Hightown

Sketch map: Hightown from the railway station to Hightown Dunes

The Sefton coast has some excellent sites for wader watching. The mouth of the river Alt at Hightown is very accessible and can be very rewarding even on a brief visit. 

There are regular Merseyrail trains on the Northern Line through Hightown. It's about a ten minute walk from the station to the sailing club and the entrance to Hightown Dunes: walk down Alt Road, turn left onto School Road, walk down and cross over onto Village Way then turn left and walk down Thornbeck Avenue, the sailing club's just after the play area. The 206 bus runs from the station to the sailing club once an hour but to be honest you might as well walk it. (The 206 is a useful route for getting about the rural bits between Hightown and Crosby. And you can get it and change at Great Crosby for the 133 bus to Lunt Meadows if you're making a day of it.)

Looking North from the sailing club 

The benches on the little raised area behind the sailing clubhouse give excellent views of the estuary. It's well worth spending a while sat down having a look round. The river's only small and it meanders right to left between lightly rolling mud banks. At low tide there's an expanse of low mud beyond. To the North there's the shooting range for Altcar Training Camp, to the South the path takes you through Hightown Dunes down to Crosby Beach. The sailing club slipway goes down to a tiny jetty onto the mud which gives you a chance to look for any ducks or waders hidden by the near riverbank.

Looking South from the sailing club

The main attractions are the waders and seabirds, there's usually something about whatever time of year you visit. In late Summer the gulls are joined by hundreds of Sandwich terns. In Autumn keep an eye out for bar-tailed godwits and grey plovers and there's the possibility of a curlew sandpiper, spotted redshank or even little stint. In Spring you'll catch passage migrants such as wheatears or you might strike lucky with a passing little gull.

Sandwich terns 

The walk down the dunes to Crosby Beach is about a mile and a half and can be particularly productive on a late Spring day. It's a nice walk any time if the weather's not misbehaving.