Ophelias bits and pieces

Shame there were no squalls this morning to spice up the seabirds and send them further into the Bay but we didn't do too badly.  Indeed I posted this a bit prematurely as the day gave new meaning to "the afternoon dropping tide being best for Leach's Petrel".  They do not seem to have a problem with mudflats and therefore low tide and lack of water is not an issue.

Pomarine Skua - juv wheeled in at quite close range at 0845hrs - didn't think there would be any juvs this autumn after my experience of the Arctic breeding season!
Leach's Petrel - one 9ish and one located off the stone jetty at 1130 and seen again 30 mins later off the north wall & see below
Velvet Scoter - male floated in with the tide during the last hour of flow with a rough sea, but hasn't been relocated as yet
Pintail - 7+5 out
Wigeon - 8 out
Shelduck - about 160 out
Med Gull - 7 behind IOM ferry (2 x 1CY, 3 x Ad, 2 x 2CY), ad red nab at same time and three 1CY already on outfalls
Little Gull - ad appeared to come in with IOM ferry but may have been the usual bird wandering

Chiffchaff - one by gate 38!

Later update

Yes well they are not easy to phonescope!  The 1555hrs bird off the north wall and this was followed by three others as seen from the SJ during the last 1.5 hrs of daylight

Eider - 120 off north wall low tide

Spanish sun

"Red Midday Sun" by Malcolm Downham

The day was notable for two things a) a Pochard turned up at Middleton, almost the only one in the whole area and b) the unusual weather courtesy of the outer edges of Hurricane Ophelia.

Heysham NR

Early doors the skies were "normal" and a bit of vis got underway with alba wagtails and the odd Siskin and Reed Bunting then a huge yellow blob formed over Heysham and it went dark enough for the security lights to come on again. It felt rather threatening. Luckily the Saharan dust + Spanish forest fire smoke sucked up by Hurricane Ophelia stayed up in the atmosphere and moved off north. Eventually the skies went grey and rain lashed down for a short while, birds dived for cover. Late morning the clouds thinned enough to reveal a spooky red sun that just about everyone in the UK commented on. Finally the clouds broke up, it became very breezy but balmy with temperatures of 19C.

Vis

Chaffinch - 5

Snipe - 1

Golden Plover - 1 (unusual for here)

Redwing - 3

song Thrush - 6

alba wagtail - 2

Grey Wagtail - 1

Siskin - 1

Reed Bunting - 2

Ringing

New birds:

Greenfinch 3

Long-tailed Tit 1

Wren 1

Goldcrest 4p

Chiffchaff 1

Song Thrush 1

Retraps:

Coal Tit - 4, Goldcrest 1, Chiffchaff 2, Robin 2, Long-tailed Tit 1

One of the Robins was first ringed in 2013 so at 4 years old it's pretty ancient for a Robin whose average lifespan is just 2 years. It's escaped the clutches of the local marauding Sparrowhawk as well. What a survivor!

Red Nab

Wigeon 65

Outfalls

Mediterranean Gull 1 x 1CY

Middleton NR

A male Pochard has joined the 18 Gadwall on "No Swimming" pond - no sign of Little Grebe today.

1 Redwing grounded

5 Alba Wagtail & 14 Meadow Pipit to east 

1 Water Rail calling 

Pochards, which winter here from northern and eastern Europe,  are now classed as "vulnerable"/globally threatened by Birdlife International and are Red-listed in the UK as a species of high conservation concern. Across Europe they have declined by a whopping 60% since 1980.

Here is what the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust have to say about the reasons for the decline:

"Researchers have found that the decline is related to gulls, mink and nutrients.
Pochards build their nests among black-headed gull colonies for protection and there are fewer black-headed gull nesting colonies across a number of European countries, including Norway, Germany and Latvia.
Explosions of plants and algaes in wetlands and waterways, caused by nutrients washing off farmland, has prevented pochards and other birds from diving for food.
The American mink has become a major wetland predator. The species was originally introduced and farmed in Europe for its fur, but escaped and is now considered to be an invasive species in many countries.
Despite the decline in migrating pochards, the number of them breeding in the UK has actually increased and the latest estimate is 653 pairs"

Report by JR



Demolished!

Another little bit of Heysham Nature Reserve history disappears.

This is all that is left of the old classroom. But, kids, never fear - there is a more modern classroom at the Reserve in the new building.

Went up onto Heysham Head for an hour to see if anything was migrating. The light southerly wind was OK but the generally murky cloud didn't seem to augur well. But out of the murk came a few pulses of birds as follows:

0830-1000hrs
(in order of appearance and south unless stated)
Grey Wagtail - 1
Pink-footed Goose - 60 N, 38 S
Chaffinch - 33
Greenfinch - 4
Goldfinch - 4
Mistle Thrush - 5
Reed Bunting - 2
Starling - 13
Brambling - 22 (two flocks of 6 and 16)
Linnet - 4

Grounded
Goldcrest - 5
Coal Tit - 2
Robin - 3 (excludes the singing birds)
Blackbird - 3

Then went on to Heysham NR 1020-1120
Vis - alba Wagtail 1, Chaffinch 4
Blackbirds (9) were targeting the berries, 4 Song Thrushes were "ticking" and eventually one was seen to head off south, Goldcrests (7) were scattered around the reserve.

Report by JR

A visit from Merlin

It was a very mild day (15C) with thick cloud, apparently full of dust from the Sahara, and a force 4 wind from the SW. Disappointingly for National Moth Weekend there were no moths in the trap at Heysham but there is another night to go. At least 4 Goldcrests could be heard below the obs tower where it was relatively sheltered so I put a few nets up to try and catch them and in the hope of catching a Yellow-browed Warbler. Sadly, the latter species was still not around, nor any other warblers.

Heysham NR
Ringing (new birds):
Long-tailed Tit - 5
Goldcrest - 3
Coal tit - 1
Treecreeper - 1 (see mugshot)
Dunnock - 1
Greenfinch - 1
Goldfinch - 2

Retraps:
Coal Tit - 1
Chaffinch - 1 (first caught on 18 July as a juv)
Great Tit - 1 (first caught on 30 June as a juv)
Goldcrest - 1 (first caught on 10 September as a young un)

The Goldcrest that has been around for a month was lighter in weight than the new birds (5.3grams cf 5.7 or 5.8 grams). Whether this means the heavier birds are about to migrate and the lighter bird is going to stick around longer, I don't know but it was interesting to note the difference. All the Goldcrests were males. The average weight for a Goldcrest is 5g (same as a 20p coin) and the heaviest weight is 6g (just less than a 10p coin).

The Long-tailed Tits were heavier than average as well, the lightest was 8g (same as a 50p coin) and the heaviest was 8.6g compared to the average of 7g (per BTO data).

Ocean Edge
A Merlin paid a visit to the saltmarsh and perched on some driftwood for a while, no doubt hoping to catch one of the gang of 25 Linnets that frequent the marsh or perhaps a Meadow Pipit.

Outfalls
Mediterranean Gull - 2

Middleton NR
A Little Grebe was on the No Swimming Pond - first time one has been seen for over a month

Report by JR.

Routine check of coast

A quick look by the model boat pond saw seriously windswept bushes.  The only other effort was a quick check of the outfalls

Med gull - 1cy, 2x 2cy, 3ad
Little gull - ad winter

Out of the blue

A bit of coastal birding in bright and breezy conditions degenerated into texting Lou Cross to see if I had just seen his van going along the Barrow coast road at the other side of the Bay...................then on the same text theme Malcolm informed of a vocal Yellow-browed Warbler near the steps on the SE side of the model boat pond.  No sign of it later but very little was actually calling and it was rather breezy with several potential corridors the bird could have made its way along

Middleton NR
Yellow-browed Warbler - see above
Chiffchaff - 2
Mute Swan - 7
Migrant Hawker - at least 7
Common Darter - 6+

Inshore
Early stages of incoming tide & ferry
Med Gull - 3 x 1CY, 2 x 2CY and a minimum of 6 Ads (inc 8 birds behind ferry as it entered port).  One of the 2CY has a lot of solid black on the outer primaries - not one which has been previously recorded
Little Gull - Ad
Guillemot - one in harbour

Wet and wetter

Three 1cy meds and one 2cy med plus the usual ad little gull all that registered today!

MD, PM

Passerine migration gives it a miss

Almost unbelievably bad this morning with not a single bird flying over heysham NR which could be deemed a migrant.   Typically this was the one day we could leave nets up from about 0900 to 1600.  This saw the grand total of obvious migrants limited to two Goldcrest and a 'three o clock' Chiffchaff with a small unringed LTT flock.   Amazingly, thanks to the bottomless trickle of unringed Greenfinch, the ringing produced about 20 new birds, or about 2.74 per hour

Outfalls/ocean edge etc two hours pre tide
Little stint - juv with 85 Dunlin and 49 ringed plover
Med gull - two ads but many gulls had left the area
Rock pipit - one by slipway

Insects
At least three migrant hawker

Better than staying in bed

It was a shame the SW wind kicked in before dawn (certainly the upper wind) as there was obviously some eastern promise trying to reach this side overnight, led by quite a few redwing flight calls.   In reality night migrants were thin on the ground - probably mainly the final leftovers from the fall on  30 Sept and a few subsequent 'tricklers'.   At least rock bottom numbers highlight any new influxes!

Coverage was very good today with Dan putting in a stint around Heysham Head.  

Crickets
The night migrant possibilities lacked so little prospect that Jean went and recorded the first Short-winged Coneheads from ocean edge saltmarsh (using bat detector) whilst also checking what the tide kicked off

Vismig over a) Middleton NR b) Heysham Head
Redwing 5, 3
Grey Wagtail 2
alba Wagtail 9, 5
Pink-footed Goose 7, 102
Reed Bunting 4
Meadow Pipit 2, 9
Chaffinch 2, 5
Skylark 11, 17
Tree Sparrow 0, 7
Jackdaw - 8

Grounded
VERY little in addition to birds ringed
Goldcrest - c14 (8 ringed)
Song Thrush - 10
Chiffchaff - 4 (two ringed)
Stonechat - one Heysham barrows

Thanks Dan

Red nab and area mudflats
Med gull - 5 ad, 2 2cy
Little gull - ad
Snipe - 7 oe saltmarsh
Linnet - 25
Peregrine -1
Kestrel - 1

Harbour wall
Rock pipit - 2

Thanks Janet

Ringing
About 38 new birds between Middleton and Heysham (5 nets) with most of the grounded migrant element on Middleton: Included:  Goldcrest (8), Chiffchaff (2), Pied Wagtail (5), 2-3 Wren and Robin of probable migrant/dispersive status and Grey Wagtail & Reed Bunting (one each)

Insects
Speckled Wood - tatty one Middleton
Migrant Hawker - 3
Common Darter - 2
Red Admiral - 4

Under a cloud

A mass of cloud hung over the Heysham area till late morning putting a bit of a dampener on the vis and ringing.  A bit more action when it started to clear and I've updated stuff from elsewhere in the recording area to add to Jean's post

The mid morning 'action' was mostly tit movement with at least 20 coal and 35 long-tailed through Heysham NR as well as the flock of 13 unringed birds caught at Middleton

Vis

Pink-footed Goose - at least 485 Groups moving south throughout the morning

Sparrowhawk 1

Redpoll sp 3

Siskin 1

Meadow Pipit 18

Alba Wagtail 40

Chaffinch 16

Raven 1

Grey Wagtail 7
Skylark - 4

Snipe 2
Song thrush - 1
Mistle thrush - 2

No sign of the Redwing heading NW from the Pennines.

Two singing Cetti’s Warblers on site at Middleton NR

Ringing
at Middleton and Heysham NRs consisted mainly of Long-tailed Tits (13), Chiffchaff (5), Goldcrest (14) Reed Bunting (5), Coal tit (4), Pied and Grey Wagtails (two each) and a surprise late Willow Warbler.

Had a look at the ringing totals and, has been the case in recent years, the Chiffchaff total overtook that of Willow Warbler today (217:215) but it has been a poor later autumn for Blackcap which suddenly dried up in mid-September.   Goldcrest are very unpredictable but it looks like just one decent spell of suitable ringing weather could see a record annual total (already 211).  Thanks to everyone for the Grey Wagtail effort during an autumn passage where mist netting was by no means straightforward with a lot of last minute weather watching - 82 colour-ringed is a good total in the circumstances

One feature of this second half of the year has been the complete lack of any birds ringed elsewhere (other than Med Gulls).  Maybe the fairly constant low-level movements, rather than major falls, indicate that we are catching mainly young birds trickling south down the country from obscure inland locations (in this respect Heysham is very 'central' as the west coast headland nearest to the east coast!) and not 'finding' the numerous mainly coastal ringing sites en route.     

Miscellany
Guillemot - one out then landed
Red throated diver - one out
Ringed plover - 43 on red nab at ht
Med gull - ad and 1cy