Irritating enough that the wind had dropped away to nothing, but worse that the sun then came out, making an after-work seawatch from Ainsdale impossible today - by late afternoon in clear conditions the sea is just a mess of sparkles and shimmer, so I gave it a miss and headed down to Marshside.
Pleasant enough, with Swallows and House Martins hawking about, a few Kestrels and a very tired looking Common Sandpiper in front of the Sandgrounders hide, plus a Migrant Hawker buzzing around the door.
Two Greenshanks were on Polly's Pool, but the water level was so high after the torrential rain earlier, they were resting in the long grass.
Four Little Egrets were preening away on Marshside Two, with a fifth bird fishing a creek further back.
They must have got soaked earlier.
Sandplant compound looks a bit like the battlefields of the Somme now, but there were two Wheatears in there and about 40 Meadow Pipits.
The Wren family was still ferreting through the grass at the base of the peninsula, where they bred this year.
Three Blackbirds around the Forest of Bale.
Junction Pool had eight Avocets with the roosting Blackwits, and while I didn't schlepp down there, there was clearly a large roost of Blackwits and Redshanks in front of Nels Hide too.
A hooley of monstrous proportions is meant to blow in tonight, but by the time I'm out tomorrow, the wind looks like being in the north east - frankly seriously pants for seawatching on our coastline.
Before I forget, does anyone know if the Stinky Minke is still on the beach down at Formby today?
By now it must be ranker than a van full of Marshside's Finest after a week on the road.
Eyes to the skies everyone, eyes to the skies...
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Believe there was a young Red Necked Phalarope from the Ronnie Barker hide at Martin Mere today.
15 Pink Feet low over Denmark Road heading towards Marshside at 8pm - my first of the autumn. If they had been three hours earlier they could have joined the Red Arrows, making hearts over Lord Street !
Plenty of panicking 'Feet at last year's Air Show. In fact I reckoned it caused most of the early arrivals to clear off "sahf'.
None there yesterday among the clouds and clouds of birds flushed by the boys in blue. None on the main Ribble marsh either with Banks looking as if a big tide had just happened, it had, a tide of rain.
Duck numbers as would be expected building up. Pintails showing in small numbers as at Marshside.
Yellow Wag (still) and Wheatears at Banks yesterday with a noticeable passage of Swallows with a few House Martins and the odd Sand Martin. These migrants invariably seem to head into the prevailing wind at least to the extent that if a N Wester they go west and if a N Easter they go east.
Some sort of great circle route presumably, "the line of least resistance".
A few distant "peeps", but , remember, "Dunlins Can Swim Though They Don't Like To Spin",
Ron