I set off excitedly at 9.30am on Friday morning for a long weekend in Whitby. Excited because I have never been to Whitby before, but was aware of its history and beauty, but also because a very dear friend (and my old boss) was getting married at the Ravens Hall Hotel, situated on a cliff top overlooking the beautiful Robin Hood Bay, half way between Whitby and Scarborough.

Six long hours and several trains later I arrived at the guest house that I had booked and it wasn't very long...

I have been intending to get to Leighton Moss over the last week or so but a mixture of work and night duty-induced knackerdness has been getting in the way.

I was determined to go today, so set my alarm for 5am and struggled out of my pit at ten to six! I got a shift on and thanks to a reliable local taxi company, made it to the station on time and woke up on the train en route.

I arrived at 8am and ambled about the feeder stations to see what was about and decide my...

I had a good 4 hour roam around my local patch this afternoon with overcast skies and poor light, but at least no rain and little wind and it is still relatively mild.

I'm a creature of habit and always enter the mere from the Lawson road end and then turn right, to make the feeder station hide my first stop.

It was much busier here than on my last visit. The usual tits and finches were in good numbers as were the regular pheasants, a rabbit and an acrobatic grey squirrel...

It's hard to believe another year has gone by and I am blogging my 3rd B.UK forum trip which was, as I'm sure most of you know, held at Lancashire's premiere birding hotspot, Leighton Moss.

British Rail behaved itself and I arrived as scheduled at 07.50 just as Stuart (Astafjevs) and Annette (his partner) arrived at the reserve entrance to collect me and the rain began to spit!

The meet & greet over, we headed off to the Allen and Eric Morcambe salt-marsh hides. ...

My last trip to Leighton Moss was with Maggie last November, so it was with an anticipatory spring in my step that I was met by her at Silverdale train station yesterday morning.

Re-aquainted, we strode off for the days birding along the public causeway, where one of the highlights was watching a Cormorant catch an eel and throw it about, toying with it, before swallowing it whole. About 20 minutes later, it caught another and did the same thing.

It was great to see Marsh...