Vis mig slot after the heavy showers

There seems to be something in the psychology with bird ringers - if its unsuitable at dawn, there is a tendency to give it a miss.  Today was a classic example of where, in an ideal world, mist nets should have been up and ready at 0830 as the rain alarm showed an excellent vis mig corridor for NW to SE migrants.  So the earliest any of us drifted down here was 0930. There was a belated set of two nets on Middleton, but the wind had started to increase by then and the name of the game was coverage rather than a ringing effort

Inshore
Med gull - 46 (23 2cy, 7 1cy and 16 ads - ad and 2cy had green darvic on right leg and metal below on left leg, 1cy metal ring only - legs not seen on many others)
Little gull - ad

Vis mig (Jean/Malcolm/Pete)
Meadow Pipit - 102 SE (4 ringed!)
alba Wagtail - 27 SE
Grey Wagtail - 3-4 SE
Osprey - one at 0945hrs in-off then east
Common Buzzard - 2 south and two others which may have been blogging
Pink-footed Goose - 6SE (IOA)
Eider - flock of 30 up Kent channel
Swallow - 17 S

Grounded
Wheatear - 10
small numbers of Chiffchaff and Blackcap <5 each="" p="">
Misc
Water Rail 1+ Middleton
Green Woodpecker - down the dog track
Cetti's Warbler - singing Middleton western marsh

Nothing new today

Low/early incoming tide:  At least 33 med gulls with 13 on seaward end Heysham one along with ad little gull but no sign of black or any other tern spp.  Later at high tide, two meds roosting on Fishers roof, including what looked like the Czech bird. 

Incidentally, I don't rate this coming week for Leach's petrels in Morecambe Bay, certainly not anything better than a lengthy 'watching paint dry' wait before you see one. The best conditions are during the night with the wind already having turned to the dreaded north-west by dawn.  Conversely it looks like the Mersey and Wirral might fill their boots.  However it could all change so just watch out for a strong to gale SW to West in daylight hours Monday to Thursday i.e. during the early morning (or late evening) high neap tides 

Very lucky with the weather

This morning was all about watching serious rain heading across south and north of us and coupled with a light early morning wind allowed about three hours of ringing before the SW wind kicked in and rain increased.   The nets were down by then

Middleton nr
Grey wagtail - 4/7 vis mig birds ringed
Meadow pipit - two found in mist net - no obvious movement!
Whitethroat - 2 new and one retrapped
Sedge warbler - one heard
Lesser whitethroat - one ringed
Just two each of blackcap and chiffchaff ringed
Reed bunting - 3 ringed
Willow warbler - one ringed
Water rail - at least two

Ocean edge and red nab pre tide
Black tern - one seaward end heysham one about 1530 before being obscured by incoming rain
Great Skua - one flew from across bay and landed on sea in shipping land 1244hrs
Med gull - 36 (8 1cy, 22 2cy (!), 6 ad)
Little gull - ad
Too early for sandwich tern and the second visit was too late!
Cormorant - c130 wooden jetty ie a lot

Nothing new of interest

Outfalls/Red Nab
Little Gull - presumably the usual adult which has been missing for a few days
Sandwich Tern - just a max of 7
Med Gull - at least 24, including 10 1CY
Common Gull - 1CY Heysham 2 for good comparison with above

Heysham NR office
A small amount of ringing included a Grey Wagtail, Reed Warbler, Whitethroat and two each of Goldcrest and Chiffchaff.  Possibly the windiest general conditions we have mist-netted and just shows that we have sites which are sheltered if the direction is carefully ascertained eg Middleton would have been completely windswept today

Pics from Janet (thanks for these)

More sandwich tern

Coastal check red nab and ocean edge incoming tide
Med gull - 24 including 9 2cy - a bit late for some of these tide wise
Sandwich tern - 156
Common tern - 1 ad
Little egret - 4
Grey plover - 365
Wheatear - 2

Tern invasion

A thoroughly unremarkable morning's ringing in thoroughly unremarkable (but at least operational) weather saw about 40 birds caught between two three-net operations at each of Middleton and Heysham NR.  This saw a variety of late warblers ringed: 5 Chiffchaff, 3 Lesser Whitethroat and Blackcap and single Willow Warbler, Garden Warbler, Reed Warbler and Whitethroat....plus 4 Goldcrest and a few odds and ends of tits and finches.  The less said about Grey Wagtails the better - Middleton was subjected to a pile driving racket from a UU initiative to amend the sewage works to 'produce water you can drink' (!) and at least one Grey Wagtail flew over without hearing the tape.  Vis, however, was at a premium in the 100% cloud cover with just 6 Grey Wagtail, two Meadow Pipit and about five Swallow

Ocean Edge/Red Nab
The early morning visit as the tide was coming in saw:
Med Gull - 15 (later 9 on Red Nab just after high tide)
but nothing else of note.  Then a visiting birder reported a flock of Sandwich and two juvenile Black Tern on to the rocks near high tide
Sandwich tern - c37 flew into Red Nab from 1115 (one darvic-ringed but unfortunately flew off early before it could be read)
Black Tern - two juvs present Red Nab at least 1050 to 1145 which had moved on when we visited about 30 minutes later
Little Egret - 3

Black Tern and a small pre-frontal fall

A choice this morning of whether to try marginal conditions for mist netting at Middleton with the possibilities of Grey Wagtail or below the old observation tower site on Heysham NR, where the rides have just been cleared out for exactly these conditions:  a possible fall ahead of a weather front on strengthening south-easterlies.  A shame both could not be covered in the circumstances, as Middleton saw quite a lot of movement in the bushes with the two mist nets catching "inefficiently" in the sheltered bits

Good numbers of waders were displaced by another gathering of vehicles out on Middleton sands but not a lot of activity ahead of the weather front in increasing winds!

Middleton NR
Black-tailed Godwit - one flew low to the south-east
Cetti's Warbler - singing male by the western reedbeed
Grey Wagtail - 5 SE (3 ringed)
Blackcap - 8 ringed and others seen
Chiffchaff - one ringed and at least on other calling
Garden Warbler - 2 ringed
Whitethroat - 1 ringed
Chaffinch - one ringed - unusual here unless this is the start of the (British) vis mig
Goldfinch - c60 in two flocks (2 ringed, one retrap)
Water Rail - one squealing

Ocean Edge/Red Nab etc
Wheatear - 4
Bar-tailed Godwit - 410
Knot - 1210
Dunlin - 350
Grey Plover - 335
Med Gull - absolute minimum of  39 (21 Ad, 13 2CY, 5 1CY - some of the distant ones may not have been aged correctly!)
Black Tern - one juv briefly on Red Nab about 0930 - hopefully it will return to the outfalls on the dropping tide
Sandwich tern - 1 (on red nab)

Moths
Included a well-marked Agonopterix arenella

Dead calm and clear

Shouldn't really be moaning about these conditions as they are likely to at a premium during the next month or so...........but it looked like that was also the case for August and we had loads of ringing opportunities

A good morning to focus on the neap high tide and perhaps especially so today as all the waders were displaced some considerable distance by the "running sore of the Morecambe Bay SPA" at Potts corner.  This morning it was a Paragliding meet "allowed" access to the intertidal area, some distance out to avoid disturbing the caravan site (!).  There was the usual displacement of all intertidal birds within at least 700-800m either side (and most much further than that).  So the waders were all shunted up to the Ocean Edge end where there were fortunately no dog walkers, courtesy of a nicely positioned tidal channel: couple of very rushed pics dedicated to the flat earth society

Ringing-wise it was rather slow with a double effort at Middleton with the Grey wagtail vis mig down to three birds, but at least there was a sprinkling of late warblers and the odd Meadow Pipit to catch.  New birds:  Blackcap (9), Willow Warbler (3), Meadow Pipit (3), Robin (2), Lesser Whitethroat (2), Chiffchaff (2), Swallow (1), Grey Wagtail (1), Goldfinch (1), Reed Bunting (1), Blackbird (1), Wren (1), Sedge Warbler (1)

Ocean Edge high tide
Med Gull - 33 (4 1CY, 17 adult, 12 2CY)
Sandwich tern - 5 offshore briefly
Knot - 800
Dunlin - 400
Grey Plover - 370
Bar-tailed Godwit - 210
Icelandic Black-tailed Godwit - 1 juv
Redshank - 430

Middleton NR
2 Stock Dove came in from north over Tradebe, did a couple of circuits of open land then headed back north. Think this is my first sighting this year. 6 Mute + 2 juveniles 1 Coot 6 Moorhen 9 Tufted (7m) 7 Gadwall (2m) 2 Mallard 1 Heron  (MD)

A new season begins

Middleton Nature Reserve

It felt very autumnal this morning, just 6C at dawn and the ground covered in dew. It was calm, clear and very quiet, just a few Robins ticking. Gradually some birds made a move so today's 'haul' is listed below:

Vis:

Swallows - only 8 had roosted in the reedbed and just 60 flew over in drubs and drabs throughout the morning

Grey Wagtail - 13 (10 ringed)

Meadow Pipit - 10

Other:

Goldcrest - 1

Chiffchaff - 3

Whitethroat. - 3

Coal Tit - 1

Goldfinch - flock of 35

Linnet - 3

Reed Bunting - 5

Blackcap - 6

Robin - 10

Kestrel - 3 (one family)

On the Pond 

Tufted Duck - 5

JR

The luck comes to an end

It had to happen.  Couldn't make a lot of sense yesterday of the variable forecasts for this morning until an innocent looking trough was picked up over the Atlantic on the Magic Seaweed synoptic chart and the chance of this lot heading our way and 'developing' started to climb to 80-90%:
 

Situation at 7ish.  We have been very lucky this month with medium range forecasts indicating gloom and doom and the rain then either falling in the night or not at all and strong winds melting away.  Not so fortunate 'down south', it seems, so the decent numbers of birds we have ringed this month may have/have had a mist-net-free further migration. Unusually, I'm not aware of any birds ringed elsewhere in our nets this month.

Totals of newly ringed birds for the month of August from Middleton/Heysham.  Note that we have been two ringers short and many Middleton efforts have been just a single ringer with 2 or 3 18m nets and similarly at Heysham NR, just the line of three 18m by the office (including feeder):

Swallow (250), Whitethroat (97), Greenfinch (91), Willow Warbler (68), Goldfinch (65), Blackcap (42), Chiffchaff (35), Blue Tit (33), Long-tailed Tit (28), Lesser Whitethroat (22), Wren (19), Sedge |Warbler (19), Grey Wagtail (18), Great Tit (18), Reed Bunting (13),  Dunnock (13),  Garden Warbler (11), Robin (11), Reed Warbler (10), Sand Martin (7), Chaffinch (7), Coal Tit (4), Blackbird (4), Bullfinch (4), Grasshopper Warbler (3), Goldcrest (3), Kingfisher (2) and singles of Tree Pipit, Great-spotted Woodpecker, Song Thrush

Difficult to make any meaningful comments on a single month but Whitethroat and Willow Warbler above average for here, Reed Warbler below average all summer, Wren and Long-tailed Tit above average for August, Grey Wagtail in good numbers in the last few days of the month,  but never was so much racket played with such little effect for Tree Pipit.  Just one was caught and ZERO heard on vis mig!   Craig Bell indicated that the good numbers he was catching above Rossendale were due to his site already being at 1000ft and even there the birds were migrating very high.  Peter Alker is also at  a higher site at Billinge. So maybe we have been fortunate in previous years to get a few low-flying ones

Outfalls/Red Nab post high tide quick check in the rain
This was a little cameo, albeit with 55 less Med Gulls than seen the other day (wrong stage of the tide)
Grey Plover - 177 on mudflats
Greenshank - juvenile with Redshank OE saltmarsh creek
Sandwich Tern - adult on mudflats then flew south
Little Gull - moulting ad feeding on heysham 2
Med Gull - just 2 1CY with no 'small' gulls left on Red Nab
Wheatear - 2

Middleton NR post rain (MD)

Had a very pleasant stroll around MNR this afternoon. Not much to report, but the duck numbers are slowly increasing:

Tufted 5 (2m)

Gadwall 4 (2m)

Teal 4 (2m)

 

4 Robins singing plus three territorial squabbles. Looks like there is some movement.

 

Large dragonfly numbers reducing.

3 Emperor

3 Brown Hawker

 

3 "medium sized" hawkers

 

Lots of Common Darter

 

Female Brimstone