Parkgate

Parkgate sits on the eastern shore of the Dee Estuary, behind a stone sea wall that dates from its 18th-century life as a working port (busy enough to be a regular embarkation point for Ireland) and later a Georgian sea-bathing resort. Most of the year, the wall looks out onto a green plain of saltmarsh stretching half a mile or more towards Wales. The marsh itself is comparatively new: it spread rapidly after Spartina anglica was planted at Connah's Quay in 1928 to stabilise the estuary, swallowing the sandy beach that had drawn bathers a century earlier.

On the highest spring tides, water pushes right up to the wall and floods the marsh through its drainage channels. Anything that lives in the grass (voles, shrews, mice, snipe, water rails) has to move. The raptors know. Within minutes of the water rising, hen harriers, marsh harriers, short-eared owls, peregrines and merlins drift in from across the estuary and start to hunt.

The tides that do this are predicted at 9.8m or more at Liverpool. Above 10.0m the water can reach The Parade itself, most recently in December 2013. Wind and atmospheric pressure modify the actual water level: a strong westerly with a deep depression can make a 9.8m tide spectacular; a calm high-pressure day can make a 10m tide a damp squib.