Decent coverage and a decent day

 

The early south breeze gradually swung round to NW by evening. A dry day with plenty of warm sunshine in the afternoon.

First some overnight news.

23:30 last night - Whimbrel "flock" flew over Angela Gillon's house in the NE of the recording area.

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Ringing report by John:

Warm again with a light wind. Arrived at 6am and three nets set.

Numbers caught were small, but all were new birds apart from one Chiffchaff.

They comprised ;

Lesser Redpoll           5

Sedge Warbler           4

Tree Pipit                  1

Great Tit                    1

Chiffchaff                    1

Lesser Whitethroat      1

North Harbour wall - Mark Prestwood 6.30 - 8.30 am

3 dark morph Arctic Skua 

26 Gannet 

Flock of 7 red-breasted Merganser in 

25 common scoter

Short seawatch prior to the high water webs survey - Pete (Marks birds additional)

10 gannet 

7 kittiwake 

1 guillemot

3 common scoter

15 sandwich tern, plus 5 on green buoy on the south side.

Whinchat 1 male briefly on Ocean Edge foreshore 

Porpoise 2

Seen from Stone Jetty, by Josh Hedley,  there will be some overlap with Pete's and Mark's records

07:21- 09:30
Red-throated Diver- 1
Gannet- 7
Common Scoter- c.25
Pink-foot- 362
Mute Swan- 3
Eider- 78
Whimbrel- 7
Turnstone- 80
Sandwich Tern- 14
Sand Martin- 5
Swallow- 20

Pete and Jeans webs included:

900 Knot on Heliport

193 Turnstone on heliport at high tide plus 22 on wooden jetty. 

I just checked Red Nab to saltmarsh towards high water (Malcolm)

No sign of the Brent geese today

Shelduck 2

Whimbrel 7

Rock,Pipit 1 on Red Nab

Wheatear 8

Wheatear

Linnet 7 on the saltmarsh 

Swallow 2 in

Lesser Whitethroat still singing from scrub behind Red Nab

Kevin and Alison checked along the sea wall in the warm afternoon sun.

Common Whitethroat 1 in the scrub near the lighthouse 

Lots of invertebrates along the wall again, despite the less than ideal wind.

Heysham skear - low water 16:50 (Malcolm)

Just a very quick check early in the ebbing tide (3 hours before low water)

Eider c70

Red-breasted Merganser 7

3 female Red-breasted Merganser

Oystercatcher c1,000

Knot c1,000

Curlew 5

Curlew

Whimbrel 3

Whimbrel and male Red-breasted Merganser

Whimbrel

Bar-Tailed Godwit 284 feeding along the water line to the south of the skear.

Mainly Godwits along the south waterline

Dunlin 80 (no Sanderling with them today)

Turnstone 30