The Delights of the Donkey Stand

(Sunday 10^th August, 2025)

    Over to Parkgate this morning, parking at the Old Baths Car Park. Today is the last day to submit data for the 2025 Big Butterfly Count, so perhaps we were looking more closely than usual, but we saw lots of Small white butterflies and Large white butterflies flying in the warm sunshine and at Parkgate Marsh this morning. This year shows much more promise than last year, which was a bit of a wash-out due to the wet spring, and hopefully this will be reflected in healthier numbers once the 2025 butterfly count comes in.

    A lovely day today with very little breeze, and one of the delights here on such days is the expansive view: the green grasses of the marsh itself seem to go right across to the Welsh side of the Dee, the river barely visible; and the vast blue sky over which a giant watercolour brush has swept and left its marks…well, let’s be honest, I can only do a disservice to the beauty of it all, so I’ll stop there – but you get the idea!

    A female Small white butterfly very obligingly presented itself for a picture just at this moment. We sauntered down to The Donkey Stand, which is so named because it was where, in former times, children climbed aboard the donkeys that would take them from here to The South Slip and back (where the Old Quay pub is now). We usually head to The Donkey Stand as, not only are there benches on which to rest one’s personality, but it’s also a great viewpoint for the nearby stretch of water (or ‘flash’ as it’s sometimes called), which attracts birds even on quiet days. As we arrived at the benches, we spotted a pair of juvenile Moorhens trying, not very successfully, to move surreptitiously towards their much better-concealed parents on the marsh.

    There was an abundance of birds on the flash: Black-tailed Godwits, many with their lovely, burnished undersides, Avocets and Greenshanks were all wading in the shallows. On the isle in the middle of the water, a Little egret preened itself while a pair of Oystercatchers kept an eye on it. There were in fact three Little egrets that seemed to alternate between preening and suddenly marching through the water in search of food: the abruptness of their actions caused a little consternation with the other birds, who moved out of the way just as abruptly. Away from the main body of birds were two Lesser black-backed gulls, and it was noticeable that the egrets automatically avoided getting too close to these large gulls! (Later, all three Little egrets were on the distant shore when a Great white egret flew in. They scattered in different directions and I’m guessing that it was the suddenness of the Great white’s arrival that startled them, and not outright fear of being attacked).

    Stu brought my attention to a Marsh harrier that appeared out of nowhere, flying over the water. It continued its low flight, sweeping across large swathes of the marsh until just as quickly disappearing from sight. We’d seen a Marsh harrier last week at Burton Wetlands, although only briefly. This one returned twice again and stayed around long enough for a photograph – it looks like a female, though I may be wrong. One of its appearances caused the Bar-tailed godwits and the Avocets to take to the air.  

The important stuff

After all this hard work, we sat on the bench outside Nicholls of Parkgate, on the opposite side of the road, and sipped our Cappuccinos, munching on Borders chocolate ginger biscuits. Ah! Bliss!