Nice day and decent coverage

After a relatively mild day yesterday, there was an overnight frost, enough to freeze ground water and the shallower ponds, but the main ponds remained ice free. Sunshine till late afternoon when it started to cloud over. Almost no wind, what little air movement there was mainly north and west.

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Mute swan 2+1 adult 3+1 juvenile - the additional adult is definitely a new bird in, it shied away from the regular feeder.

Coot 4

Moorhen 10

Water Rail 2

Gadwall 26

Shoveler 2 

Mallard 6

Little Grebe 1

Cetti's warbler - good, but brief, views near the new shallow scrapes in the SW corner of the western marsh.

South Shore

Some nice shots from Janet

Little Egret feeding on Red Nab

Grey Seal out from No.1 outflow

Two Herring gull stowaways on the incoming ferry

Heysham Skeer towards low water

Eider 103

Great Crested Grebe 3

Knot c1,500

Pale-bellied Brent goose - they were around the pool in the centre of the skeer, there isn't a great deal of weed in this pool (I checked on the way back when they had gone), so presumably the advantage is that it is underwater and so easier to crop. I counted as best I could from distance, 24, then skirted well past them onto the skeer. 10 minutes later I heard them in flight, there were actually 30, they set off west and I thought they were off to the west side for the night, but they doubled back and landed on the water just west of the skeer.

They then drifted back along the skeer edge and continued feeding from the water

I included this clip, mainly because it gives a good idea of the general activity around, what I regard as, the western edge of the inner skeer.

Finally, I like this short clip, the Eider appears to deliberately upset the gull