Lazy day

I've been having a lazy day after a rough night, just doing a bit about the garden then packing it in when the green waste bin was half full and half the big compost bin had been used as mulch on the front garden (it's nearly light enough to be tipped over so I can use the spade and get the job finished quickly). I left the back garden to the birds today, the spadgers, starlings and goldfinches have been busy denuding the feeders. I've no idea where the black-headed gulls were today, a lesser black-back had the school field to itself all morning and a couple of black-headed gulls drifted in mid-afternoon.

I was idly looking through my birdwatching records when I noticed a few things which might be useful on those days when I either have no idea or far too many ideas for where to go for a birdwatching walk and end up doing nothing.

• I've only ever seen one brent goose North of the Mersey and no barnacle geese South of the Mersey. Something to bear in mind towards the end of the year. I don't do many wild goose chases in Cheshire.
• I need to do more seawatching off the Fylde coast.
• I don't know how I've managed to never hear a cuckoo or see a green sandpiper in Cheshire. Some Spring walks round the flashes would seem in order.
• I could do with looking up more lakes and reservoirs in Derbyshire and West Yorkshire and a few wet woodland walks in South Yorkshire.
• With a couple of exceptions I won't mention here the birds missing from my Greater Manchester list are either chance encounters or safely behind the fence at Audenshaw Reservoir. It must be my turn for a red kite flyover on Chat Moss this year, surely?