Wirral

Lapwing, Kerr's Field

I'd missed the intended train into town because the cat was busy faffing round in the garden. I didn't want to chivvy her back inside, I've been worrying she's not been out much since Christmas. I took the opportunity for another cup of tea and got the Liverpool train instead, thinking I'd have a walk along the Wirral Trail. 

The train was very busy indeed (half term and half a train) and as we can't buy tickets at our local station there was a lot of mucking about at Lime Street so I missed the West Kirby train. I decided that getting the New Brighton train, getting off at Birkenhead North and waiting ten minutes on a sparsely populated platform in the sunshine was better than hanging round waiting for the next West Kirby train on a busy underground platform on Lime Street. As usual, plenty of gulls floating in from the docks at Birkenhead, mostly lesser black-backs. In fact, throughout my visit lesser black-backs outnumbered herring gulls by an easy five to one, which struck me as a bit odd.

While I was waiting I noticed reports of a red-backed shrike at Leasowe. I was hoping it would be at Kerr's Field but it was on farmland just outside Meols. I decided I'd carry on with the planned walk from Leasowe to Meols with the short diversion for a shrike hunt as a possible bonus.

Kerr's Field was resting after a busy Spring migration period. Small flocks of woodpigeons, starlings and house sparrows fed in corners of the paddocks, joined by a pair of stock doves in the middle paddock. There were a couple of lapwings in the end paddock that a month ago was awash with wheatears and wagtails. A sedge warbler chakked at me from the brambles on the bank of The Burnett and a couple of whitethroats sang from the fields just beyond. Just the one chiffchaff and only a couple of blackcaps in the trees by Leasowe Lighthouse. Fewer swallows that last time, too, we're obviously down to the locals now.

I felt sorry for this huge bumblebee: every time she got on top of the umbel of flowers it rolled over under her weight.

A couple of reed warblers sang by the pond, together with another sedge warbler. I could see the adult moorhens but their calling youngsters were deep in the reeds. The blackbirds also had some youngsters about.

Herring gulls

I had a stroll along the beach as far as the groyne. The tide was well out and aside from a family of crows there were just odd pairs of lesser black-backs and herring gulls dotted about.

Having got as far as the groyne I hopped over the wall back onto the common and took the bridleway down to Park Lane. I hadn't gone far before I saw a group of birdwatchers a couple of fields away looking at something. I was relieved it wasn't a sizeable twitch (apparently that was this morning). Instead it was half a dozen people, mostly men of a certain age, making sure newcomers got to find the bird.

Red-backed shrike, first sight

It was a couple of fields away so it took some finding until you were told which landmarks to work from (the beige horse, the bloke in a red jumper working in the field and a Hawthorn bush). It moved very slightly nearer and started hunting from a post next to a diagonal metal pole, which made it a lot easier when it was my turn to tell newcomers where to look.

Red-backed shrike

Red-backed shrike

I stayed watching it for half an hour. It stayed distant but gave very good views. A very handsome adult male bird, and not one that was even on my radar as a possible addition to my life list this year.

Park Lane

 I walked on into Meols and got the train back into Liverpool and thence home. I considered stopping off on another diversion but it had been a warm walk and I was happy to avoid the rush hours on the trains.

I had to change at Urmston (the pattern to the way the stopping trains between Liverpool and Oxford Road skip stations is too complicated to weary you with here) so I got a few bags of bird food so I can get back into the spadgers' good books after they emptied the last of the feeders yesterday. As I was waiting for my train home all the local pigeons suddenly flew up in a panic and wheeled round the station. One of the carrion crows chased off a buzzard that had come too close and low for their comfort.