WE'VE all joked at one time or another about "the good news and the bad news."

Our recent photo competition is also a slice of good news and bad news.

Among the pictures successfully identified were the avocet and the wild cat.

Times have been good for the avocet in recent times but the decline of the wild cat is much more permanent.

Not long ago the avocet was regarded as one of Britain's rarest birds.

From Europe it spread to a breeding area in Suffolk.

This year, however, the avocet bred at the RSPB reserve at Leighton Moss in Silverdale and there have been records of the species passing through East Lancashire.

Few birds have a more unusual feeding method than the avocet.

It has a long, thin and upturned bill.

This accounts for its name which is Recurvirostra avosetta.

The food of the avocet includes insects, molluscs, crustaceans, worms and also fish larvae.

Its long legs allows the birds to feed in shall water and it catches its prey by making delicate sweeps with its bill.

Generally avocets nest in colonies and successful breeding often means that a new breeding area will becoming established.

It would be wonderful to see this attractive species with its clean white plumage patterned with jet black flying around Lancashire.

The body length is around 17 inches (43cms) and its bill is over three inches (eight cms).

The breeding habitat of the avocet is around coastal areas and its range extends from the Baltic to Africa.

As a rule birds which bred in the North tend to migrate southwards in the winter. After not breeding in Britain for many years, a pair bred in Norfolk in 1941 and what is now a large colony started to develop at Minsmere in Suffolk in 1947. The man likely to have prompted the return of the avocet was a chap called Adolf Hitler.

When the threat of invasion was realised, many coastal areas were allowed to flood to prevent the landing of tanks and other heavy equipment.

The invasion never came but a perfect habitat was created for the avocet.

As you read this spare a thought for Adolf -- he did not do a lot of good but at least he gave us our avocets back.

While the avocet may well spread there is no chance that we will ever see the return of the wild cat.

People who have never seen the real thing tend to confuse a domestic cat gone wild with the true wild cat.

Imagine a huge tabby cat nearer in size to a small tiger than to a large moggy sitting by the fireside.

I have often watched wild cats in Scotland and they are fearsome beasts.

The perfect habitat for them consists of rocky gorges lined with trees.

Until the Normans came to Britain there were wild cats all over England.

Over the centuries the human population has increased, along with domestic and farm animals.

At the same time the tree population has been decimated.

All this made life impossible for the wild cat, which was finally hunted to extinction in England.

It now only survives in the Highlands of Scotland. A look at an Ordnance Survey map, however, will reveal where cats were once present.

There is a hill called Catbells near Keswick and at least one former cat habitat in East Lancashire.

Between Burnley and Colne on the old road is a place called Catlow Bottoms.

I have often visited Catlow Bottoms and sat close to the old packhorse bridge.

All you hear these days is the song of the skylark but at one time the scream of the wild cat would have echoed through the night.