New Brighton,
A trip through the tunnel for the storm petrel festival was well worth the trip. With winds strong enough to wobble Greg Norman , 4 storm petrels gave me reasonable views mid channel just before high tide. A drive down to the coastguard station was productive with 6 distant manxies and 2 artic squas during a half hour watch there.
I then visited the gordale garden centre, close to Burton, where the national exhibition of wildlife artists is on until the 3 August. Well worth a visit if you like wildlife art.

More watercolours,
This cock house sparrow had a liking for the blackfly that have infested the daisies in our garden this summer.

This is a watercolour of winter snow buntings that usually grace the Merseyside coast each year. Lovely confiding little birds.

Hale,

Carr lane pools had a good selection of birds today. A hobby gave an aeriel display chasing house martins and was the highlight of the day. A female mandarin duck was a suprise find on the reedy pool as I searched for the recent juv garganey. The garganey did not show.

Good numbers of waders included a green sand, 1 common sand, 1 little ring plover, 2 ring plover (1 juv) , 12 dunlin, 10+redshank, 100+lapwing and 1 curlew.

A little egret fed along a ditch