Dee Estuary Birding
Monthly Newsletter...
April 2025
Newsletter
Rock Pipit colour ringing on Hilbre
Island. A
project update.
Hilbre is the largest of a chain of three islands in the mouth of the
Dee estuary. Hilbre is the largest of the islands, lying about 0.5 km
off the mainland, at its closest point, with an area of 4.65 hectares
and is made up of Bunter Sandstone with cliffs up to 5 m and a rocky
foreshore. The observatory was founded in 1957 and since then we’ve
ringed a small number of Rock Pipits. We’d suspected that we get a
small but regular passage of Scandinavian birds (littoralis) and this
was confirmed by the recapture of a Norwegian colour ringed bird in
October 2014.
It is only in recent years that Rock Pipits have
regularly bred on the
island(s) with 4-5 pairs nesting in most years. The observatory decided
to register a colour ringing project with the BTO in 2022 but it wasn’t
until June 2023 that we were able to start the project due to the delay
in getting the colour rings. The justifications for the project were to
monitor the resident population to determine the number of breeding
territories and their range (from field sightings from both Observatory
ringers and non-ringers), hopefully get some data on post juvenile
dispersal and get data on the winter movements of our breeding birds.
Of course, there’s always the hope that we’ll have one of our birds
controlled in Scandinavia on return passage! We are very lucky in
having a very active bird watching community in the area and it was
hoped that birders on the main land would be able to find and identify
Hilbre colour ringed Rock Pipits and we actively engaged with the local
birding community, through social media, to enlist their help.
Hilbre always ring birds on the left leg so we can easily identify
ringed birds seen around the island. Our colour making scheme consists
of a blue darvic with a three letter code engraved in white on the
right leg with a BTO metal ring on the left leg and a single red colour
ring above the metal ring. The purpose of the red colour ring was to
differentiate our scheme from a Finnish one that uses the same colour
darvics.
Results.
To date we have colour ringed 26 Rock Pipits (9 adults and 17
juveniles) and the project has generated over 140 subsequent field
sightings! Far exceeding our expectations. Many of these are
photographed and put on local WhatsApp groups or Facebook where we can
then provide the finder with the ringing details. Many thanks to all
the readers of this page who have submitted sightings to Richard Smith
or
posted sightings on local Facebook and WhatsApp groups. Please keep the
sightings coming!
Of the 26 colour ringed birds only 9 have not been resighted whilst 5
have been resighted on the mainland. The longest movement recorded to
date is 4 km but we have an intriguing recent record of a blue darvic
ringed bird further round the coastline in the Mersey Estuary at
Egremont. Unfortunately, the ring code can’t be read from the photos
but it’s clear the bird is wearing a red colour ring. This is a
movement of 9 km in a straight line but it’s likely the bird has moved
along the coastline making its journey much longer.
All the identifiable birds seen on the mainland have been birds ringed
as juveniles on Hilbre. This suggests post juvenile dispersal but two
birds, CAB & CAF, were photographed at Hoylake & Meols and then
made subsequent appearances back on Hilbre before returning to the
mainland.
Photo above: CAF ringed on Hilbre as a juvenile on 4th August 2023 and
subsequently photgraphed at Hoylake by Anthony Ramsden on the 13th
August
2023. This bird was subsequently seen back on Hilbre on the 14th August
2023 and was back at Meols on the 25th August 2023. It was last
reported at Hoylake on the 2nd of February 2025, by Graham Connolly,
alongside CAX which was ringed as a juvenile on 22nd July 2024. This
raises the possibility that these birds may have paired up and if so,
it will be interesting to see where they end up.
Future work.
One aspect of the work we are doing is to determine the number of
breeding territories on the islands and work out which pairs are in
each territory and site fidelity for each pair. With the project now
entering its third season we wait to see if any of the young birds get
recruited into the Hilbre breeding population as older birds are
replaced. The Hilbre Islands aren’t able to support a large population
of Rock Pipits and we are hoping that some of our dispersing birds will
be picked up breeding at other sites around Liverpool Bay. With
proposals for a Mersey barrage still ongoing it’s important we collect
as much data as possible on the movements of birds around the estuary
and their feeding habits.
Phil Woollen,
Secretary Hilbre Bird Observatory
© Elliot Montieth
Colour Ring Report
Little Egret
White 9 Green A
Ringed at Hale Duck Decoy (Mersey Estuary) in May 2023, as a chick
Recorded at Thurstaston Shore 20/07/2023.
Seen at Castlethorn, Dumfires and Gallaway, on 19/03/2025.
We know from colour ringing that juvenile Little
Egrets disperse widely after leaving the nest and this is a good
example.
Avocet
Note the ring is stained, originally white
White (RR9)
Ringed at Laguna de Los Tollos (NE of Cadiz, Spain) in June 2014, as a
chick.
Recorded just east of the Donana National Park in SW Spain in February
2017.
Recorded at Burton Mere Wetlands 20/03/2025.
This is a fantastic record. According to the BTO
website it is only the sixth Spanish ringed Avocet to have been
recorded in the UK. It is the first foreign colour ringed Avocet in our
Dee Estuary database, although I do recall a French ringed Avocet at
Burton several years ago. Since it was last seen in Spain, in 2017,
that area around Donana National Park has experienced drought
conditions so maybe it was driven northwards to find damper conditions.
Mediterranean Gulls
Y-ATPC
Ringed near Solvesberg, southern Sweden, in May 2023 as an adult.
Recorded:
Oakenholt RSPB in July 2022.
Falkholmen, southern Sweden, in June 2024 as a breeding adult with
chick.
Burton Mere Wetlands RSPB on 20/03/2025.
Y-AYPS
Ringed near Solvesberg, southern Sweden, in May 2022 as an adult.
Recorded:
Falkholmen, southern Sweden, in June 2024 as a breeding adult with
chick.
Burton Mere Wetlands RSPB on 20/03/2025.
Of the 78 colour-ringed Mediterranean Gull records
in our database just nine have been in spring, so when Colin Schofield
saw two together this last March he was both surprised and delighted.
As Colin said "they arrived together and stayed together". This is
significant as in 2024 they were a breeding pair, with a chick, in
southern Sweden. So, when Colin saw them, they were already paired up.
According to BWP this pairing up before arriving at their breeding site
is something which some Mediterranean Gulls are known to do. But you
wonder how they do it. Do they stay together all winter? Or, perhaps
more likely, meet together at some staging area on their way north from
the main wintering area in France, Portugal and Spain? Intriguing!
Y - ATJC
Ringed on the German Baltic coast near Luckow June 2021.
Not all Mediterranean gulls spend the winter in France and/or Iberia,
this one has been a regular at Seaforth and Egremont every winter since
being ringed. It was at Leasowe in January 2023. This last winter
(2024/25) it has been recorded at Seaforth, Crosby, Central Park
Wallasey and Egremont Beach.
Grey Plovers
Grey Plovers:
Orange flag XK (photographed at West Kirby in August 2024.
Orange flag NX (photographed at Meols in October 2024)
Orange flag VJ (photographed at Hoylake inFebruary 2025)
Orange flag HE (photographed at Hoylake inFebruary 2025)
We continue to monitor colour ringed Grey Plovers with the large majority being fitted locally with orange flags, as per the photos above. Since they returned from breeding last summer we have 39 records of 25 birds Many are recorded at high tide at Hoylake where the flags are fairly easy to see on the long legs of the plovers - unlike knots where the flags are usually invisible with their short legs in the water! But we have also recorded them feeding on the mud at West Kirby and Meols. The majority of the birds we record have been regularly seen on the Liverpool Bay coastline from Point of Ayr in the south to Southport in the north.
Grey Plovers do occur on the Mersey Estuary, albeit
usually less than half the numbers we get on the Dee, but none with
orange flags have been recorded there - until this last winter. One was
at Hale on the north coast of the estuary in December and another on
the south coast at Stanlow Point in February.
Colour Rings were recorded by Richard
Smith, Stephen
Hinde, Tony Ormond, Colin Schofield, Alex Jones, Steve Williams, Rob Bithell and
Helen Jones.
Richard Smith
March Bird News
A Black Scoter was a great find off East Hoyle Bank on the 5th. A first
for the Dee Estuary, and they are less than annual in this country.
This one stayed until the 19th. Also out there were up to seven
Long-tailed Ducks, four Scaup and one or two Velvet Scoters. On the
15th a massive flock of 12,000 Common Scoters were counted from Hilbre.
An interesting date as that following night a large passage across the
country was recorded, and this passage continued on most nights until
the month-end, many thousands of birds must have been involved. They
seemed to be flying inland just after dark on a broad front between the
Ribble Estuary
and Crosby, and then recorded right across the country as the map below
shows. This is an annual event with the birds on their way to breed in
northern Scandinavia and Siberia, but this year the passage was
particularly strong and well recorded. There must have been a
particularly large movement on the night of 24th/25th with multiple
flocks recorded at Banks (Ribble), Southport and Crosby on the coast
then at numerous locations inland over both Lancashire and Yorkshire.
Birds were still moving in large numbers on the night of 28th/29th,
including 41 flocks sound-recorded over the village of Flamborough on
the east
coast of Yorkshire. It's exciting to think of all those thousands of
birds crossing the country in the dark, all completely unseen by the
general
public.
With some good weather in March the spring migration
got underway with many first arrivals quite early as seen in the table
below. Nothing too remarkable though, except for the first Whitethroat
at Leasowe on the 30th - I don't recall one in March before.
Other spring migrants included the first
sighting of a Sandwich Tern from Hilbre on the 23rd, and on the same
date an Osprey flew over Heswall Fields. There was a small passage of
Little Gulls with 18 off Hilbre on the 22nd the highest count. A Puffin
was a good record off East Hoyle Bank on the 20th.
Whilst numbers of Purple Sandpipers at New Brighton
have been sadly declining it's good that counts on Hilbre have been the
highest for well over 10 years, with 27 on the 1st and 28 on the 29th.
A Bittern showed well several times at Burton Mere
Wetlands, and a White Stork was unexpected - it was fitted with a blue
ring and most likely one that has been released by the White Stork
Project, based at Knepp.
What to expect in April
April is a month we always look forward to with the spring migration in
full flow.
Many species we only see this time of year and these will include Whinchats, Pied Flycatchers, Ring Ouzels and Common Redstarts. In particular we look forward to seeing Yellow Wagtails, as well as our British Yellow Wagtails we sometimes see birds originating from the continent including 'Channel' and Blue Wagtails, with the chance of seeing something much rarer such as a Spanish Wagtail recorded here in 2019. As it happens 2019 was a particularly good year for yellow wagtails and you can read about that spring by clicking here.
White Wagtails are the continental race of Pied
Wagtails and they will be coming through here on their way to Iceland
to breed. You can often see these on newly sown fields or coastal
paddocks, and they also feed on sand flies on the shore with Hoylake
being a particularly good spot for them. I look in awe at these
delicate looking birds knowing they will be flying over the Atlantic
Ocean in their thousands.
On the estuary the Pink-footed Geese will be leaving, early morning is usually best when you could see flocks several thousand strong heading north. Whimbrels will be flying up from their wintering grounds in West Africa on their way to Iceland. I always love seeing them and hearing their whistling calls. Numbers will increase steadily through the month with well over a hundred present by the month-end. The best place to see and hear them is between West Kirby and Heswall on an incoming tide. They often walk over the rocks next to the beach between Caldy and Thurstaston.
If you see a load of Herring Gulls in the air making a racket there's a good chance an Osprey is flying over. Sometimes they will catch a fish and eat on a sandbank, a thrilling sight.
For a more detailed look back at previous spring
migrations see "The
Spring Migration" (Dee Estuary Newsletter April 2024).
April Highest
Tides:
1st 13.57hrs (BST) 10.0m
27th 11,23hrs (BST) 9.8m
28th 12.08hrs (BST) 10.0m
29th 12.53hrs (BST) 10.0m
30th 13.39hrs (BST) 9.7m