Merseyside bumper bundle

Grey phalarope, Crosby Marine Park

After yesterday's escapade I decided to head over for a walk on the Wirral. The Leach's petrel passage has started and having had no luck with them last year I thought I'd give it a go. It was a wild and wet 'n' windy morning but considerably calmer than yesterday.

I got the train from Humphrey Park and got to Liverpool without any hassle. As we were coming in to Liverpool I noticed a report of a grey phalarope on the boating lake at Crosby Marine Park. I decided to go for that first, it would be low tide in an hour or two, it made sense to have a look at the phalarope, have a nosy round then get over to the Wirral for the turn of the tide. So this I did.

Herring gulls

Coot

Little egret

As I was walking down the path to the lake a chap told me where the phalarope could be found. It was by the reeds on the side opposite the path. This came as a great relief, the last time I came to see one here I nearly stepped on it. Black-headed gulls, herring gulls and lesser black-backs mooched around. A crowd of coots were feeding in the grass. Little egrets were hunting by the side of the marine lake. And the phalarope was where the chap said.

Grey phalarope

When I first spotted it the bird was swimming by the reeds. A couple of people were standing on the bank taking photos of it so it swam over to them. Phalaropes are very obliging if you can get close to them. It hopped up onto the bank and started to rummage about in the spume and rubbish and seemed to be finding plenty to be getting on with. I kept my distance, I'm out of practice dodging small animals about my feet.

Grey phalarope

Grey phalarope

Mute swans and black swan

Down the other end of the boating lake a black swan was loafing with some mute swans and tufted ducks. I can't remember seeing them side by side before, I was surprised how much smaller the black swan was. As I was taking some photos a Cetti's warbler erupted into song from the sea buckthorns behind me, rather to my surprise.

Crosby Beach

It was blowing a hooley and blowing sand and rain into my face. Did I really want to go and have a look on the beach? Apparently so. The rain stopped and it became fitfully sunny. The sort of weather to expect some damn fool sailor gamboling on the beach in so'wester and wellingtons. The tide still had a bit to ebb but was still a lot closer than it would have been at Leasowe. Far off dark shapes above the waves were paragliders on Wallasey Beach. All the gulls flew ponderously into the wind like great black-backs, even the black-headed gulls, and most had the sense to loaf on the beach for a rest after flying a few hundred yards. All the black shapes flying low over the waves were cormorants or lesser black-backs, except the one that was a swallow. On the beach nearly all the white shapes flirting with the surf were black-headed gulls and my assumption that they all were nearly led me to miss a couple of sanderlings not quite fully moulted into full Winter whites. There were a few curlews about and a handful of oystercatchers — there were a lot more of them out on the sandbars in the estuary — and a small flock of knots flew North up the beach.

I walked over to the fence by Seaforth Nature Reserve where Canada geese loafed and grazed on the grass with magpies and starlings. Shelducks cruised the pools and all but a few redshanks had left the roost for the estuary. It was a nice surprise to see some terns about. An even nicer one that only one was a juvenile common tern, at least three being adult black terns.

A mixed tit flock — long-tailed tits, blue tits and chiffchaffs — greeted me as I wandered into the little nature reserve next to the sailing club, the long-tailed tits coming within arm's reach to check me out. It's definitely Autumn, they've lost their Summer shyness.

Common stork's bill

I wandered back and got the trains out to the Wirral. I decided I'd get off at Moreton and potter about Leasowe Lighthouse before getting onto the revetment for a wader- and seawatch. We'd got to Bidston when I saw the report that the white-winged black tern was back at Marshside. I wasn't for turning back, I could spend all day on the trains. If I struck ludicrously lucky with a Leach's petrel early on then I might make tracks, otherwise I'd have to hope it stuck around for a bit.

Leasowe Lighthouse 

Kerr's Field was quiet save a few woodpigeons in the paddocks and the robins, goldfinches and chiffchaffs in the trees. There was more of the same around the lighthouse and on the common.

Leasowe Beach

The tide was well out. A thin grey line in the distance was a mass of gulls, cormorants and oystercatchers loafing at the tideline. There were more gulls closer in, black-headed gulls shrimping in pools or flying about the revetment in the hopes of a feed, rafts of herring gulls and a few lesser black-backs loafing on mudbanks. Redshanks and little egrets were everywhere, the calls of black-headed gulls punctuated by the piping of redshanks and the evil croaks of squabbling egrets. A scan through the crowds of loafing gulls found a handful of common gulls. A few curlews strutted about the mud, I looked very hard at one particularly small curlew but could only conclude it was a particularly small curlew.

Herring gulls and oystercatchers

Little egrets

Approaching the groyne

It was an exhausting walk down to the groyne, it was a very bracing wind I was walking into. A few turnstones joined the redshanks at the base of the revetment, a few red admirals flew in from the estuary. Redshanks and turnstones were already flying in to roost on the groyne even though the turn of the tide was as yet barely perceptible. It was a few minutes before I noticed the ringed plovers sitting on the flat sandy plateau.

Curlew

Turnstones, redshanks and little egret

Wheatear

I clambered from the revetment up onto the path in a less than dignified fashion like a gin-addled Moomin and had a sit down to catch my breath. I was definitely walking back to Leasowe and that little voice in the back of my head was saying I should carry on to New Brighton. I sat in the company of a gloriously colourful male wheatear that at first I mistook for some sort of giant whinchat. His size, he was a big lad, the brown of his mantle and the richness of the orange underparts pointed very strongly to his being a Greenland wheatear rather than a local.

Wheatear

Herring gulls, black-headed gulls and oystercatchers

The tide was pushing the gulls and waders in as I walked back along the coastal path. I don't hear whimbrels call very often so I was doing a lot of "What the hell was that" before I found the culprit flying over the mud. Of the other incoming waders what wasn't oystercatcher or redshank was curlew. Inland, startlngs and moorhens rummaged about on the golfing greens.

Starling

Wallasey Beach

There was more of the same as I walked down to Wallasey. The sea was rolling in fast now. A flight of shelducks provided a very useful sense of scale as I stared out to sea. Apparently I'd just missed a Sabine's gull at Leasowe, I kept my eyes peeled but I couldn't see anything I could even think might be one, that big white triangle on the open wing is a dead giveaway. I was having no luck finding Leach's petrels either. A juvenile stonechat flew up a bank to sit at the pathside and give me a hard stare. A wheatear flew down the bank to give me a hard stare from a distance. I don't know how I offended them.

Wheatear

I called it a day. The beach was awash with dog owners playing Canute with the waves and dogs looking embarrassed at their giddy owners. I headed over the dunes and followed the Coastal Trail to Leasowe Road, passing flocks of goldfinches and greenfinches over the common land and a swarm of swallows over the paddocks. It was a relief when I got to Wallasey Village Station though I could have done without all them steps. Late though it was there were red admirals fluttering about the station while I waited for the train.

Meols Beach

It's probably just as well the nights are drawing in, I'm daft enough to have gone for that third walk. The Sabine's gull was seen again about half an hour after I left so I'll have to count that as a dip.

Wallasey Beach