Anticipated high tides meant the beaches at Ainsdale and Southport were closed to cars today - and will remain so until Tuesday, which led to a much more peaceful coastline as the big tide rolled in as a gentle grey swell.
Not much off Ainsdale - a maximum of nine Great Crested Grebes, a few Grey Seal and two RB Mergs, and a handful of Common Scoter, but mid-morning my first two Sandwich Terns of the year came flapping in on jerky wingbeats to land briefly on the sands, before resuming their flight north.
Another Sarnie was fishing in the shallows in the early afternoon.
A White Wag was up near the Green Beach, where a few hundred Sanderling congregated for a roost and were joined by small numbers of Ringed Plover and Dunlin - a Peregrine tanking into the roosts further north revealed plenty of Knot, Barwits, Oycs, Grey Plover etc.
This Sanderling had something wrong with its bill, in that it couldn't close it, although this didn't stop it feeding on the car free beach.
Another bird with its gob wide open, was a fine male Wheatear in full song, blasting away from the top of the old Southport Model Aircraft Club sign at the south end of the Green Beach.
Not the most melodious of songs, but you don't hear it so much on Ainsdale beach!
If only I'd had a scope, I'd have got a nice pic of the Wheatear, but I had to make to with dodgy digi-binning as I worked today.
Blackcap singing in the trees by Shore Road roundabout beside Pontins this morning, and another by the new "link path" on the other side of the Merseyrail line to Easedale Drive this afternoon.
Chiffy there too.
Yesterday evening, Dotterel paranoia kicked in again and I had a quick look at Plex, which proved quiet apart from Peregrine, 5 Yellowhammer, Corn Bunts, 46 Curlew, 2 Ruff, Lapwings and a single Wheatear.
Oh, and some surreptitious Brown Hares lurking in the crops.
Eyes to the skies everyone, eyes to the skies...
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Big tide covered the saltings at Marshside/Crossens this afternoon, pushing c4000 Pinkfeet close to the Marine Drive on both sides of the road; with them 1 Tundra Bean Goose, 3 European Whitefronts and 2 Barnacles. A roost of 42 Eiders on the saltmarsh suggests that the Ribble colony is doing well. 2 Short-eared Owls and a Merlin cruising over the floods. Second-summer Mediterranean Gull in front of Sandgrounders Hide.
Passerine migration continues to be a non-event: 2 Siskins, 1 Wheatear, c20 Meadow Pipits
Did the tide at Birkdale today. A colossal wader roost south of Taggs Island, including c15000 Knot, maybe more, I couldn't get close enough or see the full roost to be fully accurate. 1 single Wheatear and a few Meadow Pipits passerine migrant-wise along with plenty of local Skylarks and Mipits, Reed Bunts etc. At least 2 Sandwich Terns probably 3 passed north offshore was nice.
Dunes/coastal scrub next to West Lancs golf course towards Hightown only revealed Mipits, Reed Bunts and Skylarks. My first Wheatear of the year near the rocks at the Alt estuary.