Little Ringed Plover 0. Rhubarb and Apple Crumble 1

Winwick puddle from the pub window!

What should a girl do, it’s not raining, hairdresser hasn’t got a slot for me, the grim prospect of hoovering back home.  Too right, where’s the binoculars..Where’s Winwick?

Well Chris says the area is worth checking and is really close, so.

Fiddle i'th bag pub found, pulled up into car park, landlord putting out the bins, didn’t appear to mind, phew!

Here was a pond, part of the stables, extending out into a big puddle in the stables fields.  Little ringed Plover… yer right, nipped into another field or just got off...knew the scouse bird was coming!  Still a few paddlers were about, Mallard, Teal, fence perched Grey Heron, Moorhen, wheeling Lapwings, Pied wag, Crows.

Detour 1.  Houghton Green Flash, mmh, pretty empty for such a large expanse, (unlike its local neighbour - Pennington) noticeably exposed barren of other vegetation, shrubs etc around the flash, nowhere for the bird life to run and hide into? Great crested grebes displaying, Tufties, Mallard, 2 Oystercatcher, Black headed gulls and Crows.

Detour 2. Newton Lake/Willow Park. I quite like this little lake with its muddy silted up islands, Newton Brook flows in and out of the lake and the area has been landscaped with benches to sit on. Sadly as in a lot of out parks, discarded rubbish was evident. No hoped for Kingfisher but more of the ones that had gone before Teal, Mallard, Tufties, Moorhen, Canadian Geese, balck headed and 2 very loud Lesser Black Gulls. The wooded area of Willow Park flitted with Long tailed tits, Nuthatch and Song thrush of note.

Homeward I guess, back to Winwick puddle on the way, just in case. No luck, that sort of a day, no new arrivals but plenty of Chiff chaff and Skylarks singing heartily, Finches/Tits in the hedgerows.

Well it would be rude not to pay the landlord back for using his car park. The Fiddle, as Dave Hardy told us is something to experience...first thing you see as you walk through the door is stuffed animals, Badger, Fox... Crikey stuff everywhere, an Aladdin’s cave of antiquity, has to be seen to be believed. Books, toys from bygone years, military memorabilia, and life size mannequins propping up in the bar, various musical instruments, anamatical skeletons. If you’ve ever thrown it out, its here!

Stuffed, every nook and cranny

Consolation Rhubarb and apple crumble, and Coffee snaffled whilst sitting at the window, overlooking the puddle!  Only other visitor to the puddle was a birder with a 2ft lens, who left after a thorough scanning of the fields, he resisted the pub, obviously on a detour!