Spoonbill #57

Birds, butterflies and bugs were the order of the day at Lunt Meadows this morning. 
The weather was just perfect, warm with almost no wind and not too overcast. We spent 3 hours just ambling around and watching the wildlife. There was plenty to see - on the main pool we watched a pair of common ringed plovers seemingly nesting on the scrape, on the back reedbed there were more plovers, avocets with chick and others still sitting on nests and a couple of oystercatchers. Around the curve were 5 people with scopes/cameras watching something that turned out to be this spoonbill. They are fairly rare in the northwest, although there were a 3/4 at Burton Mere last year. Apparently it has been here since Saturday and is only the fourth record for the reserve, so we were lucky to see it. 
At the kingfisher screen there were no kingfishers, but there was a great crested grebe with 3 chicks, all stripy and cute riding on their parent’s back(extra). 

With my first sighting of a Red Admiral and Painted Lady, and a quick glimpse of a Black Tailed Skimmer it was a very successful morning.