Impressive Blue Tit

Overcast but dry. A cold NE wind.

Heysham Nature Reserve

Jean did a bit of ringing on Saturday resulting in this interesting report:

On Saturday 8 Feb a short ringing session at Heysham Nature Reserve saw 19 birds of 9 species caught:

5 Blue Tits

4 Goldfinch

2 Chaffinch, 2 Greenfinch, 2 Robins

1 each of Blackbird, Long-tailed Tit, Dunnock and Great Tit

All typical birds using the feeders.

Most (66%) were adults and most (63%) were retraps. as is usual at this time of year. 

The oldest bird was a Blue Tit which was first ringed as a juv in 2018 at Middleton Nature Reserve, so almost 7 years old. Pretty ancient for Blue Tits as most only live for 2-3 years. 

The oldest Blue Tit so far in the UK was 12 years old according to the latest information on the BTO website. An AI generated report on Google said there was a Blue Tit aged 21 years and this was repeated on some websites but the original source of this data couldn't be found so I wonder if the 12 years was mistyped at some point?  It shows you have to check your sources if numbers are involved.

Saturday's aged Blue Tit looking nice and healthy!

Janet took some shots on the reserve today.

Is this the 7 year old? No way of knowing. Only mist netting and checking
any previously ringed birds can hope to keep track of the resident birds.

Robin

South shore

I had a walk along the foreshore and Red Nab towards high water (Malcolm)

Red Nab was almost covered but the ducks and geese were feeding close to the sea wall, when no one was passing. This is the first time for over a week that the tide has reached this far, perhaps the closer in gutweed has had a chance to grow slightly.

Pale-bellied Brent geese 25

Shelduck 42

Wigeon 150

The ducks and geese moving away from the sea wall as someone 
walked along it

But they quickly returned. The Brent geese normally fly south much earlier in the
tide than this. Perhaps their next feeding area is also getting low on suitable food.

Janet checked later, the tide had gone, and so had the birds!

The last two Shelduck waddling off

This was on the saltmarsh. A Sea Potato (Common Heart Urchin)
Not rare, as its name suggests, but quite rarely seen here.

Heysham skear (Malcolm)

I went down as the tide was exposing the skear

Pale-bellied Brent goose 20+

Some of the Brent geese arriving

Eider 117 including a high proportion of 2nd calendar year males.

Mature male Eider trying to attract a couple of females

Immature male Eider with a female

Red-breasted Merganser 4. Seems it was a day for courtship.

Oystercatcher 2,500

Curlew 55

42 Curlew just north of Sunnyslopes groyne 

Redshank 250

Turnstone 59 arrived in two flocks from the south

Dunlin 30

Ringed Plover just 1 seen

Knot 2,000 arrived from the south, but there were two Peregrines waiting for them. They didn't get a chance to settle and were last seen heading off to NW. A Peregrine is high above this flock, but gains more height to stoop. This flock headed off before the Peregrine stooped, it didn't try to follow them but circled above waiting for another flock.

One of the Peregrines is the one with a dislocated talon.

This Black-Headed gull must have found a desirable titbit. All the larger gulls were trying to get it to drop whatever it was. To the gull's credit it evaded all challenges and eventually left to eat its prize elsewhere, although that was over a minute after the end of this clip, I'm sure it could have escaped earlier if it had really wanted too. It appeared to enjoy the chase!