Pied Wheatear on the Wirral!

Pied Wheatear had been missing from my arsenal of British Wheatears for some time now, having never managed to make it down to the Nottinghamshire bird back in 2013. With no readily available birds in the 5 years since, I therefore jumped on the chance to pay a visit to the bird that took up residence on the sea wall at Dove Point in Meols on the Wirral in November, less than an hour away from home and showing extremely well to the masses.

Pied Wheatear!

The Wheatear and its many admirers! 

Sure enough, upon pulling up next to the assembled crowd of birders and cameras, the Pied Wheatear was instantly on view – quite possibly the easiest and quickest twitch I have ever been to!

Over the next few hours the Wheatear continued to show exceptionally well, flitting from point to point on the sea wall and never disappearing for more than a minute at a time, on one occasion flying down on to the floor and proceeding to scurry right up to my boots! Extremely confiding and showing no fear, it didn’t even seem too bothered when locals passed right next to it with their dogs!

Aged as a first winter male, whilst some questioned the ID with relation to the width of the black band on the end of the tail (and the similarity to Eastern Black-eared Wheatear), tail patterns vary between individuals and this particular bird is well in the range for Pied. The dark feather colouration of the mantle along with the white edges to the feathers creating a ‘scaly’ effect are also both classic for Pied, nailing the ID.

Note the scaly looking back - a key feature for Pied Wheatear

Having already been present for two days before being identified from photos and the news put out to the masses, this was the first record for Cheshire/Wirral and a fantastic local bird to connect with.

Red-throated Pipit - Ludworth Moor (Derbyshire/Manchester)

With an alert popping up mid-morning on the Sunday telling us there was a Red-throated Pipit showing in a field up near Manchester on Ludworth Moors, it was a no brainer to take the trip to try and catch up with this local mega, hoping it would stay the course and remain loyal to the site for the rest of the day.

With records usually emanating from the Scilly Isles or as flyover individuals, Red-throated Pipits are notoriously hard to twitch, so it was all systems go heading down the motorway! Usually less than an hour from my house, it was rather unfortunate that we were based in Wales for the night, but we made good progress and managed to arrive on site just after lunch.

With the bird showing well as soon as we arrived, the assembled birders luckily got us on it through their scopes, and we enjoyed great views for all of about 5 seconds before it took high to the air and flew off over in the distance! Would that be it?! A short, sweet and very jammy encounter?!

Luckily the pipit had flown only as far as the field across the track, and after 5 minutes or so it took to the sky again, flying directly over our heads and landing in the original sheep field. Making its distinctive flight call once as it did so, this was a great opportunity to experience the call in the field, and ideal to help nail the ID on any possible flyover Red-throated Pipits in the future.

Walking back to the road, we were able to look over the stone wall across to where the pipit had landed, and after emerging from the tussock it treated us to excellent views on the deck as it fed amongst the grass and sheep poo – taking advantage of the abundance of small insects present. Parading around in front of us, we took in the rich red throat and head, an exceptionally bright bird and standing out from the accompanying Meadow Pipits by a mile.

One of the rarer pipits on the British list, the bright red colouration of the head and throat were distinctive in these circumstances, but with drabber plumage and standing out much less, autumn individuals can usually be identified by the whitish mantle stripes, streaked  back and lack of any broad white wing bars.

The whitish mantle stripes can be seen in this shot

It’s not often that we get Red-throated Pipits in this plumage, with first winter birds in the autumn seen most often, so it was a rare opportunity to study this beautiful pipit up close. With very few twitchable mainland records in the past 10 years, this was a fantastic bird to catch up with and even better that it was so local!

Being in the area, we also popped in to Pennington Flash to catch up with one of the many Black Terns that had been grounded in the UK by the poor weather overnight, and we enjoyed distant views of this beautiful tern, the stunning smoky black plumage really standing out from the accompanying Common Tern flock. A nice Willow Tit gathering nesting material was also a nice surprise outside Teal Hide, having not seen any at the regular feeding station when we stopped by.

A trip to Meols to end the day failed to turn up the 3 Dotterel that had amazingly been showing on the beach that afternoon – a crazy sighting - but a gorgeous summer plumaged Curlew Sandpiper and flyover Grey Plover were both nice consolations!