The Moth Has It.

I was beginning to feel desperate at Cockersands on Monday, although I spent three hours in the area, waders were virtually non existent, and birds on the circuit were few and far between.

Wheatear. Geoff Gradwall. 

But it was good to see the Wheatear on the shingle along the headland, c.30 Goldfinch were in Bank Houses horse paddock again, and a sift through the Black-headed Gulls in a recently grass-cut field revealed one of those brilliant adult Mediterranean Gulls you can come across now and again....more often than now and again if you're at Heysham Harbour!

Hummingbird Hawk-moth. Pete Woodruff.

But the moth got the 'Gold Award' for me, as I walked from Cockersand to Bank End, when I saw ahead of me a moth in flight showing orange hindwings, it settled on the wall to allow me the picture of a Hummingbird Hawk-moth M.stellatarum. Not a particularly striking moth which unfortunately also has a damaged outer right wing, but no less a beautiful creature and an excellent find....The walk to and at Bank End was otherwise a fruitless affair.

Lapwing Noushka Dufort

Conder Pool had me seeing one Common Tern briefly in the air before returning to the island, with nothing to indicate anything precise about the state of the game. Also on Conder Pool, 5 Little Grebe, 2 Great-crested Grebe, and to make me feel like my birding had meaning I counted 30 Lapwing. In the creeks 2 Greenshank, a Grey Wagtail, and a Little Egret.

Thanks for the Wheatear Geoff, and for the Lapwings Noushka....Excellent.

The Conder Common Terns.

One of my Fylde birder contacts was in touch Tuesday to tell me of fish being brought in every 15 minutes over a one hour period, with one adult staying at the nest site....the best evidence of young to date.