Wirral

Dunlin, Meols beach

The weather was set fair so I headed over the Wirral to see how the Autumn passage was going. I did wonder if this was such a good idea when it started pouring down at Liverpool South Parkway but a cloudy lunchtime passed into a bright sunny afternoon.

Kerr's Field 

I got the train to Meols and walked up to Kerr's Field. Goldfinches lurked in the hedgerows and swallows hawked and twittered about the treetops. A migrant hawker zipped by as it patrolled the hawthorn hedges. I scanned the paddocks for passage migrants but only found woodpigeons. I checked out the land behind the lighthouse for migrants and found only goldfinches, collared doves and spadgers. Looking up, the swallows were joined by a couple of house martins.

Whitebeam 

I decided to walk through the trees at the back of Leasowe Common to see what was about. The stiff breeze was welcome in what would otherwise have been a muggy lunchtime. What you win on the swings you lose on the roundabouts; trying to see small birds moving silently through waving willow leaves is well nigh impossible. A few robins and wrens were about and a mixed tit flock included chiffchaffs among the long-tailed tits and blue tits. Dozens of speckled woods chased each other about the undergrowth and fought for the best sunbathing spots.

Little egret, Leasowe Lighthouse

I crossed and climbed the grassy bank and set down on the revetment. The tide was lowish but on the turn and already a hundred or so oystercatchers were bagging the high ground on a distant mudflat. Large gulls — mostly herring gulls and lesser black-backs with a few common gulls round the edges — loafed on the banks halfway out while black-headed gulls foraged about the pools with the redshanks and little egrets. Curlews were dotted about the distant mud and a couple of turnstones rummaged about the seaweed at the base of the revetment.

Redshanks and dunlin, Meols beach

Beyond the groyne small parties of dunlins started joining the redshanks and more of both started flying in with the advancing tide as I reached Meols Promenade. On the ground the redshanks provided a motley array of plumages with tiger striped juveniles and adults in various stages of moult mottled brown and grey.

Cormorant, Meols beach

Redshanks, Meols beach

Pied wagtail, Meols beach

Pied wagtails, most of them juveniles, skittered across the mud and performed aerial balletics as they caught sandflies in the air. It seemed a bit early in the season for rock pipits but there one was at the base of the sea wall.

Rock pipit, Meols beach

By this time the tide was rushing in along the flat mud. The redshanks started moving up towards Meols Promenade, many of them only moving a mudbank at a time. Others flew straight over to the higher mud of Hoylake with dunlins and ringed plovers in tow.

The tide coming in onto Meols beach.

Redshanks, Meols beach

Knot, Meols beach

As the tide rolled in the waders got closer and some of the "I wonder what that is?" birds became identifiable. Most turned out to be dunlins, it becomes difficult to keep a sense of scale without being able to refer back to a redshank. There were half a dozen knots dotted about and all showing flashes of rust red and peach tones as they were moulting out of breeding kit.

Ringed plover, Meols beach

Dunlin and knots, Meols beach

Curlew sandpiper, Meols beach

I knew there were a couple of curlew sandpipers about, confirmed by a chap I passed along the way and the line of retired gentlemen with telescopes along the railing by the tennis court. Knowing something is there and seeing it are three different things even when the available cover is the occasional tussock of grass and a patch of samphire. In the end I did see them. One was asleep under a tussock and was hard work. The other was wandering about in plain sight and it took me God's own age to realise I wasn't looking at one of the knots. The long black bill and long black legs were very obvious and I just wasn't seeing them. 

Most of the time that something different in a crowd scene is blindingly obvious but once every so often, like today, I make hard work of it.

Dunlin, Meols beach