VISITORS AT SALTHOLME

Tuesday 08/12/2009. My ususal volunteering day at the RSPB Saltholme reserve is Thursday but today I am in to lend a hand with a work party set the task of errecting an aluminium shed in the workshop compound for the administration department, who in their brand new suite of offices have no room to store anything! Also my friends Jennifer and Keith Dobson from Leeds who are close neighbours of ours at Burnside Park in Keswick are calling in at Saltholme to visit the reserve and I will be showing them around the hides and our estate. Jennifer and Keith are in the Saltholme garden in the picture opposite, we spent a couple of hours in the various hides but the birds were not very obliging today. Our best billet was the Saltholme Pools hide which gave us excellent views of great flocks of Lapwings and Golden Plovers while on the water I identified a Goldeneye duck, which upon confirmation I was quite chuffed about as this is the first one I have knowingly seen and I managed to recognise it OK so I am slowly getting a little better at this birding lark.

I left the reserve about 2pm., Keith and Jennifer heading up to Northumberland for a mid-week break in a top hotel, lucky things. Meanwhile back at the work party tempers were fraying as the task was proving to be more complex than thought and the broth was suffering from a surfiet of cooks!