But first....

The good - exciting even - news is that Spoonbills have bred successfully at Holkham NNR in Norfolk for the first time in 300 years and you can read all about it on the RBA website HERE 

Little Tern. Ian Tallon.

No pics of the Spoonbill but an excellent photograph of the Little Tern in flight over Foulney Island, Barrow in Furness.

And the bad news is....I feel my birding is falling apart in that I could only salvage 1.5 hours today which allowed me just about time to give Conder Green an hour on the circuit and a miserable thirty minutes to look over the Lune Estuary from Glasson Dock, not nearly a fraction of the time needed to do a half decent job of this excellent area, but there you have it and you can't win them all, but I'm beginning to think I'm loosing them all.

At Conder Green the pool remains very quiet, though with up to 250 Lapwing counted that sounds like a contradiction, also the 3 Wigeon remain site faithful. An adult Spotted Redshank in the creeks has the added interest in that it can now be separated from the c.35 Redshank by its now acquired winter white underparts as opposed to the black coat it wore just a few weeks ago, an amazing and unique transformation of plumage's amongst the waders of the UK, also noted were 7 Common Sandpiper.

On the Lune Estuary from Glasson Dock, it was a half hours hard work picking out the distant adult Mediterranean Gull but always well worth the effort to find one of these smart gulls, also another distant bird was the Little Egret over by Waterloo Cottage.

And finally....

Arctic Tern. Ian Tallon.

Another excellent in flight shot, this of the Arctic Tern, the truly amazing flying machine which even man could not compete with....long live the Arctic Tern. Thanks for the photographs Ian they are much appreciated and - not for the first time -  saved the day and added interest to the blog too.