Wonderful Wirral Winter Waders

Oops - time to catch up...  I've lived on Wirral for more than twenty years now, and it always has been a good place to live. A walk on the beach has been a long favourite activity in summer, but it's only recently that I've found out just what a special place it is for the birds, and that includes in the Winter.

Actually, it's especially during the winter that the Dee Estuary shows it's value, as it acts as home to many waders. As the tide rises the waders move up the beach, and large groups gather (*), sometime ten to twenty thousand. Every now and again something will spook them, a sparrowhawk overhead, or someone walks to close, and the entire flock will leap into the sky, and wheel around the sky, before settling further along the shore.

For a novice birder (well, for this one at least) it's a nightmare... What are they all? Clearly they're not all the same, but how do you work it out???

At the moment at least it feels like an uphill battle, yet by looking at the colour of the legs, the colour and shape of the beaks, the pattern of the markings, the relative sizes, slowly, very slowly, we're starting to make some sense of the mass of birds in front of us... From the mass emerge oystercatchers, redshanks, curlew, dunlin and sanderling...  The Knot flash white and black as they fly...

It's a challenge, and there's always more to learn... but that's the beauty of the world around.

So next time you have some time to spare at a High Tide, why not come and try the Wader Challenge !

p.s. I undertand that Waders are a doddle compared to Gulls...  


(* I gather that the numbers were much larger in the 1950's/60's - like garden and woodland birds, waders have had a hard time in the last half-century; it may seem that there are plenty of birds on the beach, but in reality they are incredibly vulnerable)