Home · What's On
The islands have no ticket office and no calendar of their own, but four organisations put on things worth timing a visit for. Here is who they are, what they run, and the dates they have actually published.
Sunday 10:30 to 14:30 on the island. The Telegraph Station is open as an information centre, volunteers serve teas and coffees, and there are telescopes on the grey seals. Free, no booking. Walk out from the Dee Lane slipway inside the crossing window and leave when the Friends say so; their times are set by the tide.
Telegraph Station, old lifeboat station and Buoymaster's Store open with volunteers and refreshments, 10:00 to 13:30, as part of the national Heritage Open Days festival. Heritage Open Days runs every September, and Hilbre has featured in recent years alongside a rangers' walk.
Wirral Country Park rangers, Love Parks Week, 18:30 to 21:30 with wildlife spotting including the seals. Maximum 30 people, booking essential, sturdy footwear, assistance dogs only.
Saturday 13:30 to 16:30, listed through the Liverpool Architecture Festival programme. Free, no booking.
2026 season in full (Friends of Hilbre 2026 Safe Crossing Leaflet): Sunday 12 April, Saturday 23 May, Saturday 13 June, Saturday 25 July, Saturday 22 August, Sunday 20 September and Sunday 4 October. Each open day gives access to selected island buildings and telescopes on the seals. The Friends' own wording: "Event hours are not crossing windows."
We list only dates the organisers have published, and we check them by hand, so this page can lag. Always confirm with the organiser before you travel, and remember that every event on the island is bounded by the tide: check the crossing times for the day.
A registered charity of about 150 members formed in 2001 to help the council look after the islands. They run open days roughly monthly from April to October, on a mix of Saturdays and Sundays (seven in 2026), staff the Telegraph Station, organise seal-watching, and do conservation work. Membership is £10 a year or £100 for life, running 1 May to 30 April, with a members' newsletter; practical task-day volunteers must be members aged 18 or over.
Wirral Council's rangers manage the reserve and run occasional guided walks: Love Parks Week in July, the Wirral Walking Festival in May (including a "walk out and stay over high tide" day in 2025), and Heritage Open Days in September. Groups are capped at 30 and booking is essential. They also open the Telegraph Station by arrangement and host school visits.
Counting and ringing birds on the islands since 1957, with a daily blog that is the best record of what is about. There are no public open days, but the observatory welcomes visitors by appointment and has given ringing demonstrations to school groups. On big autumn days the members are usually out on the island and glad to talk.
On the biggest spring tides of the year the RSPB and local birders gather at Parkgate, ten miles up the estuary, to watch the marsh flood and the raptors hunt. Our Parkgate pages flag which tides in the coming week are big enough.
Every gathering on the island lives inside the crossing window, and organisers set their hours accordingly. The Heritage Open Day on 20 September 2026, for example, was advertised as "safe to cross from 9:30, must leave the island before 15:30". Use the 7-day forecast to see the window for an event day, and the route map on the sand. If an event's advertised hours ever seem to disagree with the tide, trust the tide and ask the organiser.
Know of an event we've missed? Email [email protected] with a link to the organiser's listing.