Routine......

......you could call it but excellent as ever with any days birding. Today I had the good company of wildlife lover and photographer BR who had a desire to be guided around the coastal area from Conder Green - Fluke Hall, an area I know vaguely.

I'm afraid Conder Green lived up to its current unproductive name, but look I don't like the sound of that sort of language, and birding - like anything else - has its high and low points so just lets get on with it and enjoy. On Conder Pool 7 Little Grebe means the numbers are slowly building up, last year it reached a double figure at its peak, 3 Snipe were also to note on the pool and two in the creeks, overhead a Buzzard was being mobbed by the tiny - by comparison - Kestrel.

On to Glasson Dock and numbers of Tufted Duck on the basin are also building up and twice I've threatened to count them and twice I failed to do so but there are now at least fifty on here today, also noted were the Great - crested - Grebe pair with a juvenile. On the Lune Estuary the tide was by now too high but up to 1,000 Golden Plover, Mondays 70 Bar - tailed Godwit were seen again, and a Little Egret was below Waterloo Cottage. I note with interest the Wigeon number amounts to no more than 'one or two' on the River Lune at this point.

Curlew thanks to Brian Rafferty.

At Cockersands 52 Eider were off Plover Scar and c.280 Oystercatchers were on it, any other waders were by now washed out from here......unfortunate if you're birding. The circuit back via the road resulted in nothing more than an enjoyable walk and 95 Jackdaws in a field which were accompanied by a 'few' Carrion Crows, even the resident Tree Sparrows were scarce today with just one or two showing, 3 Brown Hare seen included one running off Plover Scar away from the incoming tide.

Lapwing thanks to Brian Rafferty.

On Pilling Marsh more numbers building up were at least 4,000 Pink - footed Geese which had 9 Barnacle Geese accompanying them though I have a sneaky feeling two were hidden from view as eleven have been seen earlier today from Fluke Hall Lane and the same number yesterday here on the marsh, 2 Little Egret also on the marsh and later one flew west past Fluke Hall slipway.

I'm sure BR knows this area quite well but like any visiting birder I reckon he was quite impressed by what he saw today both in landscape and birds even though the latter lacked any exotica.