Wednesday 26 January 2011

Red-throated Dot and more auklessness

Heysham Obs
A 20 minute perusal of the incoming tide early afternoon revealed a Red-throated Diver absolutely miles out, fortunately in very good light/visibility. Absolutely nothing else!

North harbour wall
Twite - a nice catch this morning of 37 birds which included a really surprising 21 unringed!  However, the unringed birds tend to be the first down on the food when a net is set but we had no idea there were so many.  Perhaps the same number were present watching the operation but a second catch was abandoned due to increasingly blustery rather cold conditions.  Most of the retraps were from autumn 2010 (2 from March 2010), perhaps surprising none of the several red/white-ringed birds from 2009/10 were in the catch.   This suggest the same 76 +/- 1-2 birds seen the other day.
Red-throated Diver - one far offshore early pm