Hoylake Bird Observatory! 

      Jane Turner
 

Fortunately, the imminent arrival of our third daughter in May (2000) gave us just the incentive we needed! We were prepared to live almost anywhere, as long as there were enough bedrooms, a 180° sea view and a garden with Siberia Phylloscopus potential. Forunately for us, one of about eight candidates came onto the market, between King's Gap and Hoylake lifeboat station. From the lounge it was possible to see Hilbre, Point of Ayr and Formby Point. The gardens were huge - both more than 100ft long and it had enough bedrooms. We moved in on May 12th (2000), just four days before Heather was born. We though it might be quite good for birds; Snow Bunting and Siskin overhead while we were viewing was obviously a good sign, but it was only after living there a few weeks that it became clear just what we were in for. Our first morning produced two cuckoos and a Spotted Flycatcher, the second a Sedge Warbler, a Whitethroat and a good selection of overhead birds including Tree Pipits, Redpolls, a Whimbrel and a Peregrine. Yes, as hoped, the North Shore flight line really did go clean through the front garden. The only catch was that we had no bushes or shrubs to slow things down.

Within days of moving in Mark and I had taken to wearing bins in the house to avoid cartoon style collisions when trying to find optics in a hurry. We now have old pairs of bins ready to hand at the less frequently watched windows. We also found that seawatching is much less demanding when you when you can do it from an armchair with a beer in one hand. Though some distance from the low tide mark, the height of the bedroom window and comfort factor more than compensate. We soon smashed a number of the Red Rocks record counts, most memorably a stunning passage of Manxies on June 23rd (2000), peaking at 1000 per hour and 1280 Guillemots on Oct 23rd.

We spent the three days of summer putting in a large pond and stream into the back garden, with hopes of attracting more migrants and started to plant a small forest in both the front and back in an attempt to hold them longer in the future. We also started to plan an extension to the house, with purpose built seawatching facilities and a view over the extensive cover in next door's garden. Heavy seeding of the front drive quickly atracted an excellent flock of around 50 House Sparrows and similar numbers of mixed finches.

By October it was starting to feel like we were living in a Bird Observatory. We were seeing unusual or interesting birds every day. We were recording significant counts of many species and even hosted a small scale "twitch" two weekends running. We had seen four species of skua, three species of diver and 15 species of duck.

Five species of chat graced the front lawn, including six Greenland Wheatears on one evening and we had seen nine species of warbler. The patch of beach directly in front of the house had produced Richard's Pipit, up to 35 Curlew Sandpipers, 15 Little Stints and two different adult White-rumped Sandpipers. One of these was found from the front room while watching England v West Indies and the other from the bedroom, while checking out a Roseate Tern off the north end of Hilbre. All this in one of the least inspiring autumns I can recall.

At the start of the year I set myself the testing target of seeing 150 species at Red Rocks. As I write this the new house list stands at 148 and we have yet to see Rook or Stock Dove! Five months after moving in, I'm now sure we could see almost anything and I can't help wondering what has moved unseen through the North Wirral gardens in the past. Arctic Warbler and Red-breasted Flycatcher on the same day in Meols, our own Pallas's Warbler in Hoylake and a Nighthawk in Moreton give a hint at what there has already been. Hopefully we will be able to add to this list in the near future - I can't wait for some SE winds in May.

So what are the downsides? Well, for one we have only been to Red Rocks about five times this autumn - it's so much easier to stand in the garden. Also we have been singularly incapable of doing anything to the inside of the house - once again it is just too easy to look out of the window or better still stand outside. However this is a small price to pay for the privilege of regularly seeing Peregrine and huge Knot packs from our bed. I would certainly advise anyone who had fantasised about living in a location where birding was possible to just do it!

Editor: As regular readers probably already realise it is Jane who gives me most of the sightings from Hoylake shore which go in my Latest Sightings page, gratefully received!  The 'Hoylake Bird Observatory' total for the 12 months since moving house was a remarkable 156 species - remember this is just birds seen in and from her garden. Jane is currently writing a report on the year which will be published on this web site. This article was first published in the January 2001 Bird News published by CAWOS, reproduced with kind permission of Jane Turner.