Chance For A Lie In......

......and I didn't take it! No ringing planned for this morning, just birding, so I could have stayed in bed a little longer, but no not me, up and out of bed and on my way to Rossall Point by 0530! It was okay for the first hour, the weather that is, not the birding. The birding never really got going but the weather closed in by 0700 to a real 'pea souper'!

Even before the fog rolled in it was difficult to see any distance into the bay and over the little distance I could see I had 47 Eiders, 34 Common Scoters, 2 Great Crested Grebes, 14 Sandwich Terns and 4 Red-breasted Mergansers. I had a group of 15 Eiders close inshore made up of adult males, immature males and females, and the males were displaying to the females. That call is something else!

 Eiders

Dunlin moved west as the tide started to drop and I had a total of 394 with 14 Ringed Plovers. Vis was slow and all I had were 34 Meadow Pipits, 2 Alba Wags, 4 Swallows, 2 White Wagtails and a Yellow Wagtail. I then headed over to the cemetery, I don't know why as I knew it would be quiet, and it was indeed quiet. A Sparrowhawk through and a Lesser Redpoll over is all that I had.

I then picked up Gail and headed to Rossall School. Four Whitethroats were singing and Grasshopper Warblers had increased to three. Two Sedge Warblers sang from the reedbed in the dunes and we only had one Wheatear along the coastal strip. There was still very little going over other than 2 Lesser Redpolls, Tree Pipit and a handful of Swallows.

We then headed to the Nature Park, not for a second look at the Short-toed Lark, but to check whether we could get into the reedbed on the far side for a ringing session later this week and we could. Walking back to the car we spotted Ian and Peter with his Dad Roger so we joined them for a chat and had a second helping of the Lark.