Spent two hours in Nels this afternoon, giving the waders a good sifting.
The heavy rain last night and this morning meant water levels were a bit higher (too deep for stinty-winty action anyway), but the Dunlin flock began swirling about after an early afternoon nap, dropping into the flooded grasses to feed just to the right of Nels.
At least three Curlew Sandpipers, all in various stages of summer plumage.
A single female Ruff flew in briefly.
One Dunlin with a bright straw yellow central crown stripe nearly had me falling off my scope until it emerged from the grass to show full summer plumage apart from the aberrant head-gear.
Weird.
A pair of Garganey materialised from the vegetation briefly, looking mighty shifty, and the Avocets and Reed Warblers were as noisy as ever.
John Dempsey Birdblog 
Formby Point, 1015-1330
There’s an old birders’ saying to the effect that one good bird can make a day; had it not been for a summer plumage Black-throated Diver passing south close inshore, white upper-wing panels showing well, my first seawatch of the season would have been a sorry affair: 2 Manx Shearwaters, 97 Gannets, 22 Common Scoters, 5 Kittiwakes. In over three hours of apparently ideal seawatch conditions not a single tern of any species.
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Fared even worse at Ainsdale over lunch Bazzo – approx 50 Gannets; 11 Common Scoters and what appeared to be terns out on the SJH (stripey jelly horizon), but were too far off to identify.
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Formby Point, 1100-1330
A bigger range of species, but numbers again very low:
Common Scoter 31
Fulmar 1
Manx Shearwater 1
Gannet 19
Great Crested Grebe 1
Kittiwake 2
Sandwich Tern 4
Arctic Tern 2
Guillemot 1
What little movement there was had ceased completely well before high tide at 1316
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