Red Rocks Marsh NNR, Merseyside (4 Viewers)

[Jane Turner]

Red Rocks can become Grockle City on a sunny bank Holiday. I usually bail out by 8.30!

 

[Cheshire Birder]

Red Rocks during high tide - c20 Little Terns amongst large flock of Sandwich/Common Terns with a sprinkling of Arctics mixed in, Arctic skua, c20 Common Scoters past, 2 Whimbrel over, c10 Gannets lingering offshore, 1 Golden Plover. Best of all was a Ring-necked Parakeet showing well. Four yearticks today!!!

CB

 

[Bananafishbones]

Red Rocks during high tide - c20 Little Terns amongst large flock of Sandwich/Common Terns with a sprinkling of Arctics mixed in, Arctic skua, c20 Common Scoters past, 2 Whimbrel over, c10 Gannets lingering offshore, 1 Golden Plover. Best of all was a Ring-necked Parakeet showing well. Four yearticks today!!!

CB

Good trip CB

There would be more than a few lifers in your report for me :-O

 

[Cheshire Birder]

Good trip CB

There would be more than a few lifers in your report for me :-O

Also had a brief stop at Frodsham on the way home & saw a rather bizarre leucistic dunlin.

CB

 

[Jane Turner]

RN Parakeet is only the second record for Red Rocks! Its worth keeping an eye out for the Roseate Terns which are visiting Seaforth on a regular basis!

 

[chris butterworth]

Reading my mind Jane. I'll be submitting a record of a juv in the tern flock yesterday afternoon. Took ages to find the bu**er, I could hear it ,but couldn't see it for, about 5 minutes.
Chris

 

[Cheshire Birder]

Reading my mind Jane. I'll be submitting a record of a juv in the tern flock yesterday afternoon. Took ages to find the bu**er, I could hear it ,but couldn't see it for, about 5 minutes.
Chris

I knew I should have walked down to west kirby to look at the tern flock!!!

CB

 

[Cheshire Birder]

RN Parakeet is only the second record for Red Rocks!

I had to double check the id from my photos so that i'd ruled out Alexandrine Parakeet, especially as the call was different from what I recalled from the last Ring Necked Parakeet I heard.

CB

 

[Jane Turner]

Reading my mind Jane. I'll be submitting a record of a juv in the tern flock yesterday afternoon. Took ages to find the bu**er, I could hear it ,but couldn't see it for, about 5 minutes.
Chris

That's a genuinely incredible record since the birds at Seaforth are failed breeders (though I understand there is one hybrid pair)

 

[Jane Turner]

I had to double check the id from my photos so that i'd ruled out Alexandrine Parakeet, especially as the call was different from what I recalled from the last Ring Necked Parakeet I heard.

CB

I caught one in about 1980 - came as a shock at the time. Where was it and can we see the photos!

 

[ColonelBlimp]

Is Red Rocks/Hilbre reachable by train and/or other public transport? I'm thinking about how to kill the days before my A Level results next week...

 

[Jane Turner]

Merseyrail via Liverpool, take the Wirral Line and stop at Hoylake for Red Rocks and West Kirby for Hilbre.

Come out of Hoylake station walk towards the roundabout in front of you, cross straight over and then take the first left (in front of the Greenlodge pub) . That road is Stanley Rd and takes you to Red Rocks.

Come out of West Kirby station, turn right, then cross the main rd and take the road between the bank and the charity shops. Straight down to the end is the slipway to walk to Hilbre from.

 

[ColonelBlimp]

Thanks very much for the info Jane.

 

[Cheshire Birder]

I caught one in about 1980 - came as a shock at the time. Where was it and can we see the photos!

it was in the back garden of the house that backs onto the boardwalk. Viewed it from the start of the boardwalk as you walk down to the marsh from the slipway. Was calling but appeared unperturbed and allowed approach within a few feet so prob not long escaped! Not tried putting photos up on BF yet so must give it a go.

CB

 

[Jane Turner]

Thanks very much for the info Jane.

No problem. Make sure you get the tides right though! Need a high-ish one for Red Rocks (seabirds) obviously irrelevant for passerines and need 2 hours either side of the tide to get on and off Hilbre

http://www.pol.ac.uk/appl/liverpool.html

 

[Jane Turner]

it was in the back garden of the house that backs onto the boardwalk. Viewed it from the start of the boardwalk as you walk down to the marsh from the slipway. Was calling but appeared unperturbed and allowed approach within a few feet so prob not long escaped! Not tried putting photos up on BF yet so must give it a go.

CB

I caught mine in those Poplars between the boardwalk and that garden! Just as Red Rocks can be brilliant for collecting lost migrants, its also a top spot for recent escapes.

 

[Jane Turner]

Fantastic visible migration this morning. The stars of the show where thrushes. I was there before dawn and was greeted by a few Redwings that were down in the poplars. I heard a chack call, and was half expecting a Fiefldfare but instead a Ring Ouzel popped up on top of the trees, before flying off over the Golf Course. That might have been the end of it, had I not been looking for a Chaffinch flock overhead - I focussed instead on a huge flock of Thrushes. There were layers of bird, many out of sight to the naked eye and most out of earshot. Strangely they were arriving from the SE and most left to the west. In all the totals were 2950 Redwing and 2260 Fieldfare with at least 20 Song Thrushes in the birds that came low enough to identify and 50 or so Blackbirds.

The finches put on a good show too, though they were moving in a more conventional direction (south) 370 Chaffinches, 2 Brambling, 4 Siskin, 2 Redpoll spp, with A Tree Sparrow too. There were a few Meadow Pipits involved in the movement to (20ish) many of which came down in the poplars and contrived to look rare. Other odds and ends moving included 35 Rooks, 40 Jackdaw, 36 Woodpigeon

Grounded birds were thin on the ground. Two Stonechats are more or less fixtures at present. The bird of the day however was a "full monty" tristis Chiffchaff.

I forgot to mention the Peregrine that tried to catch a Fieldfare to spectacular effect. The Fieldfare must have plunged 300ft to escape capture. There was a Kestrel too.

 

[PhilW]

Nice one Jane. On Hilbre before it was really light today and had loads Redwings flying over West Kirby as we left. A few grounded thrushes on the Islands and good numbers of Skylarks over. Star birds were o nthe sea though - 2 Long-tailed Ducks & a Slav Grebe!

A phone message from Pete at Seaforth said there were at least 5,000 Redwing over.

Large numbers passing over my house at 05.30 this morning (don't ask!).

 

[Jane Turner]

There could have been many more over RR - you could only see them by staring at the sky with bins!

ANy news on what way they were going at Seaforth. NW seemed a strange one.

 

[Jane Turner]

More visible passage over Red Rocks today:

Chaffinch: 560, all arriving from the NE and departing S.
Brambling: at least 21 in with the Chaffinches
Woodpigeon: 61 in three flocks
with a few other species caught up in the movement: Redpoll 2, Skylark 3, Meadow pipit 7, a Siskin 4 Reed Buntings as well as milling flocks of Greenfinch Linnet and Goldfinch.

Thrushes were less in evidence than yesterday, with just odd Redwings and a flock of 66, (78 in total) a single Fieldfare, 17 Song Thrushes south, 13 Blackbirds

Other interesting records included a flock of 4 Great Spotted Woodpeckers which flew through, a Sparrowhawk south and 4 Snipe over.