My 1st summer migrants on Hilbre

A beautiful spring morning saw me heading up the Wirral to pick up Steve and drive the short trip across the sand and rocks to Hilbre Bird Observatory. It really was a stunning morning.

My 2nd trip to Hilbre in the space of 3 days was rewarded when Steve spotted my 1st Northern Wheatear of the spring on the top of the west side cliffs.  This was soon followed by catching my 1st Chiffchaff (on Hilbre) of the year as we walked the heligoland traps. We also caught a couple of Robins showing that spring passage for this species is also underway.

Meadow Ppits were a feature of the day with hundreds flying in off the sea and heading off over Hilbre and down the Dee Estuary. We caught one in a heligoland trap but most flew straight over. Other signs of passage included several Goldfinches and a single female Chaffinch that hung around for a short time.

Deploying walk in traps for Turnstone as part of our colour flagging project was successful with a 2nd calendar year bird caught and duly ringed by Steve. AC will join AA that was trapped last year and subsequently seen again on Hilbre earlier this year after making a return journey to the Arctic to breed.

Although no Rock Pipits were caught the spring traps proved their worth when we caught the Wheatear we'd seen earlier - our 1st ringed of the year but the 2nd to be seen on Hilbre. 

 

Hilbre spring.

I've managed to get over to Hilbre recently.  I've not been for a while - mainly as I didn't fully trust my Landrover after it experienced a clutch issue after its engine rebuild. Thankfully that seems to have resolved itself and with the tides being at the right time of day for me to stay over thats what I've did. 

Hoping for an early summer migrant my first trip on Monday was disappointing. The day was cold and dull with a biting wind. I'd resolved to try and catch some more Rock Pipits for our ongoing project as they're just beginning to pair up. Theres still a couple of unringed birds about but I only managed to catch two birds that had already been fitted with an engraved blue darvic and a red 'marker' colour ring. That in itself was interesting as it gave an opportunity to see how darvic rings were faring as the oldest bird, CAK was ringed in August 2023 as an adult at the north end. As can be seen from the photo below the ring is still in good condition.

The other bird, CBB, was ringed in 2024 as a juvenile and was caught in Niffy Bay.

Again, this darvic  ring has held up well. Interestingly both birds were caught less than a metre apart and on wing length it appears that CB could be a male. It's possible that these two will now be a breeding pair and we'll continue to monitor them.

I also tried, unsuccessfully, to catch Turnstone for the flagging project we have registered for them so consoled myself by getting down low to photograph bot the wintering Turnstone and some very photogenic Purple Sandpipers.

We need to refine our catching techniques for Turnstone but thats in hand.  We've managed to ring one Turnstone so far but that has proved to be extremely successful with bird AA ringed in march last year being seen and photographed on Hilbre again this winter. It's hard to comprehend that its probably made a 6,000 mile round trip to the Arctic nd back to breed in the intervening year.

Black Scoter - 1st for Cheshire and Wirral.

Black Scoter is the American equivalent of our Common Scoter. The 1st UK record as late as 1987. Up until 2022 there had been 16 UK records including the long staying bird at Llanfairfechan that I saw in 2003 and 2004. 

Roll on 21 years and I was just about to go on holiday in Tenerife with Sean O'Hara posted a photo of a Black Scoter he'd found off the north Wirral coast at Hoylake. It was quite obviously a male Black Scoter and was associating with the large number of Common Scoter present in the area over the winter.

All week I  saw reports coming out on the bird news services and local WhatsApp groups of the Black Scoter being seen and was hopeful it would still be there on my return. Unfortunately the day after we returned I had to wait in at home for an engineer to come and fit full fibre broadband so had to wait yet another day.

Meeting up with Al we parked up and walked across to the RNLI station where we saw a few other birders forlornly looking out to sea not realising as the tide was dropping they could follow it out. We set off like a pair of Pied Pipers with the others following behind. Out at the tides edge we gradually moved further forward as the sea continued to recede. 

With a stiff breeze blowing the sea was quite choppy but we soon picked up the Black Scoter - especially when the sun shone and reflected off its huge yellow conk! It stuck out like a beacon. For the next couple of hours there followed a game of hide and seek as we advanced to the edge of the tide and the bird disappeared temporarily in the waves before popping up again. 

A great bird to see in our area following Surf Scoter a few years ago. As well as the Black Scoter we had the added bonus of 2 Long-tailed Ducks and 4 Scope. 

Black Scoter twitch

With the wind numbing our fingers (despite gloves) we decided to call it a day and walk the long way back to the shore and warmth. Another superb find by Sean O'Hara on his local patch. From Seans photo the orange tinge to the base of the upper mandible can clearly be seen. Interestingly the Black Scoter always seems to be in the closet group of Scoter just beyond the surf line and the late Martin Garner, in his Frontiers in Birding book (published 2008, ISBN 978-1-898110-47-7) notes that Black Scoter, in N America, quite often feed in the surf.