Brief Avocet stopover

So nearly overlooked three early morning Avocet as they flew in with a small gang of Oystercatcher before feeding on the incoming tideline along Ocean Edge, then heading north

A Collared Dove flying in off was first spotted head on about a mile out in orange silhouetting light and was initially a head scratcher!

Two Arctic Tern (Ioy) prompted a 1.5hr seawatch with virtually nothing else

Sandwich Tern - one in then 45 appeared on red nab and shore after HT
Med Gull - 2cy outfalls late pm
Wheatear 14

Another trickle day

The 'star' of the show today was House Martin with the solitary vis mig 'landbird' seen during a 40 minute seawatch was one of these and a further 7 or so were seen at Middleton NR along with a couple of Swallow

Migratory sightings
House Martin - 8
Swallow - 4
Meadow Pipit - 6
Goldfinch - 4 high to NE
Red-throated Diver - three in summer plumage floating out on the tide
A couple of Willow Warbler and a single Chiffchaff in the nets at Heysham NR
No redpoll this am

Others at Middleton
Cetti's Warbler - four separate singing males this am on Middleton
Mute Swan - 3 pairs sitting
Gadwall - 4
Teal - 3 still lingering
Little Grebe - two NS pond, one TB pond


 

The wait continues

Northbound migration:
Lesser Redpoll 8
Meadow pipit 7
Wheatear 1

On sea
Common Scoter 4 - blogging
Red-throated diver 2, plus the bird feeding inshore
Sandwich tern 2
Shag, flying to north side 11:30

Guillemot still feeding in harbour
Rock pipit near wooden jetty

Thanks for swallow picture Janet.

Clearer and fewer

Ringing this morning saw five Lesser Redpoll and five warblers (three CC, WW & BC) as the conditions were clearer than yesterday and the wind fractionally more east with very little south in it.  The current synopsis is on a nightly knife-edge between blocking and producing the goods, with things like cloud cover and offshore visibility as well as how much north in the easterly being key factors as well as what's going on down south, including over France

Low tide channel
Red-throated Diver - 1
Great-crested Grebe - just 8
2CY Med on outfalls with c280 Common Gull

Middleton Nature Reserve
Sand Martin 16 north, mid morning. Biggest group 6
Swallow 4 north
Warblers singing:
Cetti's 2
Blackcap 9
Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff
Little grebe - at least one on "no swimming" pond
Gadwall 4
Teal 2
Buzzard 1 - drifting south

Heliport seawall Knot have been a distraction with the latest spring tide sessions in the failure category due to bits of disturbance at bad times and arriving too late on a key day

Rose sent me the Ed Keeble method as applied to the heliport roost a couple of days ago and her estimate fits very well with the easier counts of birds spread over the feeding areas off Heysham Head.  Thanks for this.

50 knot counted and marked in red box, each with a dot.

10 boxes indicates 500 knot. 
I think there are about 80-100 of these boxes.  I made copies of the 10 boxes till they roughly filled the area. 
So conservatively 4000-5000.

Caveats: 1) knot appear larger on the left and bottom, and smaller on the right and top, so box size might be incorrect, 2) relies that all the knot can be observed in the red box e.g. none hidden.

Migration more interesting

North of Heysham Head - low water

Great Crested Grebe 16

Red-throated diver 1 - this bird is regularly feeding close in, between green marker and skeer. It has something orange attached, probably nylon line.

Shag 1 x 3cy

Knot 4,100

Nothing moving over sea in 40 minute watch.

Heysham Nature Reserve

Migration included:

Redstart 1 male north 07:50

Willow Warbler 15+

Chiffchaff 5+

Lesser Redpoll 3

Meadow pipit 7

Blackcap 2

Linnet 10

South shore mid afternoon

Guillemot 1. This bird has soiled belly feathers, but seems to be managing to feed sucessfully, usually near waterfall in harbour 

This picture was actually taken on Tuesday, but same bird still there today.

Rock pipit, just one feeding near lighthouse.

White wagtail. 1 male near lighthouse

Wheatear 1 - Ocean Edge foreshore

Redstart 1 male near pond before Red Nab 15:35

This is the afternoon Redstart

(In)visible migration

Chilly start (2C) rising to 12C by early afternoon.

Still ENE wind theoretically causing migrants to drift, seemingly drifting too far east as the vismig count from 07:15 to 10:00 comprised:

Meadow Pipit 10
Swallow 4

Redpoll sp 1

Alba Wagtail 2

Linnet 3

Carrion Crow 3.

Kittiwake 14 into Bay

Or perhaps the crystal clear sky caused the birds to fly too high making them less visible to the watchers on the ground.

Night migrants even less visible with just one Willow Warbler caught.

More visible were 4 Little Egrets feeding near Outfall 1.

The Guillemot was invisible early morning due to dredging activity in the inner harbour but was visible again in the evening.

The Purple Sandpiper was invisible throughout despite repeated searches amongst 93 Turnstone.

A pair of Teal sunned themselves on the skeer at low tide.

Two hours before high tide the Shag flew from Heysham Head towards the wooden jetty.

A couple of white Wagtails dropped,in on the roundhead in the evening. Here’s one of them:

Arctic Skua

Coverage this am was 30 mins north wall, 30 minutes Ocean Edge and one hour from Knowlys Rd upper & lower section.  All three sites included off-shore (and inshore) channel checking.  Cold ENE F4

Knowlys road lower VP - a great site for scanning the low tide channels the easy way (in combination with Knowlys upper for the 'Brent skeers area' and the north harbour wall for the outer sections) and also seeing into wave troughs during howling gales.  Wish we'd used it in previous years.  The green post 'marker' is on the mudflats behind the brown post on left hand side of pic 

Coastal sightings
Meadow Pipit - 71 NE, a large chunk of these in one gang of 36
Knot - c6500 on skeer off play area, twice as many as yesterday
Eider - 455 but some hiding behind skeers
Great-crested Grebe - 21 - many displaying pairs
Red-throated Diver - the same one as the other day off the heliport with orange object attached to the left wing - close inshore by green post
Shag - 3CY same area as RTD
Red-breasted Merganser - 7
Arctic Skua - dm adult in 0733 - quite leisurely up the Kent channel with no height gain observed - prob same bird as seen earlier off Rossall, having sat on the sea for a bit (IOY)
Little Gull - two adult together (and possibly another one far offshore as seen from OE) heading in along with trickle of Common and Black-headed Gulls
Sandwich Tern - just two together heading in
alba Wagtail - 5 NE
Linnet - 16 NE
Swallow - 1 NE
Sand Martin - 3 NE
No Brent again
Purple Sandpiper - one roosting with Turnstone on wooden jetty.

Moth trap
Nothing last night and just one moth found by Laura the previous night......but a good one:

Short-eared Owl and early Whimbrel

Predictably quieter night migrant wise but another fairly hefty Meadow Pipit passage from first light and bits and bats over the sea whilst trying to connect with an ex-Rossall Puffin.

Vis mig 0600 - 10:30
Meadow pipit - 310
Skylark - late one North
Greylag - two doing a circuit
Swallow - 4
Sand Martin - 4
Chaffinch - 5
Linnet - 10
Redpoll - heard plus onalba Wagtail - 1
Goldfinch - 2

Grounded
Wheatear - 6
Blackcap - at least two new ones
Willow Warbler - at least 5 new ones
Short-eared Owl - one on reserve ‘plateau’
Chiffchaff - at least two new ones

Sea
Little Gull - ad in partial summer in with a small flock of BH Gull
Sandwich Tern - 5 in
Shag - 3cy by green post off HH at low tide
No sign any Brents
Eider n/c
Great crested Grebe - 15
Red- breasted Merganser - 5
Whimbrel - 2 in
Knot - 2700 on skeer then roosting heliport seawall

Harbour this evening

Guillemot enjoying the evening sunshine!

Rock Pipit - 2 feeding below the lighthouse

More about grounded migrants today

Decent cloud cover, murky offshore and a lightish easterly produced the goods this morning, although it would have been so much better if some loops in the mist net were not undone.  Most ringers will have experienced the frustration of fiddling around with loops whilst the early morning potential dose of Lesser Redpoll buzz away overhead.   So much easier to catch them at a garden feeder whilst sat in an armchair.  It was still worth the ringing effort though with eg double-figures of new female Chiffchaff in the nets.  Three office nets and two below the old tower site.

Grounded
Wheatear - minimum 25
Chiffchaff - 11 females ringed, at least 7 others
Willow Warbler - 4 males ringed and at least one other through early on
Blackcap - 3 ringed and at least one other migrant singing male
White Wagtail - one in horse paddock (IOY)
Goldcrest - 2

Vis mig
Lesser Redpoll - 5+3+2+2+1, all before about 0715 - two of the last three ringed, then one at 1300.
Meadow Pipit - only about 55 recorded
alba Wagtail - 8 NE
Sand Martin - 1 NE
Swallow - 2 NE
Whooper Swan - 4 NW
Siskin - 2+ NE
Linnet - 8 NE

Others
Great-crested Grebe - 16 in low tide channel
Eider - 460
Red-breasted Mergsnser - 6 off head, 2 red nab
Little Egret - 11 on skeers
Brent geese - flock of 5 low past Half Moon Bay heading north 16:15. Only seen from behind, the rear birds were pale-bellied.
Shag - 3cy on usual routine below Heysham Head in channel on incoming tide (later seen from SJ)

Moths
1 Common Plume

Black Redstart highlights but yet another Spoonbill passes us by!

Unfortunately made a mess of a singing Black Redstart as regards record photography this morning, but it was a welcome visitor on the fences and picnic tables for about 12 or so minutes 0740 onwards before suddenly flying low and fast up the hill towards the Old Obs tower site and not seen again.  Reports also came in of a mid-morning Spoonbill arrival at Leighton Moss - we have never seen one in our airspace, the implication being they arrive from height and drop in situ

Also arrived a bit too late on a sunny and clear morning for mist-netting - these mornings are all about a small rush of birds during pre-sunrise and not a lot thereafter - we were lucky with the Black Redstart.  This was reflected on quite a few off-passage phylloscs and a couple of new-in Blackcaps on Middleton

Very good passage of Meadow Pipit on two defined lines either side of the power station

Vis mig and associated (impression that the gulls were on the move)

Common Gull - increase to absolute minimum of 287, mainly 2CY

Black-headed Gull - 35

Med Gull - two 2CY behaving like a pair of teenagers 

Meadow Pipit - absolute minimum of 375 NE and another 56 grounded OE football pitch

Tree pipit - one prob two NE (IOY and quite early)
Sand Martin - 7 NE
Jay - very unexpected noisy flock of 7!!!

Swallow - 4 NE

alba Wagtail - 16 NE

Linnet - 9 NE

Goldfinch - 23 NE

No seabirds as such with tight flock of white birds in the murk quite possibly just BHG
Guillemot in harbour in the evening.

Grounded

Black Redstart - singing 2CY male as above
Rock pipit - 2 on south wall
Wheatear 2

Blackcap - 2

Willow Warbler - 3

WW/CC - c15

Chiffchaff - further increase of singing birds

Sparrowhawk - 2 high migrants NE (local male out of the pylon copse)

Blackbird - a long-winged male being chased by a local male (not a RO!)

Rest

Knot - 6,000 about to come into the heliport sub-roost area when targeted by Peregrine and flew south as a spectacular swirling mass

Cetti's Warbler - 3 singing males Middleton, probably just one wide-ranging singing male north end Hey NR

Mute Swan - 3 pairs sitting Middleton

Teal - 4
Little Grebe - 1
Common Snipe 1

Middleton butterflies (lots for a morning session)
Speckled wood 1

Small Tortoiseshell 2

Peacock 3

Comma 2

Brimstone 2 male 2 female

Orange Tip (IOY) 2 male (early)