Dee Estuary Birding

Monthly Newsletter...

Site menu:

• Home
• Site Index
• Map of Estuary
• Latest Sightings
• Monthly News
• Site Guides
• LinksTides and Weather

April 2018 Newsletter

Liverpool Bay SPA.
March Bird News.
Connah's Quay Nature Reserve.
Colour Ring Report.
Forthcoming Events.
Latest Newsletter.

 

You may have seen in the news at the end of last year that the Liverpool Bay Special Protection Area (SPA) has been expanded, giving greater protection to a number of bird species. This is certainly good news so I thought I would fill in with some details.

The SPA has been increased in area by 48% and the map below shows the current area in purple with the seaward boundary of the original SPA shown as a green dotted line (this line was drawn by myself so should be regarded as an approximation). It has also been extended into the Mersey Narrows going right past the Liverpool waterfront. The only other addition is just west of the Gronant Little Tern colony where an area off Prestatyn is now included, presumably a Little Tern foraging area.

The original Liverpool Bay SPA was designated in 2010 so it is good that it has already been upgraded. It was originally designated for it's wintering population of Red-throated Divers (estimated as 922 individuals, 5.4% of GB population) and Common Scoter (estimated as 54,675 individuals, 3.4% of the European population).

This list of designated species has now been increased as follows, together with upgraded estimate of numbers:

You may wonder at the over-precise numbers for some of the counts above but they are just an average of several counts - I'm not really sure why they don't give a range or round the numbers off.

Survey and data gathering

A lot of work has been done surveying Liverpool Bay in recent years, both before the original SPA was designated and since. This includes aerial surveys of wintering birds carried out by the Wetlands and Wildfowl Trust between 2001 and 2011. The JNCC Report about their assessment of wintering birds includes some fascinating maps and reveal, among other things, that the area of Liverpool Bay just north of the Dee estuary contains the highest concentration of Red-throated Divers (see Ref 2). It also reveals that the major reason for the seaward extension of the SPA was the presence of Little Gulls in that area, and not, as I had assumed, the presence of Common Scoters.

In addition numbers from the Seabird Monitoring Programme have been used, and there have also been boat based and shore based surveys identifying the important foraging areas for Little Terns and larger terns, particularly Common Terns.

The Consultation

This was carried out between November 2016 and February 2017. The report written about this consultation reveals a few interesting details:

There were 33 formal responses, mostly supportive or neutral. Nobody formally objected but I quote "We consider that responses from two stakeholders constitute objections despite not explicitly stating this in their responses". The 'objections' were from the British Marine Aggregate Producers Association and Tidal Lagoon Power Plc. I won't go into details but the activities of these firms could pose a potential negative effect on the SPA, and in turn the expanded SPA could pose a negative effect on their business. Natural England/Natural Resources Wales/JNCC give a robust and detailed response to these objections - for details see Ref 3.

The three main bodies in support appears to have been the Lancashire Wildlife Trust, the North Wales Wildlife Trust and the RSPB, all of which submitted very similar responses and I quote the RSPB response as an example:

RSPB - Supporting response and made the following comments:

1. Requested that Great Cormorant should be added as a qualifying feature because i) cormorant is a qualifying feature of Puffin Island SPA and Liverpool Bay SPA completely surrounds Puffin Island SPA and ii) the numbers roosting on Hilbre island support >1% of the biographical population. RSPB jointly submitted WeBS data with LWT to support their comments.

2. Concerned that passage common tern and sandwich tern were not included as qualifying features due to significant numbers along the Sefton Coast and Ribble area.

Disappointingly, Natural England/Natural Resources Wales/JNCC rejected both the requests re Cormorants and terns basically saying the evidence wasn't strong for their presence in qualifying numbers in Liverpool Bay SPA but that their main concentrations were in existing estuarine SPAs and that these should be amended as appropriate. However, as you see above Great Cormorant is now specifically mentioned as part of the 'assemblage of at least 20,000 waterfowl or seabirds' which is something of a victory in itself.

Liverpool Bay SPA is now one of the largest in North-west Europe. When taking account all the adjacent SPA's (such as Lavan Sands, Dee Estuary, Ribble Estuary, Morecambe Bay etc) the whole area can now be regarded as a 'super SPA' and is of crucial importance to both estuarine and sea birds.

References and Further Reading:

1. The JNCC on-line entry for Liverpool Bay SPA:
http://jncc.defra.gov.uk/page-7507
This web page details the protected features, details of survey work carried out and much other interesting information, plus various useful links.

2. Lawson, J., Kober, K., Win, I., Allcock, Z., Black, J., Reid, J.B., Way, L. & O’Brien, S.H., (2015), An assessment of the numbers and distributions of wintering waterbirds and seabirds in Liverpool Bay/Bae Lerpwl area of search, JNCC Report 576, ISSN 0963-8901. http://jncc.defra.gov.uk/page-7103.

3. This Web page gives several relevant links including to the Consultation Report:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/liverpool-bay.....

4. Richard Smith, Common Scoters,  http://www.deeestuary.co.uk/news0514.htm.

5. Richard Smith, Species Spotlight - Cormorant, http://www.deeestuary.co.uk/news0415.htm.

6. Richard Smith, Common Scoters, Liverpool Bay SPA and Windfarms, 
http://www.deeestuary.co.uk/news0708.htm#sec.

Richard Smith

Top of Page

It is becoming increasingly apparent – both from anecdotal and first-hand experience - that many people are accessing Connah’s Quay Nature Reserve despite not being current members.
Notwithstanding the fact that non-members are uninsured when on site, it is clearly unfair to paying members that some visitors are using the facilities for free. It also creates a situation whereby regular visitors to the reserve are either reluctant or unwilling to publish details of any scarce birds that visit the site given what has occurred on previous occasions.
If you are a non-member and wish to visit us in the future, please ensure that you are carrying a 2018 Permit. Both new members and those wanting to renew an expired membership can find the renewal form at:  http://www.deenats.org.uk/joinus.html .
Hereafter, anybody suspected of not being a current member will be asked to produce their Permit and failure to do so could result in them being asked to leave the site.
It is understandable however, that on occasion, current members may wish to bring prospective members to the reserve and in such cases exceptions will be made. After all, we have some excellent wildlife to enjoy here at Connah’s Quay and we are keen to encourage as many people as possible to join us.

Kind Regards,

Paul Shenton

Chair, Deeside Naturalists’ Society.

Top of Page

 

Sanderling

G3RGBW - note, the Red (R) ring is very faded and could easily be mistaken for Yellow, see photo above.
Ringed at Sandgeroi harbour, SW Iceland, on 28th May 2013.
Recorded at Hoylake Shore on  3rd March 2018.
Also recorded at Hoylake in early Nov 2014.  All other records are from Formby Point and Ainsdale Beach usually in March/April and August/September so we don't know where it spends the winter, but it was at Formby Point on 17th February 2018.

Oystercatcher

Metal ring FH95991.
Ringed at North Ronaldsay Bird Observatory on 26th June 2017, nestling.
Recorded at Saughall Massie, Wirral, on 4th March 2018 - bird found freshly dead.
 

Dunlin

ZYZ - black on white ring.
Ringed on the River Vistula estuary, Gdansk, Poland, on 20th July 2015.
Recorded at Hoylake Shore on 5th March 2018.
Also recorded at West Kirby Marine Lake on 13th February 2017.

5UV - black on white ring.
Ringed on the River Vistula estuary, Gdansk, Poland, on 25th July 2016.
Recorded at Hoylake Shore on 5th March 2018. No other records.

Of the 14 Polish ringed Dunlin we've recorded ZYZ is only the second to be re-sighted. 

Knot

Yflag(50A) Y.
Ringed at Skogarnes, SW Iceland, on 20th May 2017.
Recorded on Thurstaston Shore on 24th November 2017.
Recorded by West Kirby Marine Lake on 1st March 2018.

Oflag(EU) P (P= pale blue)
Ringed on the Alt Estuary (Sefton coast) on 22nd September 2017.
Recorded at Formby Point on 6th October and 4th November 2017.
Between 20th February and 19th March 2018 it was recorded eight times on the mud just by the southern end of West Kirby Marine Lake.

Yflag(14) - on tibia.
Ringed at Dynjandisvogur in NW Iceland on 25th May 2014.
Recorded at Meols Shore on 20th March 2018.
This bird was recorded at Southport in April and October 2016, and again there in March 2017. It was at Crosby on 2nd September 2017.
So this bird has only been sighted in Spring and Autumn, where does it spend the winter?

Altcar Knot Catch - March 30th

Oflag(PK) G
Ringed near the Alt Estuary (Altcar) on 30th March 2018, photograph shows the bird just as it has been released after ringing. 
An excellent catch in good weather on Good Friday resulted in 496 Knots with new Orange flags and green rings. As I write this some of these have already been sighted on the Dee estuary by the Hilbre Bird Observatory. Several Bar-tailed Godwits and Grey Plovers were also fitted with Orange flags.

Richard Smith.
Colour-rings were also recorded by Steve Hinde, Matt Thomas, Les Hall, Steve Williams, Allan Hitchmough, Manu Santa-Cruz, Jason King and Charles Farnell.

Top of Page

The 'Beast from the East' was in full swing early in the month with the coldest prolonged spell since December 2010. Cold weather movements included 11 Shoveler at Hilbre (rare here), up to seven Scaup both at Hilbre and West Kirby Marine Lake (probably the same birds), movements of Redwings and Fieldfares were noted and there was a notable influx of Jack Snipes and Woodcocks. Although probably not related to the cold weather over 20 Brent Geese started feeding on West Kirby Marine Lake, these were often close to the Scaup making for an unusual spectacle - they certainly made for some nice photos.

Because of the cold weather everyone thought that the first spring migrants would be severely delayed but the first Wheatear was one of the earliest we've ever had, and, although later than 2017, the other species were not unusually late. Continuing poor weather did mean migration was very slow but that isn't unusual in March, lets hope for some better weather in April!

The table shows the first date each migrant species was seen.

Species	2018	Location	2017	2016
Wheatear	9th March	Leasowe Lighthouse	11th March	23rd March
White Wagtail	14th March	Hilbre	4th March	15th March
Sand Martin	15th March	West Kirby	11th March	16th March
Willow Warbler	27th March	Greasby	17th March	29th March
Swallow	29th March	West Kirby	14th March	24th March
House Martin			27th March	7th April
Whitethroat			17th April	13th April
Swift			19th April	22nd April
Cuckoo			24th April	21st April

Out to sea the first Sandwich Tern of the year was spotted from Hilbre on the 30th and there was a small but steady passage of Little Gulls, max 24 on the 26th. The over-wintering flock of Eiders was present all month, reaching 12 on the 24th.  Common Scoters reached 15,000 on the 7th but didn't seem to stay long, when I saw them they were an awful long way out into Liverpool Bay. A Velvet Scoter was recorded from Leasowe Lighthouse on the 5th.

A female Merlin seemed to take up permanent residence in a tree next to the reception hide at Burton Mere Wetlands, with one or two recorded elsewhere on the estuary. 

Large numbers of Pink-footed Geese were seen including two counts of at least 10,000. Knot numbers were high during the cold spell with up to 30,000 early in the month but most had disappeared by the month-end, either flying east to the Waddensea or north to the Ribble. Avocet numbers were exceptional at Burton Mere Wetlands with reports of a record high number of 122 on the 18th.

Scarcer birds included regular reports of one or two Water Pipits at both Neston Old Quay and Burton Mere Wetlands, up to four Mediterranean Gulls at Burton Mere Wetlands, two reports of over-flying Red Kites, a Black Redstart at Hoylake andreports of Cetti's Warblers at various locations. 

Numbers of Twite at Connah's Quay and Flint haven't been quite as high this last winter but there were at least 60 at the end of the month. These days Great White Egrets are ever present with six the highest count on the 25th, we can but hope that they'll breed here this summer.

Top of Page