Great evening session on the outfalls

Heysham Obs
A couple of Leach's Petrels found whilst looking down the wave troughs in the direction of Fleetwood from the Ocean Edge foreshore at high tide.  These must have cut across the bay in the marginal wind as it does not appear that any entered the bay to the north of Heysham.  Diod not arrive early enough to watch the incoming tide on the outfalls and I don't think there have been any Bonaparte's Gull sightings in some quite wet and unpleasant viewing conditions at this exposed site.  A couple of lost 'first time' observers ended up at the office cursing the site guide in Birdwatching magazine including 'why cant we go thoough the caravan site'

Various coastal places on and off, including seawatching am
Med Gull - at least 11 (7+ 1CY)
Little Gull - adult-type at long range on outfalls
Leach's Petrel - two mid/late morning heading out towards the Wyre estuary as viewed from Ocean Edge down the wave troughs.

Outfalls and area evening in perfect flat light due to cloud cover
Bonaparte's Gull - watched for the best part of an hour on and off 1800-1900 and spent most of its time on the mud between the two outfalls before feeding at the end of Heysham One, then between the two outfalls, then the end of Heysham two before landing on the tide edge just to the south of Heysham 2
Little Gull - ad-type
Sandwich Tern - one distantly out
Med Gull - at least 16, including a flock of 11 by wooden jetty

Pinkfeet
28 SE in morning, 29 in evening!

Bonaparte's return

Heysham Obs
The day was rescued spectacularly by the return of the adult Bonaparte's Gull in resplendent full winter plumage with all the requisite moult completed.  The sequence involved a scan of Heysham Two from Ocean Edge, glimpses of promise on a flying bird just beyond the small Heysham 2 jetty facing away into the wind (notably underwing), followed by a power walk down the seawall and a geriatric, wind-assisted 'run' back to the car when realised had forgotten mobile.  The tide was dropping quite rapidly and unfortunately I wasn't sure which direction it moved off the outfalls. Are Morecambe promenade observers missing a trick or is it simply feeding offshore and came in today because of rough seas? The gull flocks the other way on the Lune estuary have certainly been grilled but what about Morecambe prom?  Who is there?   

5 or so degrees north-west of forecast therefore birdless as regards seabird movement.  Go away Walney!..........blocking any chance of any seabirds in a wind which was always marginal, the majority forecast of due west always looked unconvincing in relation to the pressure chart and so it proved.  As it happened we may have missed an early morning Leach's Petrel or two as there was no-one here until 0800hrs and one flew out of the bay past Rossall at 0810hrs.

Sea/inshore (just 'our' long-stayers apart from the Gannet)
Gannet - one out
Med Gull - 8 1CY, 3 2CY, 4 Ad Red Nab to & including the harbour (10 of these behind the IOM ferry)
Kittiwake - adult stage 2 outfall briefly
Little Gull - ad type Red Nab area
Bonaparte's Gull - Heysham 2 outfall mid-morning
Leach's Petrel - one was reported as flying close inshore past the north harbour wall at about 1130hrs and another was offshore in the evening
Red-throated Diver - first of autumn - thanks Ian

Vis
Three Carrion Crows and a Meadow Pipit flew south whilst walking from car to office.

Moths
Included Frosted Orange which is not very common here with the others comprising Pink-barred Sallow,  Acleris emargana, Treble Bar, Rosy Rustic

Black Tern being dragged off by a Sandwich

Heysham Obs
No more dawn arrivals for Grey Wagtail ringing attempts/vis mig coverage for a few days!  Best of the bunch this morning was a juvenile (European) Black Tern feeding off Red Nab which unfortunately followed a fairly leisurely Sandwich tern flying towards the north Fylde.  Hopefully it will spin back on to the outfalls when these recover their 'identity' on the dropping tide.  Even better (number of records-wise) was the presumed continued presence of the same juvenile Spotted Redshank recorded a week or so ago

Outfalls/Red Nab/Ocean Edge
Grey Plover - c420 but distant
Spotted Redshank - juvenile in Ocean edge saltmarsh channel
Black Tern - juvenile flew slowly 'out' after feeding off Red Nab about 0910hrs
Sandwich Tern - adult out
Med Gull - 5 1Y, but just one each of 2CY and adult

Hopefully some more later. Haven't done the moths yet!

Bit of an unproductive morning

Heysham Obs
Friday the 13th one day late.  Every ringer drops the end loops on mist nets occasionally.  Sometimes this doesn't create problems.  Not so this morning and I grabbed the wrong replacement net which had a 'blue cast' to the material making it slightly more visible.  This makes a difference when trying to catch an agile species such as Grey Wagtail and this was compounded by the sun on the net after 0730hrs.  Should have risked missing some Grey Wags and replacing the net.  So after saying how easy they were to catch - one out of eight is not so good!  The original net took a good 15 minutes to sort - amazing how tangled they can get!

There were a few grounded migrants this morning as per the dawn rain shower, but nothing better than a female/imm Redstart was located and the paucity of passage Robins continues

The other negative feature of the morning was an example of a vis mig mystery where you know it is something good but the documentation is useless.  This happens to all of us who carry out vis mig day in day out.  The four calls in the eastern sky appeared to be a familiar but uk-scarce species, but the bird could not be seen as the sun was rising.  One for the bin.

Vis mig until 0930
Jay - two flew high inland as the ??usual ones and twos were still present 
Reed Bunting - 3 SE
Siskin - flock of 5 E
Goldfinch - at least 18 perceived migrants S
Chaffinch - 58 mainly SW
Swallow - 5 S
Meadow Pipit - 33 SE, nearly all early on in one spread out 'flock' (24)
Grey Wagtail - 8 SE (see above)
alba Wagtail - 21 SE
Bullfinch - 2+1 south may have been migrants/dispersal

Grounded in office area only
Chiffchaff - at least 4
Whitethroat - 2
Redstart - f/imm by the office annoying the local Robins
Sedge Warbler - juv ringed
Blackcap - 1
Song Thrush - 2-3

Moths
After the second Heysham record of Pine Carpet the other day, a rare appearance of Grey Pine Carpet this morning

More north-westerly rubbish but a trickle of vis

Heysham Obs
A bit of pre-work vis coverage plus a single mist net at a sheltered site for any Grey Wagtails passing over

Grey wagtail this morning.  Photo Reuben Neville who put the spanner down to take the pic - its nothing to do with the ringing operation (!) where specially made pliers are used for precision results.  The individual colour rings are on the right leg, the left leg (for this year) comprises the site/year code plus metal BTO ring.

Therefore to trace to an individual bird such as this light green over white - always name the top colour first, even if the legs are upside down - the right leg needs to be seen as well as the left.  A sighting of the left leg only will just trace the bird to this area, either used in Bowland in 2009 (unlikely to still be alive?) or the remainder of the allocated sequence being used up at Heysham this year

Vis mig on and off dawn to 0830
Meadow Pipit - 27 SE
alba Wagtail - 18 SE
Grey Wagtail - just the one which was caught
Chaffinch - 14 SW
Goldfinch - 11 S
Swallow - 22 Sish
Common Buzzard - one south at 0745hrs

Outfalls and area
Our Med Gulls are still with us and numbered 11 with 4 1CY, 4 2CY and 3 adult-type including one with a green darvic on the left leg.  Our ad-type Little Gull was fast asleep on the mudflats.  New in were two Sandwich terns sitting on Red Nab

Wrong kind of mist

Heysham Obs
Absolutely dreadful this morning with nothing happening in rather good mist-netting conditions.  Every time it looked like clearing from the north west, it closed up again.  Not the right direction to produce any grounded stuff.  The only remotely interesting fauna this morning was this Pine carpet

Vis mig dawn on and off until 1000hrs
Chaffinch - about the only thing moving early on tree-top-hopping from the direction of Heysham head - 27 SW
alba Wagtail - 6 SE
Grey Wagtail - 2 SE (one ringed)
Meadow Pipit - 43 SE - mainly 'mid'-morning
Goldfinch - 18 SE
Kestrel - one blogging

Grounded
One Chiffchaff and one Goldcrest at Heysham, unringed Sedge Warbler and Whitethroat caught at Middleton

Inshore
Quick check of outfalls area saw at least three Meds and a distant view of adult-type Little Gull, perhaps 3CY in final stages of primary moult i.e. no old feathers

Moths
Pine Carpet, Angle Shades and the usual suspects, including a few Treble Bar

Look out for colour-ringed Grey Wagtail

Heysham Obs
A decent passage of Grey Wagtail this week with over 40 colour-ringed.  Please check the sidebar which will be updated in a minute (!) and remember to check both legs, especially the sequence on the right leg. 

Just watched a flock of five released and heading off together to the south-east.  I don't think enough importance is attached to release methodology of vis mig birds in the literature.  Grey Wagtails released singly from a sitting position at the ringing base on the north side of the office building often went and sat in the nearest tree for up to 30 minutes whilst those taken round the corner and pointed in a south-easterly direction, they should be (and were) heading, gain height and carry on their migration with minimum of disruption.  Now we always release in the second manner

Vis mig to 1000
Spoilt by the cloud cover spilling in early and very little moving in contrast to the Caton Moor vis mig site whch was on the cloud edge for much of the early morning.  However this kept the sun off the nets!
Grey Wagtail - 10-11 south-east (6 ringed)
Chaffinch - 40 migrants south
Swallow - 24 SW
House Martin - 15 SW
Meadow Pipit - Just 9 SE
Common Buzzard - one south
Cormorant - high flocks of 11+4 south
Grey Heron - 1 south

Grounded
At least 3 migrant Song Thrush, 2 Chiffchaff, one Whitethroat, two Blackcap and at least 2 Robin new in (e.g. all unringed when caught)

More later when the coast is checked after doing some work!

It isnt your weather but the bigger picture which matters

Heysham Obs
A small pocket of calmer air in the middle of a generally fresh north-north-westerly was a bit of a novelty, synopsis-wise and certainly seemed suitable for mist-netting.  No-one told the birds, presumably grounded by the strong wind to the north which hit us with a notable 'whoosh' in tidal bore-fashion at about 0845hrs.  So we had perfect vis conditions with no vis.

Overhead dawn to about 1000hrs
Grey Wagtail - 7 (3 ringed)
Meadow Pipit - 18, with a gap of 1.5 hrs 0630-0800 without any!
alba Wagtail - group of 7 then just one other
Chaffinch - at least 19 tree-hopping southbound presumed migrants, as usual doing a lot of contact-calling
Swallow - 13

Grounded
Goldcrest - 1 - first of autumn
Chiffchaff - c3
Blackcap - one new one
Whitethroat - one retrap
Robin - one new one

Swallow roost last night
At least 500 birds in roost, but only a very cautious 41 ringed due to some nasty weather, albeit approaching slowly, along the north-western horizon.  That will do for the Swallow ringing sample for  the year - just over 500.

Coastal at high tide
Wheatear - 4 inner end of wooden jetty
Med Gull - 5 off Ocean Edge

Moths
After the inexplicable 'nil' yesterday, a nice variety given the cold conditions with 10 species including Copper Underwing and Angle Shades and dominated by Treble Bar and Silver Y

Decentish morning once the rain stopped

Heysham Obs
Not too clever for the Grey Wagtail study with 6 of them "overtaking" the end bit of the heavy rain before the nets could be opened, two being caught as the self-same rain hid the sun and then at least three having a whale of a time balancing on the top shelf as blazing sunshine on the net took over.  They are either very easy to catch in dull conditions or hopeless when it is sunny, which of course also makes them fly higher!  Quite a pulse of cross-bay vis at the back end of the dawn rain - you could tell there was no more wet stuff this side of Furness and no need to walk to the top of the hill and look!

Vis mig dawn to about midday (good to see you Bryan (Yorke))
Grey Wagtail - 13 SE (just two ringed)
Meadow Pipit - 135 SE
Chaffinch - 16 S
alba Wagtail - excluding presumed ex-roost, 8 SE
Tree Pipit - 3 singletons SE
Linnet - 1 S
Goldfinch - a minimum of 36 SE & other lower birds may have been migrants
Dunnock - "fidgety time" with 3 noisy ones flying S
Crossbill - at least one and probably two flew south at 0803 but could not be found as they were to the west of the office with limited viewing
Swallow - 22 ESE
House Martin - 1
Bullfinch - a bit of activity which could be interpreted as vis mig with two lots of two heading south over the office
Carrion Crow - a highflying flock of 6 came from the east, then headed north before swinging S
Greenfinch - 2 high to the south
Siskin - heard (one?) flying south

Grounded
Wheatear - at least 9 along coastal bits
Whitethroat - at least three new in
Blackcap - two new birds
Chiffchaff - c3 around office
Willow Warbler - one around office
Sedge Warbler - one ringed by office but not new in (F2, 12.6g)
Song Thrush - one presumed early migrant heard in the dawn twilight (early British-type migrants are a feature of September)

Coastal
Med Gull - at least 7

  

Unspectacular day

Heysham Obs Vis mig included 9 Meadow Pipit and 4 Grey Wagtail. Grounded migrants included 3-4 Chiffchaff, 3 Wheatear (2 mound, one OE) and a single Whitethroat Coastal stuff was 'same again' with 3CY Little Gull and at least 15 Med Gulls (7 juvs)