Bright & Breezy Birding.

With sunny spells and a cold wind Thursday was a pleasant day that had me doing a bit of extra leg work in areas which were little more than void of birds at times.

Red-breasted Merganser. Howard Stockdale.

I started at Conder Green - well there's a surprise - where I could only count 8 Little Grebe on Conder Pool, with 5 Wigeon noted. In the creeks, a Spotted Redshank, Little Egret, up to 100 Teal, and a Grey Wagtail. I decided to leg it to Glasson Dock from here along the coastal path to see c.40 Goldfinch along the way and find the Lune Estuary even more void than void with barely a 'gull' in sight and few waders, I struggled to find 3 Red-breasted Merganser of note, and 2 Little Egret. From Bodie Hill a surprise was in the form of a Goldeneye - the 'summer' Conder Green bird I wonder - I counted c.120 Wigeon and another Little Egret.

Rock Pipit Geoff Gradwell

At Cockersands where the wind was pretty seriously cold for the 10 October, I went little further than Plover Scar where I eventually found a Curlew Sandpiper with c.80 Turnstone and barely a double figure count of Dunlin and Redshank at high tide, a Rock Pipit was accompanied by a Meadow Pipit for comparison, and I saw yet another Little Egret.

The Redwings are here....

Redwing Antonio Puigg 

....and are in their thousands apparently, but not a single one of them passed over my head on Thursday, so at the time of posting have yet to see my first.

Thanks to Howard/Geoff/Antonio for the usual excellent images to illustrate and illuminate on Birds2blog.