dozen pied wagtails. Scanning round the edges of the field I also found a mistlethrush and a nice female grey wagtail.

It had become sunny though the wind was blowing a hooley so I headed straight for the walkway along the sea front to see what was out there. Hundreds of oystercatchers and dozens of redshanks and herring gulls were the most immediately obvious birds. A few minutes' scanning round found a dozen each of little egrets and curlews, a pair of shelduck and half a dozen cormorants far out on the shoreline. I was musing to myself that come the cold weather this would be a good place to find snow buntings when a couple of small birds hopped off the sea defences and onto the path by my feet.

Snow buntings, Leasowe

Snow bunting, Leasowe

Snow bunting, Leasowe

Snow bunting, Leasowe

The buntings might have been a pair: one, possibly a male, had a distinctly paler head with a wider white collar. Both were ridiculously tame and accompanied me on my walk for the best part of a mile, only parting company with me just before the groyne. The big problem I had was that they were too close for the autofocus on my camera and my eyesight's none too reliable for focussing manually, still I got some passable photos. The buntings didn't mind people walking past but flitted well out of the reach of any dogs coming along the path. Their alarm call was an odd little trill that reminded me of that of a turnstone though softer and more mellow.

As I approached the groyne there were odd ones and two of knot feeding on the mud and a couple of turnstones feeding on stranded seaweed. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realise the bird fossicking round in a wet hollow was a greenshank, my first for the year. Another surprise was a female goldeneye which suddenly flew up from behind the sea defences.

The other side of the groyne there was less variety but more birds. Between the groyne and the end of Meols Parade there were a couple of hundred knots feeding close by accompanied by a few dozen oystercatchers and redshanks and a couple of little egrets. A small party of dunlin were skittering around the creeks and pools a bit further out and a hundred or so oystercatchers were loafing out in the mid distance. There were a couple of curlews feeding quite close in, with a dozen or so feeding out in the distance.

Knot, Meols

Knot, Meols

Curlews, Meols

Curlews, Meols

Walking along Meols Parade I spotted an oddly dark sandpiper feeding on its own close by the sea wall. As I got closer I realised it was a purple sandpiper. I don't often see them this early and it was nice to see one away from New Brighton for a change. I had the same problem with this bird that I had with the snow buntings; luckily not all of the photographs are out of focus. We kept in pace awhile until it found something particularly interesting in between some rocks and I left it to it.

Purple sandpiper, Meols

Purple sandpiper, Meols

It had turned out to be a very lovely afternoon. I like walking by the sea this time of year: the light's brilliant, the birdwatching's usually good and I don't mind if the wind's fierce so long as it's not raining too hard. As it happens the wind was blowing heavy rain in but always half a mile or so inland of where I was walking.

Shelduck, Meols

I'd only intended walking halfway down the parade then getting the train from Meols Station but I ended up walking on down nearly into Hoylake and got the train from Manor Road. As the sun set slowly in the West and just before I set off for the station I got one last cherry on the cake as a flock of brent geese flew across the horizon towards Hilbre.

A better day's birdwatching that I'd expected. I'd only walked about five miles in total though it felt more as nearly all of it was walking into a strong headwind.

Meols beach