Friday 1 May 2015

Much more like it except on the distant sea

Heysham Obs
Lots of odds and ends this morning, the most notable being a female Redstart bearing a ring from elsewhere - D1797xx anyone (not supposed to post full numbers)?  The oddest sighting was a flock of 10 Tufted Duck on the sea (9 males one female!) and the biggest miss a Hooded Crow flagged up by Chris Batty heading for the wooden jetty/power station from Knott End

North wall 0720-0820
Wheatear - 4
Willow Warbler - 2
Sandwich Tern - 16 on buoys, 18 others out - all early on
Tufted Duck - flock of 10 floated in then flew out
Black-tailed Godwit - flock of 5 out
Black-headed Gull - steady northwards movement of 78

Ocean Edge 0825 onwards on and off
Wheatear - at least 21, assuming all stayed put and no through movement
Whinchat - 3 males along beach
Little Egret - 5 Red Nab and area
Dunlin - 72 roosting red nab
Turnstone - nice counts of 275 wooden jetty
Purple Sandpiper - at least one and possibly two wooden jetty

Middleton NR
Redstart - female caught (already ringed)
Pied Flycatcher - female in tall trees alongside golf course (unringed!) (IOY)
Grasshopper Warbler - two singing males to the west of the western marsh road - prob 5 in total

General vis mig
Meadow Pipit - 3 in-off
Sand Martin - 2 N
Swallow - 42 N
Tree pipit - 1 ne
Redpoll - 6 ne

Heysham NR
Garden Warbler - one ringed (IOY)

Willow Warbler
At least 30 migrants in various places

Blackcap
At least 8 migrants

No Arctic Tern passage or any other seabirds further out