Even closer Puffin and swift passage

About 1.5 hours of rather messy coverage rather than complete concentration on the sea.  This was because there was clearly nothing happening looking from the north wall beyond the yellow buoys and therefore some later Ocean Edge grass watching seemed in order with an eye kept on the nearest channels offshore.  This is a better vis mig site and so it proved with swift and hirundines and 'invisible' redpoll.

Coastal coverage 0725-0900 (ie when cafe opened!)
Puffin - at about 0830 one flew round the wooden jetty and then towards me on the north wall, gaining height before dropping down again in the near channel and heading up the Bay!  Bizarre and surely the same bird Ian had seen from Rossall at 0630ish which had sat on the sea for a bit?
Guillemot - one in 0815
Red-throated Diver - one out - the only distant bird of any note
Swift - 9 from the north wall heading NE over the sea, 14 in-off at Ocean Edge
Swallow - 7 as above, then 44 in-off Ocean Edge
Sand Martin - 2 in-off Ocean Edge
Sandwich Tern - 4 in
Lesser Redpoll - 5+H+H+2+H+H
Whimbrel - 1 in
Dunlin - 55 in
Ringed Plover - 24 in
Black-headed Gull - 19 in

Grounded
Whinchat - female OE slipway area
Wheatear - at least 7 OE foreshore
Meadow Pipit - 2 OE foreshore  

Puffin!

Clear and north easterly again so this seemed to have the hallmarks of  'going through the motions patch coverage'.  The tide was also in, not usually the best scenario.  However there was a real hooley blowing down the Bay and that looked a whole lot more promising and the next 1.5hrs saw a decent variety

Sea 0715-0845
Arctic Tern - 20 in joined by 31 dropping out of the sky + 8 in
Sandwich Tern - 5+2 in (no bloggers)
Puffin - 1 in 0735 - nice colourful bill visible, not just a distant jizz id!
Guillemot - 8 in
Auk spp - 2 distant in, 3 out - no reason why they were not Guillemot
Great-crested Grebe - pair in sp flew in (odd?)
Red-throated Diver - 4 singletons in - all in sp
Gannet -3 - sub ad in, ad & imm in
Black-headed Gull - 32 purposefully in (mostly 2CY)
Whimbrel - 1 in

Wheatear in sandplant

Grey Seal

Scraping the barrel

Trying to find some birds this morning from the North Harbour Wall was like looking into an empty cup and seeing a few tea leaves at the bottom.

07:00-10:00
Pink-footed Goose - 22 N at 07:40
Red-throated Diver - 2 in at 07:46 and 09:05
Arctic Tern - 8 in then up on reaching the outfalls at 09:00
Black-headed Gull - 32 in 3 flocks
Swallow - 8

Lunchtime
Sandwich tern - 2
Med Gull - 2CY with mask and dark joining over the rear crown

Wheatear - 1 grounded on the south harbour wall.

Turnstone 115 on the wooden jetty

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