Our first birding event of the year was Ducking and Diving for beginners and what a success it was. All of our common birds were seen well and a few niceties thrown in for good measure. Several sand martins spent the day inspecting and entering the artificial bank, though this seems more out of curiosity than an urge to set their stall out. At least they have found it early enough and we're confident that the wall will be buzzing soon. Two more summer migrants made the reserve headlines with a great white egret being seen from the Wildlife Watchpoint and from the same location, a tree pipit which constitutes the joint earliest county date for this species, with previous records being seen on the same date in 1967 and 1968. Winter movers were also represented on site in the form of 7 barnacle geese on Back Saltholme and the 1st winter male hooded merganser continued to show well from Saltholme Pools Hide.