How much would you pay?

Its that time of year when I pay my annual visit to Martin Mere. I blogged about a visit there last year and said how good it could be. Although today wasn't the worst day I've had there, it wasn't the best. Lots of Teal, Wigeon and Pintail, plenty geese, numerous Swans and a couple of Marsh Harriers. Great. But, with the possible exception of the Harriers, nothing I couldn't have seen at Marshside RSPB or Burton Mere. Chances are I could have seen a bit more at Marshside or Burton - maybe a Short-eared Owl, or a Merlin, chance of a Twite at Marshide too. Now, none of this would have really bothered me except that when the friendly volunteer asked me if I wanted to pay the gift aid price for my entry, they quoted me £14 (£12.72 if not gift aided). It doesn't really matter whether its £12 or £14, I only wanted a half day birding. Another 20 mins in the car and I'd have been at Marshide where it would have cost me nothing as this site is free to visit. I chose Martin Mere as I do like to support the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust a couple of times a year and have been visiting for as long as I can remember, so its a bit of a habit. But this is getting silly. There is no way I'll be going back and paying £12 plus for entry. I know I could join - its £50 and thats reasonable I suppose, and I know they do amazing work. But the thing is theres not another WWT reserve for over 100 miles so its not like I'm going to be nipping off to one every weekend. So, £50 is just not worth it. But neither is £12.72. I felt ripped off. I accept this would have given me a day round the collection or the canoe safari if I'd wanted, but Ive been there and done that (and you have to pay extra for the safari too), and I just wanted to visit the hides and see the wild birds.  I'm sorry WWT but at that price I won't be back in a rush. If it was £6 or £7 then I'd probably do two or three trips plus per year but not at the current rate. Is that reasonable or am I being tight? What would you pay?

Anyway, at 1pm I was off. A Hooded Crow had been found literally 10mins walk from where I live and it is a Greater Manchester mega and would be a GM tick. I also wanted to get to the gull roost at Pennington Flash. I dipped on the crow - its been around for 2 months according to a dog walker so I'm hoping I'll see it another day. The gull roost was a bit more successful. No white winged gulls but the 2nd Winter Caspian put in another appearance, so I added this to my GM list instead!

Caspian Gull Phoneskoped at Pennington Flash

Dee Day

I finally managed a full day birding today. Didn't walk too far but had a good 6 hours out solid birding.

I wasn't 100% sure where I was going to go. I fancied Llanfairfechan but the wind forecast for North Wales was a pretty consistent 20mph plus with gusts into the 30mph range, just a bit too strong. So, it was back out to the Dee Estuary where the wind forecast was much better.  I was joined by my mate Rob who usually accompanies me to Spurn. We pulled onto Denhall Lane at about 08:30 and I was surprised to see there was still quite a bit of standing water - evidence of three days of very high tides.

The water in the above photos is standing water, not the river! 

There were plenty of Canada Geese feeding plus a few Greylags and Pink Feet. The usual ducks and waders were around in force as well as a few surprises. A Great White Egret was out on the marsh and a Ruff was feeding in with the Redshank. A sizeable flock of Black-tailed Godwits looked stunning as they flew back and forth across the marsh. After an hour or so we walked up to Decca Pools in the hope of seeing a Short-eared Owl or maybe a Hen Harrier. The pools held the usual Wigeon and Teal, and a couple of Little Egrets were knocking around. The sun was out at this point and the Wigeon and Teal were looking stunning.

A lone Marsh Harrier put in an appearance but there wasn't a great deal different here than at Denhall Lane itself, so at 11.30am we headed up to Heswall for the high tide. 

Its the first time I have been to this bit of the coast for a high tide. By all accounts it can be better than Parkgate as the water can get higher on lower tides (today was only 9.4m or so, and it usually needs a 10m plus to get the best action at Parkgate). 

We arrived at Heswall about 12:00pm, parked up on the car park, and headed straight to the marsh which is only 100m or so away. We walked about 100m or so along the coastal path before finding a place to stop and watch from.

Its a bit different to Parkgate too, its not just a salt marsh, its a bit of a boatyard, so there are very few birds close in. Most are a good 50m or so away. It wasn't exactly dripping in birds but there were enough to keep us occupied for a couple of hours. 

There was a steady stream of skeins of geese going over. Small parties of ducks were constantly buzzing around the marsh and a small party of Pintail out on the river added a bit of extra interest. We had up to four Marsh Harriers in view as well as two Peregrines, the photos above were phonescoped at quite a distance. I did have a very distant Merlin, but sadly no Hen Harriers or Short-eared Owls.

I did see one of the most bizarre sights I've seen whilst I've been birding and it sort of fits with that crass statement you often get when you tell people you're a birder! You know the one - "What, feathered ones?". A middle aged bloke, a twenty something bloke and two young women came walking along the salt marsh carrying large bags and, we noticed later, a couple of cameras. The next thing we saw was this:

 A fashion photo shoot on the Dee estuary salt marsh, in January. It was a bit nippy to say the least,  and the model was wearing that dress for a good half hour. She must have been freezing. Even funnier (for me and Rob anyway) was the fact that they hadn't realised the tide was rising quickly and when they came to walk back to the path there was at least a foot of standing water and only the older bloke had wellies on.

Anyway, after watching these antics for a while we headed off to Hoylake, just to see if the waders were roosting close in, and to see if we could pick up the Scoter flock. The waders were quite distant which, on a positive note, meant they weren't disturbed every 10 minutes by the dog walkers. There were plenty of Scoters moving over the sea, but again very distant so it wasn't worth staying too long and we were on our way home by 15:00. It was a productive day overall in many respects, maybe not in terms of species numbers, but the quality of birds was great and given that two weeks ago I struggled to walk for an hour this felt brilliant.