Clearly there's something not quite right, when I forsake my warm duvet and head out to Formby Point before sun up, swilling down a pre-dawn coffee as rain lashes the windows of Dempsey Towers.
And Bazzo is no better - I picked him up at 6.30am and he was raring to go.
Perhaps it's time we made an appointment to have our Laver's Tide Tables surgically removed.
Luckily apart from one or two hard cold squalls, it wasn't too bad - cold obviously, with a south westerly 5-6 blowing for most of the time, but dropping a bit later in the morning, and the light was superb.
We were on site from 7.15-10.45am.
One of the first, and best, birds of the day was a lovely juvenile Long Tailed Skua, a dark bird lazily meandering south about half way out in the morning gloom at 7.25am - good scope views as it moved off towards Wales - Bazzo managed to see the blunt tail feathers with his superlens, but even on a mere mortal's scope, the bird's long, thin dark wings, protruding chest and small size were obvious.
Lovely stalling flight action too, occasionally rising up to hang in the air, before moving forward again.
While getting the rain and salt off my eye-piece I managed to miss a Great Northern Diver heading south (that's the way seawatching is), but it was Bazzo's turn to luck out as I 'scoped a big juvenile Pomarine Skua battering a Common Gull down to our left before a squall engulfed the bay, stole visibility and soaked us both.
Long Tailed Skua 1
Pomarine Skua 1
Great Northern Diver 1
Red Throated Diver 12
Great Crested Grebe 10
Common Scoter 500+
Kittiwake 2
Manx Shearwater 2
Gannet 1
Guillemot 1
(auk sp 3)
Red Breasted Merg 3
LBB 100+
Common Gull 100+
Predominantly it was Common Scoters, whizzing about the muddy brown water like dragonflies over a summer pond, that were the most obvious species today, but you can see from the list above that there was plenty else out there.
Variety, but not quantity - typical of an October seawatch.
I guess the Manxies will be the last I see this year, but you never know.
Eyes to the skies everyone, eyes to the skies.
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27/10 - 4.15pm Marshside - Ross's Goose just dropped in with the Pinkies, also poss Cattle Egret.
Any more gen on where you saw the poss Cattle Egret Andy?
Sounds like the Cattle Egret reported yesterday is at Marshside now.