The Road To Nowhere.

Like I said to the friendly man who came up to me at Conder Green on Thursday and asked if I'd seen anything interesting....'not yet, I've just started out today, but it's all a bit quiet just now, though things will start to move soon when the birds return from their breeding grounds and pass through on migration, you've just got to keep on looking'....But unknown to me at the time, I was on the road to nowhere today.

In the time I spent at Conder Green I noted just 16 species, including 11 Common Sandpiper, 3 Little Egret, a Whitethroat, and House Martins which have 9 nests visible at the front of the property at Cafe d' Lune, though I've yet to see all nine being visited, so I'm not convinced all are active nests.

Golden Plover. Pete Woodruff.

Hard to believe in the length of time I was at Cockersands I noted c.250 Golden Plover on the weed covered shingle below the abbey, well camouflaged especially when viewed from a distance, with a similar number of 250 Oystercatcher on Plover Scar, and although I never went beyond the headland, nothing else made it into the little black book.

I called in on the Lune Estuary at Glasson Dock, but the tide had taken over and I saw just c.40 Dunlin with a 'few' Redshank feeding on what little mud was left exposed close to the bowling green, otherwise a thorough scan around produced nothing of note, and no sign anywhere of the Conder Green Common Terns, perhaps the last sighting may well have been on the Lune Estuary at Glasson Dock last Tuesday.  

This Mute Swan was on Conder Pool on Thursday, almost certainly the same bird reported to me in the area at the beginning of March. The person reporting it had said they had seen a swan off Moss Lane at Cockersands with a noticeable kink in it's neck. The deformed neck - for whatever reason - looks quite a serious one, when the bird has it's head held up and neck stretched it looks even worse, but obviously doesn't seem to put the birds welfare in any doubt five months later, it looked perfectly fit and healthy today.

Thanks to Noushka for the new header image, much appreciated.