LRP on CP....

....Ah well you have to make your titles as original as possible.

Little Ringed Plover courtesy of Mark Fellowes.

Not the one in the pic above but the Little Ringed Plover was on Conder Pool this morning and whist I appreciate one has been reported on two occasions recently my personal records have to show it is exactly one week late on the past two years. The pool was otherwise quiet save 3 Goldeneye and a Little Grebe noted. In the Conder channel 2 Spotted Redshank, 2 Greenshank, and a Common Sandpiper. At Glasson Dock at least 8 Swallows and a single Sand Martin were hawking over the canal basin, and on the Lune Estuary the only birds of note were c.950 Redshank noticeably missing were Bar/Black-tailed Godwits and Knot with not a solitary one to be seen, also absent today were the Jeremy Lane Whooper Swans....gone!

At Cockersands where things were a 'bit thin' a Wheatear was in the field by the old red bricked look-out tower, an excellent field each and every year for this species and often the site of my first. The only other birds of note on the circuit were c.40 Meadow Pipit and a Skylark heard in song.

From Fluke Hall Lane, 3 Stock Dove and a Dunnock noted, 2 Skylarks were just west of the slipway at Fluke Hall, and on the calorie burning dawdle to Cockers Dyke and return I counted 23 Swallows past me in over an hour so no mega movement there then, but it never really came daylight and the wind was as usual bloody cold and blustery, but the forecast rain made by the weatherman I watched on the television last night arrived a few hours later than he pretended to know it would do and I got away with a reasonable rake around today.

I neglected the count of Brown Hare at Cockersands today but Brian Rafferty performed with his camera - to perfection as ever - when he found these two sparing males on his travels recently....Thanks for the pic's Brian.

If you haven't read the 'Osprey' post of yesterday then please do as you won't fail to be amazed at this birds epic journey logged via 21st century technology. I wouldn't want to spoil your read but this creature is now back on his breeding grounds.