Birding by legs.

With an infuriating appointment at 1.30pm and the sun shining brightly at 6.30am the only option open to me was to get on out there and walk the Aldcliffe - Conder Green walk and catch the bus at 12.15pm to get me back to Lancaster to meet the appointment which as far as I'm concerned was a serious infringement of my birding time.

On my way to Aldcliffe a Chiffchaff was heard on Haverbreaks but there was to be no way I was going to put bino's to my eyes here, what and risk arrest....I don't think so. On the flood at Aldcliffe a Little - ringed Plover soon departed and if this was a Freemans Pools bird then it made heavy work of returning there as it climbed to about a mile up and out of sight.

Noted between here and Conder Green, I was a little surprised to hear no more than 5 Willow Warbler, better was 3 singing male Blackcap, 2 Whitethroat, a Lesser Whitethroat, another Chiffchaff at Stodday where a Whimbrel was seen, 2 Song Thrush, a solitary Reed Bunting, 4 Greenfinch must be awarded the 'mega's' of the walk and I really must catch up on the status of this bird, a good number of Blackbird's were seen on the walk with probably up to 30 bird's seen, there was a similar count of Goldfinch along the way too.

At Conder Green a Spotted Redshank was again on the pool though the two Avocet recently in the area were certainly not but were later this afternoon....shucks! At Glasson Dock 7 Whimbrel came down on to the marsh and 10 Eider were on the estuary.

I was eventually able to check out Teal Bay at high tide after the cursed appointment and was rewarded with 14 Whimbrel and 2 Sandwich Tern on the groyne, 14 Eider and a pair of Red - breasted Merganser were on the sea.

I must report a quite amazing, admirable, and concerted effort by c.14 firemen and the Morecambe Lifeboat crew showing extreme dedication to animal welfare in trying their utmost in very difficult circumstances to 'dig out' a cow from the quicksand off Waterloo Cottage on the opposite side of the Lune. When I looked at my watch I worked out the tide was due too arrive in less than one hour and from what I was seeing at the time things were not looking good for the animal. At the time of writing I have no idea of the outcome of the exercise.

Thanks to John Bateman for the use of his Common Sandpiper pic's at Marshaw on Friday 24 April. Hopefully these will breed here again this year as they did in 2008.