Serious Eight.

I had an excellent and serious eight hours on the patch today......brilliant not for the number of 'mega's' I found but just brilliant. To spare any boredom I'll stick to the bird's highlighted in my book.

At Conder Green 2 Spotted Redshank, 2 Greenshank, the Common Sandpiper obliged yet again, a Grey Plover, 2 Stonechat were excellent, and a Sparrowhawk put everything to flight. On Conder Pool, 48 Black - tailed Godwit plus c.150 flew over to the estuary, 2 Little Grebe, and 5 Goldeneye. The drake Scaup was on Glasson Basin still and a Little Grebe was noted on here.

On the Lune Estuary, a mixed flock of Knot and Bar - tailed Godwit which I had no intention of ever trying to seperate totalled c.1,800. Also noted here, 2 Little Grebe, m/f Goosander, another small group of 16 Black - tailed Godwit, and just 12 Goldeneye seen today. A Peregrine Falcon was on Colloway Marsh.

At Cockersands, another female Stonechat, the Little Owl was perched in the tree behind Lower Bank House where the sign say's Public Footpath. I saw just 3 Tree Sparrow's here today, counted at least 40 Linnet, 15+ Skylark came down into a stubble field, and c.450 Golden Plover were in a Abbey Farm field, and I counted 7 Brown Hare.

From Moss Lane, the 'swan's' have moved even further away from the road just to make life more difficult, but I counted up to 50 bird's which it's fair to assume are the same as seen on recent visits here which are all Whooper Swan's save 3 Bewick's Swan's, the rest were Mute Swan's making a total of in excess of 100 bird's.

The day became a bit 'bird sluggish' from then on but a walk from Fluke Hall to Cockers Dyke - just for the sake of invading Fylde territory - was well rewarded by 3 more Stonechat's, this time 2 male and a female making a total of six migrant's seen today. Talking of which at least 120 have been recorded at Portland Bill Obs, the number of which means absolutely nothing to me in term's of previous record's at this prime location, other than it sound's a lot of Stonechat's in six day's. Incidentally, people at the Bill woke to a carpet of snow this morning.

The pic above was taken one day last winter looking back towards Quernmore church below from the accent to Clougha. By the time I'd fumbled with the camera the splendid rainbow that was had almost disappeared......Ah well!