Justified - just

The safari was out on Patch 1 early morning and it's getting a bit predicatable now. yesterday's summer sunshine had disintegrated into over night drizzle - a sweaty night it was too...love it - So we might have expected a something or other to have been dropped but no - nothing of note.
After Frank had had his first breakfast - yes the greedy mutt gets two breakfasts! - we gave a Chat Alley a going over, surely something will have been dropped, hopefully with a bright white supercilium and a speckled back beginning with W. The local Starlings were pecking in the grass for grubs to take back to hungry mouths - no juvvies out yet. The Thrift on the cliff tops is starting to look something like and we found and got a very poor shot of Sea Campion.We'll be out looking for the, horribly rare in Lancashire, Thrift Clearwing moth in a couple of weeks.

The rocks were just about devoid of birds or movement but somehow our attention was drawn to a particular lack of movement. A Wheatear facing out to sea sat on the point of one of the rocks. As it was a good way below us we were able to get the scope on it and grab a few shots.It looked knackered and barely batted an eyelid as we dismantled the tripod and moved on. But knackered or not it was a chat! Not the one we wanted but a chat none-the-less. Moving swiftly on...to Pipit Slab which was pipitless as expected for this time of year. It is on the way back along the Lower Walk that we look for seabirds - don't ask me why as the cliff tops must give a better view! No accounting for taste is there? The beach held a good number of Lesser Black Backed Gulls and a couple of Greater Black Backs ptrolled up and down. Out at sea we picked up a middle distance Gannet, but nearer in two Red Throated Divers headed north quite high above the wavelets.

Two Sandwich Terns fished the shallows and 8 male and just one female Eider sat behind the tiny surf.

Still no Whinchats...but we did find our knackered Wheatear and it hadn't moved an inch from when wew last saw it almost an hour earlier. As we set up the scope again we were very close and it hopped along the rocks a bit, which was handy as had it not moved we would have been too close to focus on it.

A few shots later we left him in peace. These birds could probably nest along the cliffs if there was less disturbance.

Loads of litter and cr*p from the overnight fishermen - why do they leave so much mess. Birders don't - well only torn pages from their notebooks when freezing fingers try to draw a field pic of a Pallas's Reed Bunting on some desolate headland only to find that it looks more like and oven-ready chicken complete with stuffing!

Where to next? Last chance for a Spotted Flycatcher and there is the small matter of Treecreepers to nail. Then there are bigger adventures afoot.

In the meantime let us know if there have been any knackered things in your outbxk.