The fine weather today was a lot more enticing to pay a visit to the marsh for a spot of birding compared to the deluge we experienced yesterday.
Along Moorditch Lane I was taken aback by a Kingfisher that flew from the ditch to cross my path and fly up the embankment of No.5 tank before doing a U-turn and fly back and pose briefly on an iron pipe stretched across the ditch.
Arriving on to No.5 tank I met Arthur where we both bumped into a couple of birders who mentioned seeing two Marsh Harrier and two Curlew Sandpiper on the mitigation site. We both made our way to that area but apart from a single Common Teal (no change there) we didn’t see anything else.
On returning to look over the muddy area of No.6 we soon relocated the two juvenile Curlew Sandpiper which were with a solitary Dunlin and 15 Ruff. The area was alive with ducks and a conservative estimate of species included: 12 Pintail, 120 Wigeon, 100 Shoveler, 47 Mallard and a few Gadwall. There was a couple of Great Crested Grebe while Dabchicks numbered 16 birds.
A Fox was presumably the concern of many of the ducks which were a little flighty. A Water Rail was calling from the reed beds below the bank while close-by a singing Cetti’s Warbler shattered the otherwise serene scene.
One of the Marsh Harrier (a female) flew over disturbing the 400 already nervous Common Teal. Further out at Weston Point was a big female Peregrine perched up on the blue-topped chimney before launching off to hunt the estuary at dusk.
A fine sunset over the Mersey Estuary ended a much better return to some quality birding for a change.
Observers: Arthur Harrison, WSM (all images).
