Wirral

White wagtail, Hoylake

As threatened I headed over to the Wirral for a nosy round. Along the way the trackside had the usual assortment of woodpigeons, carrion crows and magpies, a courting pair of buzzards danced over fields just outside Hough Green and blackbirds sang in stations. It was cool and raining heavily when I set out, I was considerably overdressed when I got off the train at Moreton. Luckily there's plenty of room in the bag for stashing the body warmer now I'm carrying round a much smaller camera. It stayed grey and heavily overcast with patches of that drizzle which leaves a greasy film of water on the lenses of your binoculars most of the day.

As I walked down to Kerr's Field the lesser black-backs and herring gulls of the Tarran Road industrial estate were being very noisy about being paired up. A few goldfinches and greenfinches sang by the roadside. There were a lot more goldfinches along the path by the Birkett, together with singing blackbirds, robins and chiffchaffs. A little egret mooched by the stables as I passed by.

Curlews, Kerr's Field 

White wagtail, Kerr's Field 

Oystercatchers, Kerr's Field 

The fields further along were still very wet. A dozen curlews dozed by one of the pools while oystercatchers and coots fed on the drowned grass. There were a few starlings about with the woodpigeons and pigeons on the drier patches. As I walked along I kept scanning the field and also the hedgerows and field on the other side of the river, just in case. Across the river it was all magpies, greenfinches and woodpigeons but it was as well to check. I had more luck on Kerr's Field. I was hoping for a wheatear or two but was disappointed on that front, on the plus side the only wagtails around were two white wagtails.

I checked out the paddocks and hedgerows behind Leasowe Lighthouse. The hedgerows were fizzing with house sparrows and greenfinches. All the blackbirds in the paddocks were blackbirds. Skylarks sang in the distance, robins, great tits, wrens and a blackcap sang in the hedgerow.

I wandered down Lingham Lane to check out the paddocks and hedgerows along the way. A lot more spadgers, goldfinches and greenfinches in the hedgerows and more blackbirds in the paddocks. A long-tailed tit carried a lump of moss almost as big as its head into the depths of some brambles. A couple of swallows flew overhead as I walked back to the path onto the common. Half an hour later somebody reported finding a common redstart in these hedgerows, it wasn't me. There have been times when I know I've been staring at a tree with a redstart in it and still not been able to find it. It's entirely possible today might have been one of those times.

This chiffchaff on Leasowe Common spotted me…

…had a bit of a churr at me…

…then decided to move to another tree

Chiffchaff, Leasowe Common
A different bird to the above.

I've been giving the Merlin app another go lately. I'd found it disappointing when I've tried it before, partly because it finds non-existent bee-eaters but probably mostly because I've got painfully acute hearing and got impatient when it couldn't pick up and recognise calls that were realistically too distant for the 'phone and the app. I switched it on as I walked the very muddy track into the trees on Leasowe Common. It identified the blackcaps, chiffchaffs, wrens and blue tits easily enough in the trees and the Cetti's warbler and great tits in the reeds by the pond. It wouldn't have identified the willow warbler rummaging about in one of the trees because it didn't make a sound.

The path to Park Lane 

The path beyond the pond was blocked off so I had the choice of retracing my steps and joining the main path across the common or going through the gate and taking the path past the paddocks and on towards Park Lane. I took the latter course, I've not been this way before. The times I've gone down to Park Lane I've taken the path going inland from the groyne. A couple of passing dog walkers warned me I'd need my wellies but it was no worse than walking into Pennington Flash. Magpies, woodpigeons and mallards foraged in the fields. One particularly wet field had ten lesser black-backs taking a bath in the corner. A pair of stonechats checked me out as I passed by their bramble patch.

The path to Park Lane 

Gorse

Stonechat, Meols 

I got to the top of the road and walked up the path to the shore. I scanned the fields scrub but the blackbirds were all blackbirds and though there were plenty of spadgers, greenfinches and linnets about it looked like it wasn't going to be my day for wheatears. 

The groyne

Knots, Meols

Knots, Meols 

I sat on a seat and surveyed the view. I wasn't sure if the tide was going in or out, the fidgeting of the crowds of knots suggested it was coming in but the shapes the water was making in the mud was telling me it was going out. In the event the knots were just being fidgety and the tide retreated fairly quickly. Looking through the crowds it occurred to me that the chances of my finding myself a rare Calidris sandpiper unaided were less than my winning the lottery and I don't play the lottery. Besides the hundreds of knots there were a couple of hundred redshanks scattered around in small groups, mostly shrimping about in the small pools and rills. There weren't many dunlins about — dozens rather than hundreds — and half of them were showing the black of their breeding plumage on their bellies. A few curlews stalked the outer mudbanks, little egrets loafed and quarrelled by the pools near the revetment. A few more swallows passed over.

Wheatear, Meols
See if you can spot it.

Getting up and setting off for Meols, thinking to myself that I might strike lucky and catch a wheatear on the grass along the pathway. I stopped to check the pied wagtails bouncing about on the groyne when I caught a flash of orange and white in the corner of my eye. And there was my first wheatear of the year.

Knots, Meols

I walked down to Meols, the retreating tide leaving crowds of redshanks and knots and the occasional loafing herring gull. A big brute of a great black-back stood out from the crowds  I dropped down to the revetment and walked along the path, a turnstone keeping a steady ten yards ahead until disturbed by a passing cyclist.

Turnstone, Meols 

The Merlin app couldn't pick up the calls of just under a hundred knots twenty yards from the revetment, which was a bit disappointing. I didn't expect it to pick up the hundreds scattered about hundreds of yards away on the mud. I struggled myself with them.

Knots, Meols

As I walked along Meols Parade the waders became more and more dispersed on the muddy foreshore until there were just handfuls of redshanks dotted about in ones and twos. A few knots and dunlins flew in and landed a couple of hundred yards out. I scanned through them and found my first ringed plovers of the year, which came as a lot of a relief as their absence had become embarrassing.

Pied wagtail, Meols

Pied wagtail, Meols 

Walking along beside the tennis courts a few pied wagtails could be seen in the grass on the shore, then a few more. There were some magnificent very black-and-white males amongst them. Also a couple of white wagtails, with a mid-toned female with enough of a dusting of mid grey about the flanks for me to double- and triple-check my identification. It started to rain properly as I approached the lifeboat station so I called it quits, I'd had a good walk and the birdwatching had been pretty good.

Meols shore

I walked over to Manor Road Station but on a whim I caught the bus into Bebington. I had a combination of tickets that let me travel anywhere in the Northwest so I went the long way round home, picking up the train to Chester at a Bebington and catching the Manchester train by the skin of my teeth. It was a pleasant ride, fields of jackdaws and rooks alternating with woodpigeons, carrion crows and pheasants. 

And then I made my mistake. I realised that I'd be hard-pressed to connect with my train home from Oxford Road and I'd miss the bus home from Piccadilly Gardens but that there was a five-minute wait at Altrincham Interchange for the 263 to Stretford and I could get home quicker that way. Which would have been true had it turned up. The half-seven 263 didn't turn up either so I decided not to gamble with the next one and got the 247 for a meandering ride round into Partington, made the connection with the 255 and got home to an hour late to meet a starving cat asking what time I called this then. That's the thing about having to rely on public transport, there's always a bus or train operator lurking behind a curtain to piss on your chips.