January 2020 Mersey Estuary WeBS Count
This month we had another new species for our webs counts and some unusual ones. The new species was cattle egret. There have been three around the cattle by Frodsham Marsh Farm for a while. The unusual birds were the long-tailed duck and scaup on the Weaver.
Although we saw several skeins of pink-footed geese flying over this month we didn’t find any on the ground during the count. However, we know they are still using the estuary for roosting and last Sunday morning a count by Andy, whose house overlooks the estuary, was an amazing and record breaking count of 7,420!!! These birds have really gone from rare visitors to internationally important in just a few years. 3,000 Canada geese is fairly similar to the last three months’ counts.
It was International Swan Census weekend, a 5-yearly count of all the whooper and Bewick’s swans in Europe. We contributed with 19 whooper swans in the fields by Lordship Lane.
2,300 shelduck was the highest count since August. Amongst other ducks 163 pintails was the second highest count for 15 years.
97 herons were just 4 short of our record of 101.
Amongst the waders the outstanding species was the 342 ringed plovers at Eastham which was nationally important on its own and our highest so far, with the usual August peak only totalling 110 birds. Also at Eastham was 218 knots the highest so far and the highest for 6 years. 2,400 redshanks was the fifth month in a row we had an internationally important count, though this was half last month’s 5,000.
Amongst gulls it was Eastham who had the best record with a yellow-legged gull seen. The usual 6 raptor species were seen. Dermot Smith
Although we saw several skeins of pink-footed geese flying over this month we didn’t find any on the ground during the count. However, we know they are still using the estuary for roosting and last Sunday morning a count by Andy, whose house overlooks the estuary, was an amazing and record breaking count of 7,420!!! These birds have really gone from rare visitors to internationally important in just a few years. 3,000 Canada geese is fairly similar to the last three months’ counts.
It was International Swan Census weekend, a 5-yearly count of all the whooper and Bewick’s swans in Europe. We contributed with 19 whooper swans in the fields by Lordship Lane.
2,300 shelduck was the highest count since August. Amongst other ducks 163 pintails was the second highest count for 15 years.
97 herons were just 4 short of our record of 101.
Amongst the waders the outstanding species was the 342 ringed plovers at Eastham which was nationally important on its own and our highest so far, with the usual August peak only totalling 110 birds. Also at Eastham was 218 knots the highest so far and the highest for 6 years. 2,400 redshanks was the fifth month in a row we had an internationally important count, though this was half last month’s 5,000.
Amongst gulls it was Eastham who had the best record with a yellow-legged gull seen. The usual 6 raptor species were seen. Dermot Smith
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