Repetitive Birding.

Well I for one am fully conversant with repetitive birding and can thoroughly recommend it, one of my best example's was a return visit on the same day to the Eric Morecambe Hide four hours after the first which produced a Lesser Yellowlegs for me a few years ago......do it!

With JB today who hadn't had his first pilgrimage to Barbondale this year yet so off we went on a decent morning albeit a cool breeze is still with us and in exposed places still feels a little more like mid - March than heading towards mid - June. Well the persistence in repeated visits here paid off yet again today if only to record the first Garden Warbler I ever saw here, and a solitary Redpoll presented something not much less of a surprise at Barbondale either. Despite five previous visits here already this year I've still only heard/seen one Tree Pipit, the Redstart's are still in song and I had views of a nice female, a Spotted Flycatcher was excellent as always, and 'the' Green Woodpecker was still 'yaffling' though noticeably much less so today and Painted Lady was also to note.

On my suggestion to John we then descended into some 'Leighton Moss'ing' but the decent rewarded me with two 1st summer Little Gull's, a Spotted Redshank - which is a bird now possible to see on an almost all year round basis, and who would have forecast that just a few years ago - and a frustrating brief view - before it disappeared - of what I regarded to have been a juvenile Little - ringed Plover. I didn't count the Avocet's but was pleased to see the well grown young bird which will now hopefully become the only successful breeding record at Leighton Moss in 2009......or am I jumping the gun here?

A look in at the now famous and popular Warton Crag Peregrine Falcon's rewarded us with excellent views of the two adults perched well separated on the quarry face and the two young birds still in the nest, a Buzzard was overhead.

Unfortunately I cannot name the flower I saw today but I'm hopeful someone will......its an 'orchid'.