A funny old day

Heysham obs
The seawatching was curtailed as a mixture of armed and unarmed police converged on the north wall after a super-mutt had been reported as being a seemingly toxic mixture of husky x Alsatian x wolf.  It was said to be distressed and liable to bite. Not sure of the outcome of this escapade.

Much more positive was connection with a single Canada goose on the model boat pond - a tricky one for PWC.

The only other bird sightings of any remote interest were six wheatear ocean edge, a male mallard on red nab along with two little egret and 520 oystercatcher plus a single late northbound meadow pipit

Bonxie and better still Goosander!

Heysham Obs
More perseverance on the sea lead to an earlier start this morning and a good job as it soon went completely dead

Sea 0715-0900ish
Dunlin - 45 S
Red-throated Diver - 2 south
Gannet - one south
Auk - one south (distant, prob Razorbill)
Great Skua (Bonxie) - one sat on sea then flew into bay 0730
Goosander - male flew high to south

Ocean Edge/Red Nab
Common Gull - 94
Black-tailed Godwit - one feeding close inshore by Red Nab
Wheatear - 7
Little Egret - one Red Nab

Middleton NR
Reed Warbler - three singing male main reedbed
Little Egret - one no swimming pond (one on HNR dipping pond yesterday!)
Tufted Duck - 7
Mute Swan - 6 2CY scrapping

Bits of seawatching

Heysham Obs
It is a sign of the times that I dropped everything in the office and headed to the north wall hoping to intercept a Fulmar.  Failure.... and that might be it for the Patchwork Challenge with this spp.  No idea why it become so rare off Lancs in recent years after being staple diet of summer period seawatching.

North wall (Jean Roberts)
Fulmar - one in 0915
Gannet - 3
Kittiwake - flock of c25 u-turned
Sandwich tern - just one as is typical in windy conditions

Sorry getting behind with posting

Heysham Obs MONDAY sightings
Not sure what else was in the main observer's notebook!

Arctic Tern - one in
Sandwich tern - up to 38 mainly blogging

White Wagtail - up to four along tideline towards Potts corner
Dunlin - 5 on the rocks north harbour wall

Thanks for these Janet

Frosty start

Heysham Obs
A few migrants this morning although could have done with being there a bit earlier - maybe some additional stuff from Pete who was seawatching early on

North wall 0845-1000
Sandwich Tern - 23 out
Whimbrel - 4+4 in
Meadow Pipit - one NE
Linnet - 16 NE
NO hirundines! - see below
Turnstone - 162 - but didn't see any Purple Sandpiper - definitely did not move across to north wall on dropping tide with vast majority of Turnstones
No sign of the Iceland Gull

Office area 0655-0840
Redpoll - 14 north including flock of 8
Linnet - 13 N
Rook - flock of three south-west - quite high and purposeful - what on earth were they doing!
Swallow - 61 NE between 0730 and 0830
Sand Martin - 2 NE as above
Willow Warbler - at least four passing through
Redstart - female showing well by the office after first turning up at 0745, last seen 0755
Grasshopper Warbler - one singing briefly tank farm (on territory?)
Whinchat - 2 males together on tank farm 0735 then flew across the non-op towards golf course
- very lucky to see these - perhaps need to look that way more often! (IOY)


Middleton NR (thanks Malcolm).
Wildfowl as yesterday plus 2 greylag & 2 shelduck.
Still lots of common whitethroat around plus there were more sedge singing. Also 2 lesser whitethroat and 2 grasshopper reeling (1 one top of hill in west section - new bird or relocation?).
3 orange tip
1 weasel

Just an update on swans. Pair on Tim Butler
still sitting. Pair nesting on Fence pond failed, but were mating again this
morning. The 6 2 cy are splitting into increasing aggressive factions.

Another Iceland Gull

Heysham Obs
2CY Iceland Gull harbour mouth and area at least 0810-0815, then drifted between gap in wooden jetty towards outfalls - couldn't find on scan from Ocean Edge but plenty of visually dead ground between outfalls.  Will have a wander down soon

Purple Sandpiper with c130 Turnstone along north harbour wall after being flushed from beneath wooden jetty

Gannet - 3 distant ad offshore but didn't get here until 0800

Still 'need' Common Scoter (for the year) but fortunately not Hudsonian Godwit (see todays national news)!

Bits and bobs

Heysham obs
Another rather slow day with dawn way before the cloud and murk rolled in . Blackcap continued to be above average with eight ringed, about half the new birds handled.

Highlights
Grasshopper warbler - one singing by office on tank farm
Purple sandpiper - one on rocks by wooden jetty
Turnstone - 95 by wooden jetty
Wheatear - 11 coastal birds
Little egret - 3 red nab
Whimbrel - one

Another sunny day

North Harbour Wall

Vis 0700-0845
Meadow Pipit - 6
Swallow - 3
alba Wagtail - 4
Linnet - 3

Sea
Sandwich Tern - 9 blogging

Wednesday vapour trails

Heysham Obs
Lots of aeroplanes over this morning making themselves very obvious but not a lot of birds considering the time of year, with the sea yet another disaster with so much stuff seen at Rossall just not making its way into the Bay

Birds:
Green Sandpiper model boat pond pm
Tree Pipit - 1 north
Meadow Pipit - 4 north
Linnet - 10 north
Swallow - 13 north
Jay - four north chased by two residents
Reed Warbler - one ringed heysham nr
Willow Warbler - 9 ringed
Blackcap - 4 ringed
Grasshopper Warbler - one ringed
Goldcrest by hnr office

Canada Goose tops the bill

Heysham Obs
Canada Goose is a bit tricky within the Patchwork Challenge area - this was on the model boat pond this morning

A small amount of ringing by the office was again in clear sunny weather with little or no wind.  Meagre fare with just four Blackcap and about the same number of Phylloscs

Middleton
Canada Goose and two Greylag but no increase reported in warbler species

Thanks Janet