A single petrel on the Crosby side of the river from New Brighton at dawn Sunday morning was presumably a Leach's, but was too far away and too dark to see any features. Fortunately, I managed to spot another later in the day on a dropping tide from Leasowe Gunsight. A pomarine skua (and a bonxie) from the same spot on Saturday around 11.00am more than made up for being given the run-around by the lb dowitchers at IMF in the afternoon, and failing to realise one had returned on Sunday! I think the three Leach's from the Gunsight on Saturday were also seen on the dropping tide after we'd left for IMF?

You need winds of at least 30mph to be in with a good chance,and NW is the best direction,NE will push any birds further away from land.The classic conditions in Sept/Oct are a fast tracking low which produces strong SW winds for two or 3 days at the beginning of the low, which pushes birds up into the Irish Sea,followed by gale force NW winds at the end of the low,this pushes birds back down and close to the land.This should produce really big numbers of birds,unfortunately these sort of conditions which were once regular at this time of year,very rarely seem to have occurred in the last 3 or 4 years.I'm surprised people didn't see any Leach's this weekend as at least 40 birds were seen at different spots along the n.w. coast.

-- Edited by pete berry on Monday 5th of October 2009 06:48:27 PM

Wind Guru is only forecasting N/NEwinds of 7-9 kts though for Wednesday. Will that be enough to bring the birds in? I'd go again if I thought there was a chance.

Looks as though there's going to be a bit of north in the wind on Wednesday with a reasonably high tide (9.1m) - so Leasowe gunsite may be the place to be - minimum of three went past on the 3rd as reported on the Dee estuary web site.

Anne you must have left too early ! I spent 2 hours between 2pm and 4pm at the lifeguard station at Wallasey yesterday and had 2 Leach's Petrels close inshore including 1 pattering on the beach and being harrased by a gull ! Also had 7 Manx Shearwaters but no Skuas though!

-- Edited by Steven Nelson on Sunday 4th of October 2009 08:31:15 PM

I concur Anne. I was stationed a little further west at the Little Orme, Conwy on the day of the big blow (3rd Oct) but not much doing there.

We went to the Lifeguard Station at Wallasy and saw not a one in 4 hours. Sickening, as Blackpool or Heysham would have been nearer for me, and they had plenty. However we did get fantastic views of a Great skua struggling against the wind close inshore, and several more + Arctics were seen further out.

The lesson here is that if there is no north in the wind, head for west facing sea watching spots for Leach's. At Ainsdale Beach they even had them pittering over the sand as the tide went out.

Could be good this Saturday,near gale force W/NW winds are forecast which should produce all along the N.W. coast.Still a good chance of Skuas and maybe a Sabs as well(providing the forecast is correct).High tide is at 11.30ish,good luck