A wet start, but it remained dry after mid morning with some pleasant evening sunshine. A light west breeze.
Middleton Nature Reserve - Mike Rhoney
A Mute Swan was sat in the middle of the road near the bottom car park. It wouldn't move, the lorries were having to drive around it. Later it was back on the main pond. Not clear if it moved itself or someone moved it.
 |
This wasn't such an uncommon sight when the aggressive
male Mute Swan ruled the pond, but there is no obvious
reason for this now. Perhaps it hit some overhead lines. |
North shore
David Kaye checked at high water
Adult gannet and sandwich tern were fishing over the Skear
Heysham skear - Malcolm 16:15 -18:00
We are back to spring tides now, so much more of the skear becomes exposed, opening up feeding grounds that have been unavailable for 10 days. Almost certainly why there were more Gulls (c400) and Oystercatchers (c2,000) than of late.
Four of the gulls were colour ringed, so 1 per 100, which seemed to be the typical ratio last summer. More interesting was a colour ringed Oystercatcher. 1 in 2000 is good, I usually only see two or three a year.
 |
| Frustratingly, it was only showing one leg at first |
 |
| Then moved into the water |
 |
| But it eventually behaved itself. Part of an Irish ringing scheme, details awaited |
 |
| Some of this evening's Gulls and Oystercatcher |
 |
There are seed mussels everywhere now. This is their size high up the shore
(that's a £1 coin). They will be considerably larger further out |
Three of the ringed gulls have already been seen here this summer. There was one new Herring Gull, and it was a bit tricky as the ring was "upside down". The N: which is on all of this schemes rings is normally on the bottom. And it is the bottom character that is most likely to be obscured, not an issue when you know it is an N:
 |
| Fortunately it eventually revealed itself to be N07P - details awaited |
 |
We have now received the detail for this Herring Gull
Ringed at Walney Island last year, Friday's sighting was its first. |
 |
| Cormorant and Oystercatcher |
 |
| Cormorant enjoying the evening sunshine |
Little Egret 3
Great Crested grebe 3
Eider 1 female
 |
| Another bird enjoying the evening sun |
The only waders other than the Oystercatcher were
Curlew 4
Knot 1 - clearly a non-breeding bird, and it seems to like it on the skear in summer. I don't know why more summering birds don't take advantage of the easy feeding here.
 |
| Knot |
