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The Dee Estuary was featured on last weekend’s BBC Countryfile, which was nice. Now you’ve got a chance to see it for yourself.
This month the spring tides (they are the big ones) are due to cover the RSPB’s Dee Estuary Nature Reserve at Parkgate. Decades ago, vessels could tie up at Parkgate but now the view is predominantly one of saltmarsh grasses and plants. On the big tides, this is covered and as the sea creeps in all the wildlife of the marsh creeps out. Water rails, snipe, harvest mice and water voles all emerge seeking higher ground.
Quick, scarpa, here comes the tide - a water rail
It’s years since I’ve witnessed this amazing natural phenomenon – and it’s certainly one of those ‘must see’ events that only the natural world can put on.
And it doesn’t end there. The Dee is a winter refuge for birds of prey; hen harriers, short-eared owls and tiny merlins (our smallest bird of prey) appear over the marsh taking advantage of the unexpected appearance of their normally secretive prey.
As the tide builds the swirling flocks of waders and wildfowl complete the scene as the high water forces them to seek safer places to roost and wait before their mudflat feeding banquet is exposed by the ebbing tide.
Grey herons and little egrets are on constant patrol as the water’s edge constantly changes giving them fresh feeding opportunities.
Paul Brady runs the High Tide Birdwatch events and is our Visitor Development Officer for the Dee and recalls just how close the wildlife can get: ‘The wildlife can come so close on these tides that one year someone actually had a bird that’s normally very hard to see, a water rail, hiding in his rucksack!’
These free RSPB High Tide Bird Watch events are running on Saturday 19 February at 10 am, Sunday 20 February at 11 am and Monday 21 February at 11.30 am.
Everyone is welcome to come along to the Old Baths Car Park, Parkgate, where expert staff and volunteers will be on hand to help you make the most of your visit.
Further details of these events can be obtained from www.rspb.org.uk/parkgate or by phoning 0151 336 7681.
These occasions really bring home just why our coastal wetlands are so important as local herons rub shoulders with birds of prey that will return to our hills in spring and vast flocks of international migrants that will soon return to Iceland, Siberia and their Arctic breeding grounds.
Though often less easy to see, this melting pot of the worlds wildlife is repeated around our coasts, our life-sustaining estuaries put the UK firmly in the front line of wetland conservation.
Yet just across the Wirral, on the Mersey, plans to barrage the estuary are under active consideration and the RSPB is deeply involved in fighting for the best outcomes for these ultra-special places on the Humber, the Thames, the Severn and the Wash.
If you can get to the Dee to witness this weekend of spectacular wildlife – I’d strongly recommended it.
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