Four Hours....

....salvaged from my day today to dedicate to birding and tried to make the most of it but time runs away like hell when you try to be everywhere in a short time. Thank goodness BR has been out and about once again and has gone towards saving the day on the photograph front though I did make some effort to take one or two myself, all except the Grey Heron below have ended up in the bin....thanks Brian.

I managed four hours between 11.00 and 3.00 starting at Conder Green where the tide was one and a half hours from its height but was already pushing at least 23 Snipe out into the open, also a Greenshank, 2 Spotted Redshank, 2 Black-tailed Godwit, 2 Little Grebe, and 4 Rock Pipit. On Conder Pool 35 Tufted Duck and 9 Wigeon held on to the 50% ice free. I decided to skip the Lune Estuary from Glasson Dock and went to Bodie Hill to note, circa each 100 Bar-tailed Godwit and Curlew with lesser numbers of Redshank, Dunlin, Lapwing, and Knot, 2 Fieldfare were in one of the Hawthorns here. On Jeremy Lane I could count only 4 Whooper Swans today and a Sparrowhawk was patrolling the hedgerow.

At Cockersands the male Stonechat was seen and remains the wisest Stonechat in our entire recording area and beyond and can put its survival down to choosing to stay with the tide wrack where there is obviously an abundance of food and had also attracted 6 Meadow Pipit. All the waders had gone to wherever they go to on these 10mtr+ tides but I did note in one of the fields a mere 5 Turnstones and  2 Grey Plovers with a 'few' Oystercatchers. Brian Raffertys excellent image above is quite appropriate for this post as I found 5 Grey Partridge here today, also 9 Brown Hare.

To end on a non-birding note, I reckon the picture above of the full moon on Saturday evening qualifies for an excellent ad for my Leica Televid Apo Telescope to which I attached  my camera.