The Eric Morcambe statue on Morcambe Prom: "What do you think of it so far .......... ?"Despite rising early this morning we resisted heading too far north up the M6 due to severe weather warning for the north west today. We made it as far as Leighton Moss though, calling in at Woodwell near Silverdale first thing in the hope of Hawfinch. We wandered around for about an hour but no sign of our target bird. In fact I usually see these birds here straight away or not at all but it was nice to get a few woodland year ticks nevertheless. Great Spotted Woodpecker, Bullfinch, Jay, Nuthatch and Marsh Tit all seen easily.
Being in the land of perpetual dusk it still wasn't light by the time we decided to call it quits and move round to the causeway at LM.
Plenty of Greylag Geese overhead as we walked down to the public hide plus some Water Rails "squealing" in the reeds.
Goldeneye, Pochard, Tufties, Gadwall and a couple of glowing drake Goosanders seen from the hide, but best of all a Bittern that flew across giving us great flight views. Not much else apart from a Sparrowhawk, Kestrel and Buzzard soaring in the distance.
Bearded Tits called as we walked back along the causeway and had shown on the feeding trays about 20 mins before we got there. We decided to drown our sorrows in coffee and cake at the RSPB centre instead before checking out the Eric Morcambe hide. Few bits and pieces here like Little Egret (2), a pair of Pintail, Wigeon, Gadwall and 150+ Teal that flew in all of a sudden. Guessing that it was not going to get any better we drove to Morcambe where we found the Purple Sandpiper at the end of the Stone Jetty as well as the usual Gt. cr. Grebes, Eider, Oycs, Turnstones and packs of Knot.
