Better

It was 11:15 when the morning rain finally stopped. After that it remained dry, but overcast. A light NE wind.

Heysham skear (Malcolm)

I checked twice today 10:45 - 12:15 and 15:00 - 16:00

Pink-Footed goose 46 south this morning.

Pale-bellied Brent goose 6 - at least 5 flew directly to the rocks in front of the play area this morning, 6 were in the water this afternoon.

Four of the Brent heading for the play area rocks.
You can see the gutweed on the rocks (bottom of picture)

This afternoon's Brent geese

Eider 18

Great Crested Grebe 1

Little Egret 2

Shag at least 3 juveniles probably 4, this morning 

Three Shag, Eider behind and mainly Knot in front

Solitary Shag and the dredger's dump boat returning to the harbour 

There were c3000 Knot this morning, but we both stood still for 30 minutes while the rain stopped. When it did the tide was already quite a way out and the Knot followed. They were in awkward terrain but there seemed to be an influx of Icelandic flagged birds. I saw six, five of which were new for this winter.

When they are tightly packed like this, it doesn't matter what terrain they
are on, you can only see the legs of the outermost birds

There are more of these areas, where the mussel mat has been stripped off
the skear bottom, since this section of skear was last exposed. You can see 
the individual birds clearly, but very few legs.

I left them to it and returned later, c2000 had finished feeding and flew to the freshwater runoff in the skear corner to freshen up. Still little chance of seeing flagged individuals. These are just some of them.

This Oystercatcher is also part of an Icelandic scheme - details awaited

Bar-Tailed Godwit 4 this afternoon 

Bar-Tailed Godwit (2 of these in the Brent on the water shot above)

Dunlin 15 this afternoon 

Dunlin