Fabulous weather and an encouraging breeze from the south(ish) had me out nice and early, thoughts of myriad migrant birds swirling around my brain...
Sadly, as is so often the case, my optimism went unrewarded. A couple of hours checking all the best spots failed to turn hardly anything up.
Only a single willow warbler was found in Freeman's Wood, along with plenty of chiffchaffs and a few blackcaps. The collective ponds were quiet - 2 goldeneye, 6 tufted duck and a pair of gadwall remain at Freeman's Pools while small numbers of teal and a further couple of pairs of gadwall were on other pools.
A lone little ringed plover was at the Wildfowlers' Pools and a pair of greenshank were on Aldcliffe Marsh.
A solitary swallow over the marsh was my first on-patch bird of the year, and a few off-passage meadow pipits were seen here and there, but other than that you'd be hard pressed to find much evidence of migration.
On Friday I had my last day in the RSPB office in Lancaster (as of Monday I'll be at Leighton Moss) and we had our first over-office osprey of the season. As usual we were alerted by the sound of agitated gulls (the windows are always open at this time of year for this very reason) and Gav Thomas was first to pick up the bird as it drifted over the city, heading north-west just after noon.
Following a discussion about our first office osprey last year, we checked and discovered that it was the very same day in 2016 (7 April) at 12.30pm! That's what I call punctual.
Jon
Welcome to Aldcliffe & Freeman's Wood, Lancaster - an area of the Lune Estuary in Morecambe Bay, North Lancs.
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