The simplest of pleasures evokes youth
AT the risk of sounding prosaic, often the well-being derived from encounters with wildlife is not all about watching the rare (although that is always nice).
Sometimes it’s all about context and environment, sometimes it even encapsulates a spot of time travel.
I was reminded of this last week as I stomped across the vast flat sandscape south of Formby Point towards the summer tern roost out on the edge of the rising tide off Albert Road.
It was a balmy evening with blue skies and a sun slowly sinking behind container ships threading their way into the Mersey, while the wild calls of the terns drifted over the sands - magical.
My uncle first took me out here about 50 years ago.
I was a young boy bowed down by cumbersome binoculars that probably weighed more than I did at the time.
They’d come to me after a lifetime of use on the dog tracks of Ireland and had their limitations as birding optics especially after my dad had “fixed” them in a vice! My mind raced back.
I can still remember being guided through the concentration of terns, Little Gulls and even skuas by my patient uncle, who happily taught me the pitfalls and tricks of identification.
Sadly he’s gone now (luckily so are the heavyweight binoculars!), but in late summer large numbers of terns, gulls and waders continue to congregate here.
Fifty years later I was still watching them as Swallows skimmed low over the sand in the evening sun behind me.
I was hoping to get a glimpse of the mega-rare Elegant Tern which has joined the late summer roost.
This yellow-billed beauty was nowhere to be seen (I caught up with it at Hightown a few days later), but the roost held gems including a wonderful Roseate Tern, a diminutive Little Tern, hundreds of Sandwich and Common Terns and a scattering of Arctic Terns.
Mediterranean and Little Gulls added to the mix.
Watching the roost felt like a privilege and I left with a smile on my face.
The Elegant Tern had relocated to the other side of the Alt and it flew in to join other terns and gulls as I scanned the estuary at Hightown shortly after dawn last Thursday.
A species that should be in the Pacific, this remarkable bird has spent the summer in the tern colony at Cemlyn Bay on Anglesey before moving to Sefton’s shores.
A few pairs of Elegant Terns have managed to breed on the Gironde in France for the last few years – probably where this one has come from.
But it is undoubtedly one of the rarest birds to appear on the Sefton coast and drew a steady stream of admirers.
Over 5,000 terns were gathered around the Alt last week – an indication of the international importance of our coast for wildlife and a reminder of how vital it is that these creatures are not disturbed as they rest here.
We all have a responsibility – whether walking, exercising a dog or riding a horse – not to bother these astonishing visitors.
Rather we should admire them from a safe distance, whether through ancient heavyweight binoculars or not.