A beautiful starlit sky guided me across to Hilbre in the dark. With an early tide I had to drive across early. With not much movement in the way of passerines this time of year attention has turned to trying to catch and colour flag Turnstone and Purple Sandpiper's as part of our ongoing study into winter site fidelity and movement within the Dee and Mersey estuaries. With very little substrate to use a whoosh net wader spring traps are used along the strand line where the waders tend to forage.
As the sun rose and the tide flooded 1000's of Oystercatchers started congregating on the rocks between Middle Eye and Hilbre before moving t oroost on Middle Eye as the rocks got covered.
The low sun meant long shadows and this time of year the sun doesn't seem to rise properly before its setting again. The lights very flat and photographing birds quite hard they always seem to be backlit or in shadow.
Before the tide floods fully Brent Geese congregate at the north end and on the Whaleback, frantically feeding to make the most of the short days and exposed algae.Hearing family groups calling to each other is lovely sound that invokes memories of my late dad taking us to Mersea Island, off the Essex, coast to see Brents when I was only about 9 or 10.
As the tide rose higher the calls of the Oystercatchers complaining about getting flooded off their rocks filled the air and other groups of waders started moving past looking for somewhere to roost. Ringed Plover alighted briefly at the north end before flying off to find a less disturbed spot to see out the tide.
The three spring traps deployed were succesful with another Turnstone being added to the data base and given the flag AH. Less expected was a single Dunlin - the first ringed on the island since 2013.
Another great day on the island and probably my last trip of 2025 as we're off to Australia to see our Aussie family just after Christmas. Happy Christmas everyone.
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