just back from a week in south lakes and spent 2 days at leighton moss. we saw 7 new-to-us birds, including a wonderful 2-3 minute aerial display by a bittern (most unusual we were told by a very knowledgeable person in the hide) and an even more wonderful (for me) 10 minutes or more watching 5 bearded tits at the grit trays. i have to say, i thought both the bittern and the bearded tit were going to elude me for years, so to say i'm delighted to have seen both is a real understatement!
the 5 other new ones we saw were a great white egret, guillemots, a knot, a barn owl and a sparrowhawk. the guillemots took us ages to identify as we weren't expecting to see them and thought they were ducks - doh!
yet again, the experienced birders/twitchers/bird watchers/what ever you want to call them, didn't let us down and shared their vast knowledge with us, willingly answering our questions, pointing out birds we would have missed (knot), and letting us look through their scopes at the great whites.
off to conway rspb next wednesday to see what we can see, but i very much doubt we'll see anything as wonderful as the bearded tit or bittern.