Another good Bank Holiday weekend.

Wow. What a weekend for the N West. No sooner had I predicted Short-toed Lark & Red-rumped Swallow for the Wirral then one of each turns up on the Great Orme and Audenshaw Reservoir respectively! 40 miles to the west and 40 miles to the east. To cap it all an Alpine Swift also made a brief appearance at Audenshaw. Still Wirral & Cheshire wasn't all that bad and the weekend produced a Cheshire 'lifer' for me.
The male Garganey at IMF showed well Saurday
and a trip to the LBO resulted in an amazing 11Yellow Wagtails, 4 Whinchat & 6 Wheatear.
The Bank Holiday Weather was kind to us and Sunday morning I set off early with Molly to search Burton Marsh & the Decca Pools for an early Quail as one had been reported at Heswall the previous day - a very early record. No Quail but two stunning Hobby's hunting Meadow Pipits and spending along time perched up on fence posts. Long enough for Steve Williams to twitch them! In addition to the Hobby's the long staying female Marsh Harrier put in an appearance before I went home for a well earned breakfast. That didn't take long and I was soon heading towards Carr Lane, Hale where Frank had reported a Wood Sandpiper on the flood. Not always an easy bird to catch up with in Cheshire in the spring. Deciding to head through Liverpool and meet the rest of the crew at the Lighthouse I had no sooner set off when Allan rang to say they'd got 2 Velvet Scoter amongst the 2,500+ Common Scoter just off shore. With news coming through that they were still there I even managed to get the teas in from the cafe before eventually getting distant views of this Cheshire lifer.