Friday 20th & Sunday 22nd February 2015 - Dee and Mersey Bores

The weekend around 21st February had the highest daytime tides of the year. The Liverpool high tide heights were 10.3m on both Friday 20th and Saturday 21st (although in feet, 33.6' and 33.8' showed it slightly higher on Saturday).

Dee bore near Queensferry Bridge

Dee bore near Queensferry Bridge

Both the Dee and the Mersey do have bores occasionally, but they really require not only very high tides, but also low pressure and a strong wind. Friday was fairly calm with reasonably high pressure, so the bore at Queensferry as shown above, was not suitable for surfers, but still worth seeing (except maybe for those familiar with the Severn bore). For more information on and more impressive images of the Dee and Mersey bores, see for example: noc.ac.uk/f/content/using.../Info_Dee_and_Mersey_river_bores.pdf.

High tide reached wall at Parkgate

Brown rat escaping flood

After the bore we moved to Parkgate on the western side of the Wirral - a well known spot for birding particularly at high tides, when the rising water flushes small mammal from the marshes, inviting hen harriers. Other raptors, particularly peregrines, are frequently seen amongst the vast numbers of waders and waterfowl. On very high tides such as this, the water may rise as far as the wall behind (or in front of) the road/promenade - and it did on this occasion. Some brown rats were seen escaping the flood by swimming towards the onlookers and disappearing down holes in the wall. Both hen harriers and peregrines were seen, and a distant kestrel. There were numerous little egrets, a single great white egret, heron, large flocks of pink-footed geese, lapwings and black-headed gulls, mallard, coot, moorhen and black-tailed godwits.

Ferry Tavern on the Mersey

We couldn't go again on the Saturday, but on Sunday (high tide still 33.1') with lower pressure and strong,, but southerly winds, we tried the Mersey. No bore was visible near Runcorn bridge, but a tiny ripple was seen leading the incoming tide an hour later near Fiddlers Ferry at the Ferry Tavern - the banks near which had been rebuilt, hopefully to prevent the sort of flooding that occurred in 2013.

Cathy and Mike Pettipher