And relax.........................

A more relaxing weekend than of late - if you count trimming a massive laurel hedge and carting all the cuttings to the tip and trimming the ivy on the front of the house as relaxing! A beautiful day Saturday had me staring at the aforementioned hedge and procrastinating to myself with reasons why I should leave it another day. With thoughts that future brownie points might be usefully banked I got dressed and got on with it.  Still it did give me a chance to note some visible migration with umpteen Redwings passing overhead. That in itself is unusual this time of year as I normally hear them first at night. Three grey Wagtails together also passed over as did several small parties of Pinkfeet.

Sunday saw a relatively leisurely start on Hilbre as the early tide meant we had to wait until it had dropped sufficiently to get across. Expectations were high. The wind was in the NE and the east coast was swamped with rarities. With hundreds of Yellow-browed Warblers in the country surely we'd get one today............................................................we caught a Dunnock.

Still we had good views of a juvenile Peregrine on the beach and six Mute Swans dropped in briefly on the sea before continuing west.

Sunday afternoon I decided on a long walk around the local fields checking all the stubble and ploughed areas for anything unusual. Five miles later I'd notched up an adult Med Gull with a large group of Black-headed Gulls and another field containing a flock of 72 alba Wagtails. An amazing sight.

I've got a funny feeling autumns not over yet for me and there will be one more long distance twitch before the end of the month.................