Black Storks at Gayton Sands, Dee Estuary

I embarked on another spontaneous twitch this morning when news came through that two black storks that had been seen at Parkgate yesterday evening had been seen again in the same area early morning today. I abandoned Pennington Flash immediately and headed to the Old Baths car park at Parkgate, where I arrived an hour later at 9am. I then walked north for about 1km to the viewing area.

The birds were apparently on the ground but in one of the channels on the saltmarsh which combined with the height of the vegetation meant that they were completely out of view despite their size. At least we knew where they were so in theory all that I had to do was stick it out and wait for them to fly, whenever that might be.

Fortunately I didn't have long to wait, after about 45 minutes the shout went up that they were in the air and suddenly there they were, directly out from us, perhaps 500m away and in line with Holywell on the other side of the estuary. That last piece of information is important but I'll get back to that later 😄.....

A really magnificent sight, they circled around climbing higher all of the time, coming as close as 100-200m at times, until finally they were little more than dots and appeared to be heading off east. Except that they didn't go east.

I was surprised at how many people just ignored them and left after the initial sighting. People were packing up and saying "are we off?" and leaving, with the birds still circling overhead. Having made the effort to go I was determined to watch them as long as I could and perhaps see where they went. Pretty soon there were just two of us left, still watching the storks as they suddenly dropped and came down, now heading north before appearing to land behind trees somewhere beyond the golf club. Later in the afternoon, long after I had gone, there were two further reports, again of the birds distantly and briefly on the saltmarsh, confirming that they hadn't left the area earlier. The last report of the day from the Dee was from Burton Mere Wetlands at 13:20, and with a report of two black storks at Gibraltar Point, Lincolnshire at 17:30, it looks like this time they really have gone.

These birds were just my second ever sighting of black stork in the UK, the first being on Walney Island in October 1985.

"So why is it so important that the birds were in line with Holywell?", I hear you ask. Go to the end of this post to find out.

Black storks with Holywell in the distance. This was my kind of birding experience in my kind of place. Great big wide open views and two magnificent, unmistakable birds circling around as they gained height. Before I arrived I was concerned that I might only see the birds on the ground, which would probably mean at best seeing just their heads and necks through the heat haze. I was praying that they would fly while I was there because I knew that it would be a so much better experience. When they first took off they were simply breathtaking, especially through the scope!

I keep lists, and most important are my North West list and my Merseyside list. These birds easily fall within my North West list boundary which basically includes all of the coastal counties from Bardsey Island to the Scottish border. The black storks were not an addition to that list, which currently stands at 379 species, because I've seen one on Walney Island.

They were however an addition to my Merseyside list, which now stands at 288 species. I realise that this will be sacrilege to some readers, but the boundaries of my Merseyside list are the original boundaries of Merseyside as set up in 1974. There's debate as to whether Merseyside still exists, but to be honest I don't care! This is just a convenient boundary for me to use which covers many of my favourite and most visited birding areas. I'm not making a political statement or campaigning for Wirral to rejoin Merseyside, it's just the boundaries that I set for my list. It's no different to me putting a dot on the map and drawing a 10km radius circle and calling that my boundary, irrespective of whichever counties it crosses. 

The place I was standing when I saw the storks, was in Merseyside in 1974. The black storks were on the saltmarsh in line with Holywell (see photo above). That puts both me and the storks in Merseyside ✔ If you want to call it Cheshire, fine, I do myself when I'm compiling a Cheshire list.....doh! Why did I say that! I'm off.....