Thanks Sid. I'm just interested because of volume of Shearwaters that have been seen from Hoylake today, and its a bit of the Wirral I've not been to. The weather looks reasonable tomorrow too so thought I'd try for a bit of manxie passage.

Cheers for that!

Anyone got any tips for where to park at Hoylake, and where the best spot for sea watching is? I've already looked on the dee estuary site and its a bit vague on these two points. Ta.

Good advice Tony, I reckon that it is best to park outside & walk in now anyway as it gets so so busy. You could easily get blocked in. Another possibility would be to try another site nearby, I did Riverbank Road, Heswall this morning & the car park was empty & I was one of only 4 birders initially & at its max, 8 birders present. Oh and yes we got the same array of species as have been reported from Parkgate today plus several Brent Geese pretty close in & probably more waders. (report in appropriate thread).

Thank you for your responses, doc Sid and Nick.

What a pain there's a high tide tomorrow and I have plans already and Will be in work Monday.

However all is not lost I will certainly check the tide times out (if I can make sense of the timetable though I'm hoping its not as complicated as my head is making out haha)

Thanks again guys you never let me down, I love this forum :0)

CC

Hi Collette if you go to the links section on the home page of Manchester Birding forum you will find a link to Dee Estuary Birds - tide times are given there.

There is really high tide of 10m both tomorrow at 12.00 and Monday 12.45 and with the forecast low pressure the water could come well up at Parkgate - might be a bit chilly though

If you are going for one of these events it's best to get there early to make sure that you can find somewhere to park also if there is going to be any action it usually takes place leading up to high water.

The 5pm close sign is still in place but the barrier was still up at 6pm yesterday evening - not sure that it's put down anyway as access appears to be needed to the new house at the end of the road near the car park. I meant to ask in the pub. Even so the guy who used to lock the barrier normally came round to chuck you out anyway

I had good selection of raptors yesterday afternoon well after high tide including a Barn Owl at dusk. See my report in the Wirral thread. I don't tend to bother with these high tides anymore but it's worth going at least once for the experience.

Once the sun starts going down photography would be difficult because of the position of the sun - as noted earlier in this thread.

Good luck if you go.

Hiya Collette

A good place to start is Dee Estuary Birds site run by Richard Smith the address is http://www.deeestuary.co.uk/lsight.htm

This gives you recent sightings, places to watch from & any special High Tide events - like the Hoylake ones this weekend.

Hope this helps

-- Edited by Doc Brewster on Saturday 12th of January 2013 10:09:02 PM

Treated myself to a day on the Dee today - managed quite a few spots over ten hours:

Inner Marsh Farm - avocet, a small group of whoopers flew in, LRP, egret, chiffchaff everywhere and all the normal stuff

North Wirral coast - turnstone, redshank and very disappointing time at Red Rocks for high tide - loads of gulls and that was about it

Parkgate - SEO perched 30m out on a post plus Kestrel and possible Merlin [need to study the photos]

Neston - Male Sparrowhawk chasing a goldfinch, Ring tail harrier, stonechats, more SEOs in the distance, hares in the adjoining fields

Parkgate [again!] for upto four SEOs displaying from 5pm No harriers but Little Owl and loads of egrets

-- Edited by Pete Welch on Monday 30th of March 2009 06:58:01 PM

Literally drove through Parkgate after a family visit to Ness Gardens [packed with Crossbills see other post] - this evening, found the old baths car park, turned round and came back towards the pub when about 100m out in the marsh a male hen harrier meandered parallel with the road and settled on the marsh in front of the car park. And to think I'd been quite pleased to see an egret as I drove up the main promenade road...

Amazing sight for a 2 minute visit but raised a few questions:

Does the barrier between the pub and the car park really get locked at 5pm [twas still open at 5.15pm]?

Is there a further car park after the one opposite the big new house?

Other than that having see how extensive the marsh is I now realise why it attracts so many top BOP.

sid ashton wrote:

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Sid

P.S.

Just noticed that there were 27 SEOs reported at Burton Marsh this afternoon you can almost walk down there from IMF

-- Edited by sid ashton on Sunday 15th of March 2009 10:26:40 PM

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27 !!! I was amazed at the experience of seeing 3! I did loads of trips with an uncle who was quite into rarities when I was about ten - migrating ospreys in Midland park lakes, searching out crossbills etc but never remember anything being as good as the sight of the SEOs. Another beginners question - do they disperse soon - guess they'll have to with that sort of density? Cheers, Peter

Rob Smallwood wrote:

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Digiscoping at Parkgate is tricky as in the afternoon you are looking staight in to the light.

I'd consider doing Inner Marsh Farm then Parkgate or Mere Sands and Marshside, you might find you are spreading yourself too thin to do all justice in a day.

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Thanks Rob, I think you're right about doing too much - I prefer to spend a couple of hours to get a feel for what's about and I am really tempted to try for some more SEO watching at Marshside when I saw them a while back they were the highlight so far of my birding - but I haven't been to Inner March Farm yet so maybe I'll stay south of the Mersey for the day!

Cheers, Peter

Pete - high tide on 30th is at about 14.20 at Parkgate and the height is not bad at 9.3m. To make the most of the high tide you need to be there about two hours beforehand - so you'll have to get cracking if you are going to Meresands etc first

Sid A

Ian McKerchar wrote:

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Yes the link works

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Must be my dodgy PC or ISP then, apologies, Peter

Hi Pete
The Harrier roost is at dusk or thereabouts when its a high tide you get all the small mammals and anything that is skulking on the marsh being flushed out.

Last year was a good one as the tide came up to the wall with voles shrews mice running all over the place it is a bit gruesome when its like this but thats nature for you.

Bird wise it gets Water Rails Jack Snipe and last year we had Water Pipit

Good Luck if you go

Cheers Jimmy

Not sure if the link from here is working John but the site's at http://www.deeestuary.co.uk/index.html

I'm planning a day to include Parkgate and the Dee Estuary web site is excellent - the one question I still have is whether the Harrier roost that's talked about is an evening roost or a high tide roost - does anyone know cos it would be just my luck to turn up at high tide and be evening or vice versa! Probably too late but today [12th March] there's a guided walk/watch from Parkgate at around midday from memory - I couldn't fit in a days leave sadly!

-- Edited by Pete Welch at 08:30, 2009-03-12