Mixed Fortunes.

Certainly a day of 'Mixed Fortunes' which started at Conder Green where the first winter Mediterranean Gull - seen on 5 October - was again on Conder Pool and is in the 'moderate' pic above with seven of the 10 Little Grebe on here today, also the reasonably obvious wintering Common Sandpiper, 4 Snipe and a Kingfisher. In the creeks 2 Greenshank, 2 Spotted Redshank, and a solitary Bar - tailed Godwit. On the canal basin at Glasson Dock I counted 76 Tufted Duck, a drake Pochard, and noted the Great - crested Grebe pair and their juvenile, and the Mute Swan pair and their six juvenile. The Lune Estuary was pretty unremarkable today being extremely low in wader numbers, and is it too early in the winter period for me to be wondering......where are all the Wigeon? Noted were c.500 Golden Plover and 245 Bar - tailed Godwit.

Now this is where it all began to turn nasty......At Cockersands - where I managed to count 14 Eider and c.250 Shelduck - I had been followed along the road here by a car which turned out to contain quite a large human being with two equally large 'hounds' aboard which promptly emerged and in no time at all were all over Plover Scar, I just left the place dragging my chin on the floor whilst accepting this guy and his animals have just the same rights to be here as I have, I just wish there had been a way of knowing he was on his bloody way here at the same time as me. So now my pager is alerting me to the message that a Curlew Sandpiper is being seen from Fishnet Point, well that's a bit rich as I left there not all that long ago so......right place wrong time!

Now I'm at Pilling Marsh counting at least 7,000 Pink- footed Geese when I realised I really should be heading back towards Lancaster, but now the pager is bleeping again and this is another Curlew Sandpiper at Cockersands but this is becoming unreal and I just don't have the time to go back there, so on the way home I'll return to Conder Pool to see if anything has changed there since this morning. Nothing had and by now I was throwing the towel in but wait the pager is again on the bleep and its a message from Cockersands again, this time its a juvenile Long - billed Dowitcher, off I went knowing who I would see when I arrived there with two CS and now a LBD to his credit......of course I was right and excellent views were had of this 'godwit' if you're not careful, 3 Curlew Sandpipers also gave excellent views and rounded off my day of very mixed fortunes......More a story than a bird report!

Little Egrets seen today were......

Two at Glasson Dock on the Lune Estuary

One on Colloway Marsh

One Bazil Point

Two on Pilling Marsh

Two Fluke Hall