A long overdue, but very welcome, Spoonbill

A warm sunny day with a lighter offshore wind.

Pete:

Heysham sea 0630-0840: a real mixed bag with a lot of empty sea and a couple of surprises.  

No Arctic Tern - presumably blocked but can’t see any dramatic reason why from synoptic charts: 

Spoonbill - distantly in 0700 - first record for the recording area.

A light morph Pomarine Skua in nice and close 0723 just as a ferry was arriving

one Gannet fishing

one Guillemot out

5 Common scoter in,

Adult Little Gull in and usual 2cy Little Gull feeding Heysham one seaward end

25 pink footed geese north

3 Sanderling out,

Osprey fishing off outfalls 0800-0815

c10 Sandwich tern

2cy  Mediterranean gull on outfalls.  

A few night migrants eg 5 Willow warblers harbour bushes and two sedge warbler red nab.

Middleton Nature Reserve - Janet

One of the Mute Swans on the "no swimming" pond has wry neck

The Mallard with 13 chicks on the "no swimming" pond is doing well
keeping them all safe

Very cute!

Goldfinch 

Willow Warbler 

Linnet

Orange Tip

Green-veined White

Heysham skear - Malcolm 12:20 - 13:30

A check as the tide was covering the skear

Eider 16

Red-breasted Merganser 3

Little Egret 2

Whimbrel 1 

Bar-Tailed Godwit 21

Some of the Godwit arriving from the south

A stark contrast between the deep red summer plumage red of these males
and the paler birds

Knot 1500. Initially on the skear then moved to the waterline for a while, but they didn't feed there

Knot centre picture surrounded by Oystercatchers 

They returned to what little there was left of the skear and immediately began feeding again. 

A lot was going on this evening as viewed from south of the recording area.

Nine black terns flew into the bay as seen from Rossall 
Also two groups of Arctic Terns 23 and 13
Bonxie (Great Skua) in chasing group of c.10 Sandwich Terns, Rossall Point 17:58

There should be plenty of movement here over the next few days!