Image above, certainly the highlight of my day was this juvenile Hobby

I met Lois Van Cleve and her friend Lynn, both from California at their hotel at 0700 hrs to start our days birding. Lois and Lyn were delegates at the World Congress of Pain which finishes today.

We headed for Hillend Reservoir at Caldercruix to see if we could see Whinchat, unfortunately the birds had left. We seen a Sparrowhawk, a Buzzard, c.30 Tufted Duck, 67 Canada Geese, 2 Mute Swan, 2 Grey Heron, 3 Common Whitethroat, 2 Tree Pipit overflew, also seen several Meadow Pipit, Goldfinch, Linnet, Chaffinch, House Martin, Swallow, Sedge Warbler, Willow Warbler, Reed Bunting, House Sparrow, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Dunnock, Robin, Starling, Magpie, Carrion Crow, Rook and Jackdaw.

We then headed for Baron's Haugh RSPB Reserve near Motherwell, arriving at 0930 hrs we headed off around the trail, we started with Robin, Goldcrest, Blue Tit, great Tit and Long-tailed Tit, after arriving at the Marsh Hide, we had 10 Black-tailed Godwit, c.200 Lapwing, Teal, Mallard, Moorhen, Coot, Black-headed Gull, Common Gull, Cormorant and Grey Heron, we then walked to the Causeway Hide, adding Chiffchaff to our list on the way. From the Causeway Hide we had good views of Little Grebe, Gadwall, pair of Wigeon, Mallard, Teal, a juvenile Peregrine, adult Water rail, Mute Swan and Tufted Duck. We then headed to go to the Phoenix Hide, seen a Bullfinch (very briefly), Robin, Chaffinch and Chiffchaff on the way. from the Phoenix Hide we added Shoveler to our list and also had more views of the Black-tailed Godwit, we also heard Kingfisher for a second time but couldn't see it. After we left the Phoenix Hide I noticed a falcon overhead which at first I almost passed off as the juvenile Peregrine from earlier, when I looked at it through the binoculars alarm bells started ringing. This was no Peregrine, after studying the profile and behaviour realised it was a juvenile Hobby, it was certainly the highlight of the day for myself and also for Lois and Lyn when they realised I was paying this bird a lot of attention. This is only my second Hobby in the Clyde area and my first ever juvenile. After the excitement of the Hobby we headed for the Centenery Hide, adding Long-tailed Tit to our list on the way. From the Centenery Hide we also had Common Snipe, a juvenile Dunlin, Sedge Warbler, Reed Bunting and Wren. We then left the hide and headed through Dalziel Country Park to look for Nuthatch, I didn't realy expect to see them but after hearing one calling we ended up getting great views of two birds foraging in the trees, one adult in particular gave prolonged views, we then headed to the car after a good visit to the reserve. At this point I would like to thank a couple of friends I met at the reserve for making Lois and Lynn feel welcome, firstly Steven kane who we met in the Marsh Hide and Ian McCalum and his friend who we met in the Centenery Hide, thanks guys. We left Baron's Haugh around 1430 hrs and headed for a quick bite to eat.

Our next stop was Cardwell Bay where a juvenile Black-throated Diver had been reported through the Clyde SOC Grapevine, Lois spotted the bird fairly quickly after we got out of the car, we ended up having great views of the bird fishing. Lois and Lyn also enjoyed close up views of the local Black-headed and Herring Gulls as well as a Shag feeding fairly close to us.

We headed for Cloch Point hoping to see Manx Shearwater but it wasn't to be, at Cloch we had views of Gannet, Shag, Guillemot, Oystercatcher, Sandwich Tern, Great Black-backed Gull, Common Gull and a Grey Seal.

After leaving Cloch around 1730 hrs we headed back towards Glasgow, we made a quick stop at West Ferry adding Shelduck and Goldeneye to our list, Lois also managed to get better views of Long-tailed Tis as a group of over 30 birds moved through the scrub behind the car.

We headed back to Glasgow and I dropped a happy (I hope) Lois and Lynn off at their hotel and said our goodbyes, I hope Lois and Lynn enjoyed the day as much as I did,