UKC

It’s atmospheric in The Kingdom this morning !

Another. You wouldn’t get a firework doing such a magnificent pose. 

Lovely sunny and mild here in the Duchy this this morning. It seems odd to me how little the recent storms and flooding has affected this side of the Pennines. Everything seems to be kicking off in the east.

Looks like they are enjoying the weather as a lot of dogs do! More of the rain to come according to the weekend forecast. Strong Easterly winds as well so you might get some interesting birds getting blown to shore.

Just nipped to Eden Estuary for a quick 30 mins. 7 Slavonian grebes, 2 long tailed duck the highlights. Hopefully the rain might ease tomorrow and those rare birds will be queuing up at my telescope

Excellent sightings. Not seen former, but did see latter earlier in year at L Largo.

Hope you do get a weather break tomorrow if you can time it right. Looking at current forecast would need to be an early start, up to around 8am, or later after 1pm looks possible. Also, looks like you will be ok for a falling and later for a rising tide at those approx times. Of course it could all change overnight!

Call those ears? Pfft…

Nipped out as early as the light would allow, and, to be fair, the rain did ease off slightly between 10.21 and 10.35. The winds didn’t though. Saw a few good birds: goldcrests all over the place, flushed a few woodcock at Kilminning where I got a 5 second glance if a small green/brown jobby that had a ‘stripy head jizz’ thing going on, could have been a firecrest?  Female scoter close in, velvet I think. Later in the day saw a Manx shearwater cruising above massive waves, with a greenshank and merganser close in.  Fliedfares as well, and a few redwings. Usual waders including knot, purple sand, a single bar tailed godwit. Weather cleared late afternoon, very atmospheric.  Back in Wigan now - sun cracking the flags !! Good numbers of hen harriers being reported in Lancashire which is a great sign, and Merlin and short eared owls. 

The photo doesn’t show off the sea, which was a total mass of huge white horses, with thousands of seagulls feeding. Yesterday early evening at the West Sands, St Andrews. 

Sounds like you had a good birding session despite the weather. “Wild Crail” said recently that a Firecrest was about iirc.

My weekend has been mostly indoors 🙄, but managed to keep warm and dry 😎.

BTW you didn’t have to leave the wind and rain behind really! Surely Wigan could do with some rain and few up here would have missed it 🤣. A bit of rain on the flags would have helped stop the cracking 😬. Bring some sun next time instead!