Hesketh out Marsh and Martin Mere area, 10/1/13

Whooper Swans near Martin Mere WWT, 10 January 2013.

Pink-footed Geese near Martin Mere WWT, 10 January 2013.

I was beginning to think it just wasn't going to happen for me at Hesketh Out Marsh with just Kingfisher (albeit a good bird at HOM) to show for a couple of hours searching there. I'd targeted Jack Snipe with no joy and given up after a bit of yomping around in various damp places. A lengthy scan at the western end of the RSPB reserve did produce the Spoonbill and eventually the Great White Egret, both distant on Banks Marsh. Merlin soon joined them; why it's taken so long to see one at HOM this year I'll never know.
No swans at Hundred End, just a few Whoopers commuting between the Douglas and the mosses, 56 of which I found later on Holmes Moss on the way to lunch at TC's.

Post sausage and bacon barm birding included sifting through a couple of thousand Pink-footed Geese outside the Wetland Centre at Martin Mere WWT. Neck-banded bird TUH was with them (detail above). Interestingly we heard Pink-footed Geese over the house this morning well before light and there appears to be more around the area at the moment than over the last few weeks.
After watching a Barn Owl I drove across the mosses taking in the big herd of 200+ Whoopers on Curlew Lane (seeing a second Barn Owl near Rufford) and then a brief stop on Bretherton Moss for Peregrine and a Brambling and 2 Yellowhammers in a flock of 200+ Chaffinches.