An earlyish start today and Brian and I were at Winter's by about 9.30. As we were driving down the lane we rain into a birding friend, Steve Routledge who had been there about 4 hours by then. We ran into him again later and we had a good catch up. It was a cool but beautiful early morning and the colours are just beginning to develop; hips and haws are looking wonderful.. We took some time have a close examination of the pond to make sure that we recorded everyting that was present. We then wandered up on the the sea wall and continued to East Halton Skitter. Things are really grown up now that we are at the end of summer and most of the scrapes on the marsh are now dried out. Having had a good look at the mudflats at Skitter Beck we retraced our steps but not before picking up marsh harrier, sparrowhawk and hobby over the marsh beyond the skitter. Back at the car we got the chairs out and enjoyed Christmas cake, cheese and tomato soup, our regular autumn/winter birding lunch.
Before we finished for the day we drove round to Killingholme Haven Pits where we had an hour in the hide. There was nothing spectacular, although we did see a couple of roe deer on the island in the lagoon. The usual large flock of black-tailed godwits were on the far side of the pit with avocet mixed in with them. A good day was had.