Humid as it was, I've just spent two or three hours down at Marshside - the light winds suggested there was half a chance of passage, and right on cue a Common Buzzard came sailing down high from the north at about 4.15pm, as I sat on the Hesketh Road platform.
Admittedly it could just have been a mossland bird wandering, but it seemed to have a purpose and kept on heading south.
Two Ruddy Duck on the Sandplant Lagoon.
Sandgrounders was quiet, but Polly's Pool had four Avocets (three adults and a young bird), a single Knot and a Common Sandpiper amongst the roosting Blackwits.
A Merlin was perched up on the outer marsh and a Little Egret was on the mudflats.
With plenty of Swallows hawking about I checked out the Sandplant compound - hirundines were resting on the warm sand there, and at least 100 Meadow Pipits were flitting around the crater formerly known as Mount Baker.
Dropping down onto the marsh flank of the compound I checked the Forest of Bale - the area was stuffed with Meadow Pipits, feeding and zipping around.
Frustratingly, they proved remarkably difficult to photograph...they just wouldn't sit still, whizzing out into the depths of the sea aster as it goes into seed, or plunging into the Forest of Bale itself.
One of the resident Grey Partridge scurried by into the reedstand and Red Admiral, Peacock and Migrant Hawker were on the wing.
Single Whitethroat and Willow Warbler in the Forest too, but with conditions this calm, there maybe something a whole lot more exciting in there yet this weekend (although I think we can rule out Northern Waterthrush and Yellow Warbler).
Wind still not blowing enough for a seawatch, I doubt you could launch a hankerchief in it at the moment, let alone a kite.
However the tides are very good, so it might just be worth a butchers.
Eyes to the skies everyone, eyes to the skies...
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Lisa wrote...
Went to Marshside this afternoon. Managed to glimpse 3 Avocets in the distance from Sandgrounders Hide, and 3 Snipe from Nels creeping past the Black Tailed Godwits. Common Blue on corner of Hesketh Road.
Posted by: Lisa | August 30, 2008 10:25 PM