A dry and largely sunny day after early morning rain. A light SW wind
Waxwing 1 - in a tall tree opposite the Heysham anemometer - Andrew McCafferty
Heysham skear - low water 11:00 (MD)
It was only 3m low water so the tide only uncovered the inner skear.
Pale-bellied Brent goose 22 at least. These four (2 adult and 2 first winter) were trying to feed in one of the pools. The only gutweed here is on just a few of the rocks, and not very much of it at that.
Later a flock of 22 were just resting on the water on the north side of the skear.
Pink-Footed goose 44 south
Eider 15
Little Egret 2 - first ones see here for a while
Redshank 200+ this is a big increase to recent visits, it can only mean that there are now plenty of shrimps around. These are the same brown shrimps so synonymous with Morecambe Bay, but these will be tiny, although they will be in high concentrations. These are some of the waders catching them (the yellow pipes in this clip mark the safe route for the dinghy launching tractors).
(If you would like to better understand just how small these shrimps will be, visit the post 10/01/21, https://heyshamobservatory.blogspot.com/2021_01_10_archive.html )
Oystercatcher 2,000
Curlew 80
Knot 1,500
Turnstone 60
Dunlin 5
Ringed Plover 24
The Knot were feeding and I scanned them all for rings, out of the 1,500 there was only one ringed bird. This clip shows the difficulty of ring reading on the skear. It also includes an example of one of the rocks with just a bit of gutweed attached. The ringed bird is in the centre of the frame at the beginning of the clip.
Full details awaited, but it was ringed in Scotland in 2021 and has been seen in Heysham at least once before, by Howard in 2022.
Glossy Ibis at Middleton Parish Hall at least till midday
