A trip to Martin Mere today brought my first Cuckoo sighting since the 1980s, which will therefore show up below as a life tick, and it felt like one. We saw the bird first from the Ron Barker hide at great distance, and subsequently much closer from the UU hide. Lovely views of this juvenile bird, but somebody else got much better pictures with the same camera so I need to look into settings for getting crisper images!

Other birds from Ron Barker included a gorgeous female Marsh Harrier, a Buzzard, six juvenile Little Ringed Plovers (I think they were all Little), an abundance of Ruff including a peach-washed juvenile, and a flock of 25 Black-tailed Godwits. Juvenile pied wagtails being fed by parents, Goldfinches by the dozen and a single Wheatear provided closer-range excitement, and a lot of ‘the usual’ was there in the background.

From United Utilities, no small waders were seen so I couldn’t fully test my new scope (or does that mean it failed?) but we did see and Avocet guarding a still very young juvenile, and a family of white geese that surely aren’t wild.

On the dragonfly front, Southern Hawkers were present near the Ron Barker hide and along the path to Janet Kear; Common Darters were warming themselves on logs and some unidentified hawkers were zipping around the meadow between United Utilities and the Mere. The star of the show however was a Brown Hawker who repeatedly buzzed us on the Wild Walk or whatever it’s called. No photos to show for it though; better weather is surely around the corner.

The day before, I had been betrayed by my weather app and visited Martin Mere for long enough to blow my bank balance on a new telescope. On the bird front: Mistle Thrushes in the car park and a Great Spotted Woodpecker from Janet Kear can be added to today’s tally. Another Southern Hawker was spotted on the path, and on the botanical front I found the Broad-leaved Helleborine featured on various other people’s blogs.