The One Show

The first decent tide for a while had me polishing my scope and heading down to Heswall Shore.

This area is excellent at this time of year, with the gutter area in particular brimming with Redshank and Curlew.

Visibility was poor and I was just able to pick-out a harrier quartering the back of the marsh through the heat haze.

Closer to the shore, the wader numbers were building up rapidly as the advancing tide enveloped the mudflats.

A scan through the Redshank revealed some less common waders: 1 juvenile Turnstone, 1 Greenshank, 1 Spotted Redshank, and 1 Common Sandpiper.

The harrier was edging closer now and let slip its identify: a clean juvenile female Marsh Harrier – maybe of Leighton Moss vintage? Perhaps the only thing more reliable than a Volkswagen is the yearly appearance of this species on the Dee Estuary during the second week of August. Considerably less German though.

As the marsh began to be submerged, more waders were winkled-out, including scores more Redshank, and hundreds of roosting Curlew. It always surprises me how reluctant wading birds are to retreat to their high tide roost. Most species seems to suffer from a particularly acute form of Canute Syndrome; only Oystercatchers seem to display any hint of avian intelligence by occasionally flying straight to a safe roosting point without any pfaffing about.

With the rising temperature and masses of people, the hide at IMF resembled the Black Hole of Calcutta at lunchtime, so I only stayed for a little while – 3 Ruff being the pick.

Until later.

Hobby

It was a muggy, damp and overcast when I arrived at Thursaston Shore this morning, about one hour before high water. The tide had reached the edge of the marsh and the birds were busy jostling for position – noisily so, in the case of a gross of Curlew.

There were plenty of hirundines feeding on the insects over Heswall gutter; Swallows mostly with a handful of Swifts and House Martins.

Unfortunately for these birds, a Hobby had also clocked-on to this gathering and proceeded to cause chaos as it unsuccessfully tried to catch a meal.

‘Hobby’ would also have been the name of Subbuteo had its inventor Peter Adolph’s application for such a trademark been granted. Defeated, he turned to the latin name of the Eurasian Hobby: Falco Subbuteo!

There seems to be two clusters of sightings of this elegant raptor on the Dee Estuary this year: around Inner Marsh Farm and Burton and then a little higher up the coast at Neston. Perhaps there are two pairs breeding locally this year?

Further up the beach an extremely tatty looking Kestrel was doing its best to hunt in the increasingly heavy rain, whilst simultaneously fending off a mobbing Carrion Crow.

Apart from these two falcons, there was very little else to report, despite a good two hours in the field between Sheldrake’s restaurant and the Dee Sailing Club.

Until later.