Well Spotted......

......Flycatcher that is but more on this later.

With JB today and no guesses where we started though things will change if only the weather would. The wind continued today were it left off yesterday for me, if anything it was both stronger, colder, and a bloody curse.

Conder Green was very quiet though it was a joy to see the Little - ringed Plover pair on Conder Pool with at least 40 Black - tailed Godwit in the creeks. Glasson basin was even quieter with 3 Great Crested Grebe the only birds to qualify for my records and actually if I included the ones which didn't qualify I think the total was a coot.The Lune Estuary wasn't much much better and I only recorded c.10 distant Bar - tailed Godwit. From Bodie Hill 20 Eider were counted which interestingly were all drake's.

At Cockersands another 5 Eider seen, c.420 Dunlin were on Plover Scar, and a Wheatear was at the caravan park end. So now we did the famous 35 minute drive to change the landscape and change the birds from watching waders on the coast to watching upland birds and finding the first Spotted Flycatcher for 2009 in the LDBWS recording area up the path behind Tower Lodge, a Buzzard was noted from here, and a little up the road towards Trough Bridge a female Redstart and a Grey Wagtail were seen.

A call at Stoops Bridge in Abbeystead to check out the Pied Flycatchers resulted in a blank but I did see a Kingfisher, and noted a Green - veined White butterfly. Another call on the way home at the little church of Christ the King - the church with the best view in the North of England - resulted in not a single House Martin present. This church holds a good colony of the species annually with 15 nest's counted today from previous years still intact......Mmmm, House Martin problems, or is 12 May too early?