Windy.

With a day at the races Friday it was always going to be touch and go whether I got up early Saturday morning. I did.................but then promptly went back to sleep until around 7.30 so didn't make Hilbre until Sunday.

Despite the cold blustery wind we caught a few Willow Warblers and it was generally a very nice day made even nicer by some home made Cherry cake!

I spent some time exploring a couple of my local 'patches' with the first stop being Stanney Woods. A Great-spotted Woodpeckers nest was easily enough found by spotting the wood chips beneath the tree trunk and a quick tap on the wood with the knuckles resulted in an inquisitive head being stuck out of the hole. Unfortunately it appears that the encroaching housing all round this wood gas resulted in more and more disturbance and birds are generally thin on the ground. The high Grey Squirrel population can't be helping either. In the whole wood  I recorded two Chiffchaffs and 3 Blackcaps singing. Severe management work over the last couple of years has meant there is very little understorey but the coppiced Hazels will soon recover. Its just a shame it was all done within a couple of years without a chance for some of it to regenerate before the next section was coppiced.

A visit to South Rd pool was rewarded with the sound of at least two singing Reed Warblers and a Lesser Whitethroat rattling away in the overgrown hedge. A great little spot hidden amongst the factories.

To cap a fine weekend the Flamborough Flycatcher was positively identified on its DNA as being  a Pied and not an Atlas. Ooops. Egg on a few faces  there then but I'm glad I went to see it.  Even better all those bitter Utd fans have been silenced by the blue side of Manchester whilst old Rudolph Red Nose's team have ended up winning  nothing.