Sporadic quality over the sea

Heysham Obs
Pretty wild and wet today with poor visibility a lot of the time.  Seabirds amounted to 6 terns of two species and three skuas of two species, one Little Gull and NOTHING else.

So Pomarine Skua is now on my 2015 Patchwork Challenge list for here, but not Common Scoter, Guillemot, Razorbill or Fulmar!

Coastal observations 0600-1345hrs, when wind swung WNW 
Pomarine Skua - light morph adult picked up very early to the south as a 'dark wheeler' in the shipping lane at c1317, then continued to wheel quickly NE at yellow buoy range.  A nice full-tailed bird
Arctic Skua - two dark morph in the very murky weather headed south along the tideline from Ocean Edge past Middleton at 1220hrs, 3 dark morph late afternoon
Little Gull - adult slowly 'in'
Med Gull - 2CY seen twice on outfalls
Arctic Tern  - 3 in early on, then two off seaward end of Heysham two outfall briefly
Sandwich Tern - one off the seaward end of Heysham one outfall briefly
Knot - flocks of 600 and 400 south - didn't land in the area
Kittiwake - adult behind freight ferry late pm
Dunlin - up to 2,500 pre-tide on mudflats south of Ocean Edge, c200 south
Swallow - Just a couple early on, then a gang of 19 in-off just prior to the first lot of rain
White Wagtail - at least 6 birds Ocean Edge with up to 10 Pied Wagtail for the whole morning -what are the latter doing - mixture of male and female?

Hirundines get going but terns still stutter

Heysham Obs
Easterly then SE plus rain to begin with - switch to SW near gale midday, then clearing up - stuff probably missed pre-0725.  Offshore visibility poor early morning with 'Gannet range' not discernable

Sea 0725-0900 then short spells at lunchtime as wind went SW plus Ocean Edge check
Swallow - 283 NE (220 of these 0730-0800)
House Martin - 1 NE
Sand Martin - 5 NE
Swift - 1 NE (IOY)
Arctic Tern - 30+2+5 NE
Sandwich Tern - 10
Whimbrel - 1
Wheatear - 4 north wall, 14 Ocean Edge
White Wagtail - 3 Ocean Edge (with c8 Pied of unknown status)
Meadow Pipit - 2 very late migrants NE
Kittiwake - 10 on sea
Med Gull - same 2CY outfalls
Common Gull - 182 outfalls
Black-headed Gull - much reduced - 28 outfalls
Knot - c1750 flew south along the tideline towards the Lune Estuary at 0919hrs as seen from OE
Dunlin - c250 out
Eider - c120 on sea
Bar-tailed Godwit - 10 in

one probable dark morph arctic skua in but unfortunately optics steamed up!
Turnstone not counted today

Tern watch

If only there were terns to watch! Where are they all?  They are very late arriving this year.

North Harbour Wall 0600-1020 then an hour or so over high tide (thanks to pete and Ian)
Most pre 0700
Gannet - c20
Fulmar - 1
Common tern - 1 in
Red-throated diver - 2 out
Kittiwake - 5 out
Great-crested Grebe - 1 in
Little Egret - 1 in
Distant waders, probably Dunlin - 150 + 50 + 150 out
Ringed Plover - 16 out

Grounded:
Wheatear - 10, nine on oe
Chiffchaff - 1 north wall
White wagtail - 2

Wooden jetty
Turnstone 149+

Moths
One Hebrew character, one powdered Quaker, one double striped pug

Butterflies
9 brimstone, 6 peacock , 3 speckled wood, 6 orange tip on reserve circuit (thanks Malcolm)

Migrants in the rain

Heysham Obs
Worth a bit of a search when the rain stops judging by stuff visible from the car.  Record Whinchat count for the Obs and all males! = 8

Yesterdays rather oddly plumaged male Pied Flycatcher (thanks Dan)

Ocean Edge/Red Nab/outfalls
Whinchat - 4 males
Wheatear - 14, including two very large birds
Meadow Pipit - 1
White Wagtail - 1
Med Gull - yesterdays 2Cy or identical bird
Gadwall - pair on Red Nab - unexpected!
Common Gull - c180
Black-headed Gull - c210

North wall
Wheatear - 4
Whinchat - one male (heliport)
Arctic Tern - 4+10+6 in 0735-0740, nothing after that as tide came in
Sandwich Tern - all heading in this morning, no bloggers - 22 in 0730-0745, just one thereafter until 0900

South harbour area
Purple Sandpiper - at least one
Wheatear - 5
Sedge Warbler - 1!

Middleton NR
Whinchat - male near the bottle dump, male west of the western marsh

Recycling centre road
Whinchat - male in the horse paddock within the recording area
Wheatear - 1

Inshore grilling

Heysham Obs
Nothing offshore other than a very distant bird heading steadily into the bay which fitted the bill for a dark morph Arctic Skua (0715hrs).    All the waterbirds (mainly Curlew, Oystercatcher and Shelduck) along the shore south of Ocean Edge were flushed by the "regular pony and trap who does no harm" (per owner of access) going both ways right along the tideline.  As has been gently explained (numerous formal or informal meetings), this is all very well at low tide or near low tide but completely out of order at high tide - there is supposed to be a law called reckless disturbance but I have yet to see or hear about it being used with respect to coastal issues.  Potts Corner shore access remains a running sore of unnecessary disturbance.

Coastal area
Purple Sandpiper - at least two with the large Turnstone flock
Turnstone - 321, possibly more towards Red Nab
Med Gull - 1 2CY with a 'mask' (not a trace of head s.p.) seemed to arrive from high in the sky with three Common Gull and then fed on Heysham 2 outfall
Common Gull - 143
Black-headed Gull - 220
Knot - one in summer plumage with Turnstone, then flew south on its own
Whimbrel - 2 by Heysham 2 outfall
No Wheatears either side of the harbour area (pre-rain check)
Dunlin - 5
Sandwich Tern - 16 on posts/buoys pre-tide, two further out fishing
Arctic tern - 2 out

Grounded migrants
Pied Flycatcher - probable 'grey male' - (not yesterdays 'brown primaried' female) western marsh bushes Middleton
Lesser Whitethroat - one ringed
Wheatear - 11 Ocean Edge - many seemed to materialise when the rain started
Meadow Pipit - 2 with the above
White Wagtail - 1 with Wheatears ocean edge

Middleton NR
Gadwall - 5
7 house martin & 11 swallow over model boat pond after rain started

Much more like it except on the distant sea

Heysham Obs
Lots of odds and ends this morning, the most notable being a female Redstart bearing a ring from elsewhere - D1797xx anyone (not supposed to post full numbers)?  The oddest sighting was a flock of 10 Tufted Duck on the sea (9 males one female!) and the biggest miss a Hooded Crow flagged up by Chris Batty heading for the wooden jetty/power station from Knott End

North wall 0720-0820
Wheatear - 4
Willow Warbler - 2
Sandwich Tern - 16 on buoys, 18 others out - all early on
Tufted Duck - flock of 10 floated in then flew out
Black-tailed Godwit - flock of 5 out
Black-headed Gull - steady northwards movement of 78

Ocean Edge 0825 onwards on and off
Wheatear - at least 21, assuming all stayed put and no through movement
Whinchat - 3 males along beach
Little Egret - 5 Red Nab and area
Dunlin - 72 roosting red nab
Turnstone - nice counts of 275 wooden jetty
Purple Sandpiper - at least one and possibly two wooden jetty

Middleton NR
Redstart - female caught (already ringed)
Pied Flycatcher - female in tall trees alongside golf course (unringed!) (IOY)
Grasshopper Warbler - two singing males to the west of the western marsh road - prob 5 in total

General vis mig
Meadow Pipit - 3 in-off
Sand Martin - 2 N
Swallow - 42 N
Tree pipit - 1 ne
Redpoll - 6 ne

Heysham NR
Garden Warbler - one ringed (IOY)

Willow Warbler
At least 30 migrants in various places

Blackcap
At least 8 migrants

No Arctic Tern passage or any other seabirds further out

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