Lytham St. Annes.

We had a drive out this morning, originally thinking of going to Burnsall.

Sue decided that she would like to see the Sea so we changed or minds and headed off to Lytham St. Annes via Howarth, Ponden & Colne. A great drive out, over the moor.

It was a beautiful sunny day, with just some fair weather cloud appearing now and again.

Coming home, we actually managed to leave St. Anne’s via the right road, to get to the motorways ( M55 and M6 and M65) and come home via Colne.

We do have a Sat Nav, but, for some reason, we leave that in the boot and try to get the right road out of St. Annes using our exceptional navigational skills – previously we have always ended up going through Preston – but not today – Yipee.

And we enjoyed a nice treat, with tea out at the George at Cullingworth on the way home – A pub well worth a visit.

It was pleasing to see lots of people walking about with the resort quite busy.

On the journey there we spotted 3 Buzzard and a Little Egret was feeding on the estuary fields as we neared our destination.

The icing on the cake was that of a pr. Peregrine Falcon in Lytham. I’ve seen a few Peregrine in flight and got a few ‘black dot’ photographs, but this was the first time I’ve managed some really good photographs of the magnificent bird.

Another bonus was that of a large Owl seen on the Colne – Haworth road, about 1 mile before the Watersheddles Reservoir. I believe it was a Short Eared Owl but I only got a fleeting glimpse as it disappeared over the hills near the roadside.

There was no chance of stopping the car, on such a busy and narrow road and of course Mr IMPATIENT was right up our backside!

The Ribble estuary had lots of Gulls, Waders and Ducks some I could definitely ID , some I could hazard a guess at and others!!

The light here is always awkward, with the sun putting a lot of the birds photographed, into silhouette and of course they were quite a long way away.

Birds definitely ID:

Buzzard, Little Egret, Pr. Peregrine Falcon, Many, Many Shelduck, Lots of Oystercatcher, 9 Mallard Ducklings!!, Redshank, 20 Eider Duck, Great Black-Backed Gull, Pintail, Curlew, Herring Gull.

Possible Dunlin & Knott but the photos are to distant for me to be sure.

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