Decent migration coverage

The mist nets below the old obs tower saw a blast from the past today - a decentish catch of 20 or so female Willow Warblers with a few other odds and ends including three Lesser Whitethroat.   The sea was a real mixed bag with early morning reports from elsewhere suggest quite a few terns from early doors (eg 100+ Arctic and a few Black off JBP early am).  Heysham observations saw the back end of this movement with nothing subsequently other than a few blogging Sandwich Terns.  However, following an extremely distant probable, the incoming tide once again produced skuas, this time three Arctic in conditions which were clear and flat calm!  Unfortunately there was no known coverage when the easterly kicked in again later in the tide sequence.  The first Middleton CES was carried out and the single Willow Warbler showed just how more concentrated migrants are at Heysham NR, much nearer the landfalling area

North harbour wall am
Vis
Lesser Redpoll 2
Swallow 18
Meadow Pipit 1

Grounded
Willow Warbler singing by twite feeder but no Wheatear or any other migrants

At sea
Arctic Tern 78 (36, 38, 4)
Black Tern 1 (with the 38 Arctics)
Red-throated Diver 2 in
Little Egret 1 south, close inshore
skua spp - very distant bird, almost certainly dark Arctic

South harbour/O edge
Wheatear - 7

Early incoming tide north wall (lunchtime)
Arctic Skua - single dark morph in then two together in close inshore
Little Gull - two summer adults in with a flurry of Black-headed Gulls
Eider 127 off the skear
Sandwich Tern 8 blogging
Dunlin - 20 on skeer
Whimbrel - one on skeer
NO hirundine passage during this calm spell

Moneyclose Lane
Pied Flycatcher - male singing briefly from two locations as it moved north along the lane

Heysham village
Swift - 1 (IOY)

Grey Seal offshore

Waiting for Godot delivers in style

The early morning vigil on the sea from 0700 drifted on via negative news from Rossall, extensive negative searching of the skeers for the Iceland Gull, a café stop and an office visit until 1100 when one of us gave up and the other decided just to let the tide come in a bit.  At this point, Alan arrived and it all started to happen!  Yet yesterday the early morning low tide period was quite productive.  Seawatching can be so unpredictable.

The tern behaviour was also different this morning with just a bit of north in the easterly wind.  There were two lines used by birds heading in the bay and no sign of any heading inland over the wooden jetty or even further south as yesterday.  The first line was 'yellow buoyish range' and the second line was in the second channel beyond the first sandbank and it was along this line the star of the morning, three Pomarine Skuas, materialised

Osprey - one flew NE over the reserve at 1130 (Alan D and John M)

Offshore
Arctic Tern - 301 in, mainly after 1130
Black Tern - 48 in with largest group 23.  Some could have been missed on the 'inner line' whilst keeping tabs on the Poms.  All after 1130
Pomarine Skua - three low over the water just beyond the first sandbank at 1140, then landed for about 12 minutes before heading slowly and low up the channel.  Two were obvious light morphs with full tails, the third looked a bit 'messy' underneath where the others were clear cut pale but still had a full tail.  A nice new species for Alan!
Whimbrel - 4 in
Sandwich Tern - 7 blogging early on then a further 15 in with the main movement
Black-headed Gull - c150 in, mainly 2CY
Meadow Pipit - 11 in
Swallow - c150 in (and single/low double figures over Middleton and HNR)
Sand Martin - 13 in
Red-throated Diver - one in summer plumage on
Great-crested Grebe - one on
Eider - 278

Grounded
Wheatear 2

Middleton NR
Mute Swan - 3 pairs all on nests
Tufted Duck - 4
Gadwall - 1
Mallard - 3
Little Grebe - 1
Common Sandpiper - 1
House Martin - 2 NE
Cetti's Warbler - three singing males
Grasshopper Warbler - 2 singing males
Lesser Whitethroat - three singing males
Reed Warbler - still just two singing males
Big increase in Whitethroat and plenty of Sedge and Willow Warblers but Blackcap and Chiffchaff starting to be 'quieter', as befits earlier nesters

Great migration day

Best was an adult White-winged Black tern accompanying one of the Black tern flocks (seen by Andrew) along with a record count of Black tern.   Quite tricky to keep tabs on birds which were spiralling up and heading inland (eg a flock of 120 Arctic and several Black tern) and the following counts should be seen as minima with three observers at different locations liaising over the phone.  Pete Crooks diligently covered the early morning low tide period.  Unfortunately the land was very much second best and goodness knows how many warblers slipped through in the absence of any ringing and presence of the more 'obvious' species in some numbers like Wheatear and Whinchat.  Stuff is still arriving as this is being typed, notably a massive hirundine passage

Evening update (Shaun Coyle et al)
ICELAND GULL - 2CY past outfalls towards harbour 2000 hrs
Black tern - flock of 45 in - at least 185 for the day!


Sea - 0700-1315
Gannet- 9
Sandwich Tern - 18, mainly blogging but purposeful flock of 12 in
White-winged Black Tern - 1 adult
Arctic Tern - 569 NE
Black Tern - 140 minimum, probably another 30 NE
Black-headed Gull - 72 in
Common Scoter - 3
Whimbrel - 5
Swallow - 500 NE
Sand Martin - 120 NE
House Martin - 5 NE
Tree Pipit - 3 NE
Meadow Pipit  86 NE (late!) plus another 30 small passerines prob these over the sea
Alba Wagtail - 3
Goldfinch - 2
Siskin - 1
Kestrel - 1
Great-crested Grebe - 1 on water
Common sandpiper - 2 near naze, one red nab

Grounded
Wheatear - 22 minimum
Whinchat - 3 minimum
Yellow Wagtail - male Ocean Edge
Willow Warbler - 2 south harbour wall, 3 OE foreshore rocks

Pete Woodruff late afternoon - note the record Common Sandpiper count (thanks for this info)
13 Wheatear, being 11 flying off Red Nab in procession toward Ocean Edge, and two on the waste ground at the south wall where there was 3 Willow Warbler, a Whitethroat, and a White Wagtail, 8 Common Sandpiper were below the sea wall between outfalls

Less of a spectacle

Low tide coverage by Phil and myself on the north wall failed to reveal any semblance of proper migration.  Hordes of seagulls as yesterday eventually revealed an adult summer Little Gull at extreme range as the BHGs started to move up the bay on the incoming tide.  That was about it in the 'boldface stakes'.  Similar picture for Malcolm on the south side of the harbour

Some nice pics from Janet at Middleton yesterday:

Coastal/offshore
Knot - about half yesterdays number - c3000
Eider - 270ish
Sandwich tern - 8-9 bloggers early on
Pink-footed Goose - one south!
Whimbrel - 1 north
Wigeon - pair north
Little Gull - adult summer with BHGs - only seen when they flew north
Mute Swan - 2 imms north over sea
Great-crested Grebe - one on sea
Red-throated Diver - one on during a mid-morning check
Wheatear - 3 OE
[Ian had a flock of 145 Arctic Tern heading into the Bay at Rossall mid/late afternoon, hopefully a precursor of the main theme during the easterlies in the next few days]

Heysham N Reserve area
The only definite migrants were two Lesser Redpoll ringed and about half a dozen Swallows over

Grey Seal - 1

Spectacle birding

low spring tides allow skeers to be uncovered which don't normally see the light of day very much and hordes of birds often take advantage of this temporary source of food

Large gulls (mostly 2cy herring) - 890
Black headed gull - 1240
Common gull - 257
Knot - 6400 (great murmurations)
Eider - 259

Migrants
Dark-bellied Brent goose - two north at the time a lot of birds were being displaced by The tide (thanks Malcolm)
Arctic Skua - dm in 0815
Sandwich tern - 14
Common scoter - 3
Red throated diver - 2
Pink footed goose - 110 n plus a singleton on the water
Guillemot - 1
Common sandpiper - 1 (Ioy)
Wheatear - 8

Grey seal - 1
Harbour porpoise - 1-2

The day of the Gannet

It didn't look great for a seawatch at first as the visibility was very poor as a weather front passed over but suddenly in the gloom a flock of Kittiwakes and appeared and then another so it was time to concentrate. The following were then seen in the run up to high tide from 08:20 to 12:00:

Kittiwake -  116 (35+70+1+5+1+4)
Gannet - 100 - exact count of inbound birds (largest flock = 30). As all but one were adults they contrasted superbly against the grey background.  As usual many were seen flying out at some distance heading around Walney - these all assumed to be the same birds as already counted
Sandwich Tern - 10 in and 3 out
Arctic Tern - 9 in at 11:53
Arctic Skua - dark morph in at 09:15
Great Skua - 2 in at 09:40 (one initially, the second bird probably got off the sea and joined it - suddenly appeared in line with Barrow...and 1 in very close at 11:40 which had been tracked past rossall then knott end (1126)
Pomarine Skua - 1 lm ad very close in at 11:33, first picked up flying round end of wooden jetty
Red-throated Diver - 7 in
Manx Shearwater - 3 (2+1) - distant flying across
Guillemot - 2 out

2000 Knot and 200 Dunlin flew out (towards Middleton) from the skears at around 09:20

Lots of Sandwiches today

Another chilly morning vigil at the North Harbour wall. Tally so far (to 10:15hrs):
Sandwich Tern -  73
Arctic Tern - 2 plus 6 in
Unidentified large raptor in distant heat haze  - 1 at 1008
Red-throated Diver - 1
Little egret - 3 north together 

Whimbrel - 3 red nab
Grey plover - 1 red nab
White wagtail - two ocean edge grass
No wheatear seen oe!

Shoulder stripe in moth trap 

Chilly seawatch

Nice view of the snow clad Lake District from the North Harbour Wall today but the air was cold so there was a "heat" haze over the sea (i.e. The sea being relatively warmer than the air above it) making distant birds (if there were any) difficult to see.

Managed to see the following:
Sandwich Tern - 13 in
Gannet - 5 in
Auk sp, probably Guillemot, - 1 in
Swallow - just the one.

3 Wheatear were seen at Ocean Edge by Malcolm

Speckled Wood and an Orange Tip seen at Heysham Nature Reserve by Janet (see below)

Heysham Reserve
Redstart - 1 female along path at north end of reserve, pm.
Lesser Whitethroat singing near the hut

JR

Mixed bag after a late start

Interested to see what tomorrow mornings seawatching will be like in the northerly - in the past it has produced some terns etc.  Today we were too late for a proper seawatch and certainly missed the decent number of early morning Red-throated Diver seen heading in from Rossall (thanks for info Ian)

Sea 0900-0940
Red-throated Diver - 2!
Great Skua - see by two of us but distant brief views as it headed in (thanks for the alert Ian)
Gannet - 2 in
Dunlin - 35 N
Knot - 700 south

Ocean Edge saltmarsh
Scandinavian Rock Pipit - one in summer plumage (usually gone from round here before they gain s.p.) (Malcolm)
Wheatear - 1-2

At last a bit of action by our standards!

Unfortunately the Pom Skua was at best an unidentifiable blob high above Walney lighthouse (seen off Rossall and communicated straight away), otherwise a nice mix of stuff today.  Would have been even better without a heat haze from early doors knocking a couple of additional species on the head!

Offshore 0630 to 1020ish (Pete Crooks and Pete Marsh)
Med Gull - the major surprise was a pair of adults heading up the Bay (very late for this age class to still be on the move).  Also new in was a 2CY with the Common Gulls on the tideline by Ocean Edge
Gannet - 3
Arctic Tern - 3+10+5 in (IOY)
Red-throated Diver - at least 14 either 'in' or 'on' but floating in, singletons or twos
Common Scoter - 21
Sandwich Tern - 3
Guillemot - 8 - 'on' floating in - all singletons
Whimbrel - 6 in, 2 on shore Red Nab
Knot - flock of c4800 south
Meadow Pipit - late flock of 5 in
Swallow - c40 in (mostly after 0925)
House Martin - 2 in
Sand Martin - 7 in together 0945
Goose spp - c130 NW very distantly
No ducks other than the odd Eider (very poor spring for RBM in particular)

Harbour Porpoise - three well-separated individuals
Grey Seal - 2 (one close inshore)

Middleton NR (Malcolm)
Cetti's Warbler - two singing males but the main territory of the wintering male silent (hopefully paired and nesting)
Lesser Whitethroat - 2 singing males
Grasshopper Warbler - two additional territories/passage birds today (singing males - one near Solrec/Tradebe)
Sedge Warbler - 5 singing male
Reed Warbler - one singing male
Swallow (3) and Sand Martin (1) casually noted
Pheasant - 2
Mute Swan - 3 pairs, two sitting
Coot - 2
Moorhen - 7
Gadwall - 5 (4 males)
Mallard - 3 males
Tufted Duck - 3 (2 males)
Little Grebe - 2 on model boat pond - one trilling

No ringing this am or coverage of landbirds away from Middleton