Mixed Bag

A seawatch whilst waiting for the cafe to open reminded me of an incident when I was with an American tour group at a Putple Martin-less Burt of Lewis.  A WA (Wallace Arnold) driver appeared with half a dozen people who is his words were like the living dead from the neck upwards. Whilst I was rabbiting on about coastal erosion I suddenly realised my group were staring at the driver and his unfortunate punters with a mixture of pity and macabre fascination.  He simply ushered them off the bus pointed his hand in one direction, acknowledged the array of hearing aids and screamed “Sea”. Then he pointed in the other direction and bellowed “Seals” before sitting down and lighting a fag.  This 30 min seawatch  consisted of a lot of incoming sea and four Grey Seal.  Prior to that the morning had been a bit better

Cuckoo - one calling Heysham Head North side
Pomarine Skua - in the almost certain category was one sitting in the Kent channel which was then lost changing vantage points.  It was probably the 0655 from Fleetwood but has to stay as light morph spp here
Wheatear - gang of 7 on rocks below Heysham heliport
Arctic Tern - flocks of 16 and 5 fishes and then climbed and headed NE
Sandwich Tern - 4
Red throated Diver - two in
Great crested grebe - 10

Grey seal - at least four

Malcolm’s pics:

Nine of the Great cressted grebe plus two Red-brested merganser

A bit of sandwich sharing

Last Dunlin on the skeer

White wagtail on south harbour wall

Common Scoters and Grey Seals top the bill

Another mediocre May morning at peak migration time although an earlier seawatching start should have added Arctic Skua and Tern to the mix (per Rossall)

Sea 0750-0930
Common Scoter - c106 in several flocks of up to 30
Red-throated Diver - 3+3 in very high, one out - all sp
Kittiwake - at least one of c20 in a tight distant bunch floating in on the sea was this species courtesy of wing flap (sometimes Common Gulls are mixed in Kitt flocks). 
Common Sandpiper - one flew across the harbour mouth (IOY)
Knot - 200 in summer plumage flew out, c500 very distantly heading north
Wheatear - two
Whimbrel - one OE saltmarsh
Rock Pipit - male on guard near the nest
NO eg hirundine passage

Mammals
Grey Seal - record count of an absolute minimum of four, probably five floating in with the tide and perhaps none of these the usual loitering one which stays by the outfalls

Moth
One male Muslin Moth in trap

Poor but little perseverance!

Coastal coverage
Gannet - one
Sandwich Tern - 6
Whimbrel - 4
Great crested Grebe - 8
Wheatear - 2
Immature gulls building up on skeers but nothing obviously good amongst them

Grey Seal - 1

Cold clear and dead

.....text from Ian at Rossall and it applied here with the sea being especially dead

Red throated Diver - one on
Sandwich Tern - two on no 5 buoy
Whinchat - female near half moon bay cafe
Wheatear - 7
Swallow - 2 North
Guillemot - in harbour
Nothing in the mist nets of note

Grey Seal off outfalls

No moths

North-westerly seawatch

A bit of cloud cover with the odd smattering of rain and clear visibility suggested the only option this morning was the sea and it wasn't too bad but I do like summer plumaged Red-throated Divers!  Just noticed that we are equal with North Ron on 143 species for the year with a combined list of 177, but I think the missing quality is on North Ron's side - we would gladly swop Blue Tit for Mourning Dove!

Sea 0715-0830
Gannet - 2 in
Sandwich Tern - 27 blogging off the horse paddocks, 15 'in'
Common Scoter - distant gang of 20 in, 7 out
Red-throated Diver - 2, 2, 1, 3 and 5 high in (13 in total)
Great Skua - One out and seemingly across towards Walney 0800hrs
Swallow - 31 in
Kittiwake - distant gang of c15 in

Guillemot still in harbour

Heysham skeer evening low water
Eider c100
Great Crested grebe 5
Whimbrel 7
Bar-tailed godwit 14 (1 turning to sp)
Dunlin 3
Knot 12 (3 almost sp)

Moths
Common Pug was new for year

Wrong kind of weak front

A Little Tern heading into the Bay with bouts of hovering was the stand-out from an otherwise fruitless early start although an 'owl', thought to be small, in poor light below the old observation tower could have done with being specified as there are no resident species there.  Intensive searching failed to relocate but the back-only views suggested a rounded earless head as it shuffled along a branch out of sight before definitely leaving that area

This pic sums up the morning - one of those where it was difficult to focus the scope with a flat calm featureless murky sea and faint Cumbrian outline.  Used the yellow buoy and here is the best of the rest after the Little Tern; Sandwich Terns and a Grey Seal floating past!

seal and sarnies

Sandwich Tern - 30-35, mainly blogging
Little Tern - one 'in' about twice as far out as the yellow buoys
Red-throated Diver - sp on - floating in
Whimbrel - 4 in and heard from OE saltmarsh creek
Wheatear - one big and one very big male OE grassland plus three others
Linnet - 21
Guillemot - still in harbour

Very little ringed - the hoped for fall not materialising - the office produced Sedge & Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff and Whitethroat in conditions which were watched carefully but ok.....which it certainly wasn't just south and west.  Then four migrant Lesser Whitethroat were found in the net together and these were the last birds in the nets

Grey Seal - one - same as yesterday

Moths
Water Carpet might be new for here - will check - and Oak Tree Pug notable (photos below).  Less notable firsts were  Flame Shoulder and Dark Barred Twin spot Carpet;  also ran: Brown Silver Line

Far too calm and sunny

An underwhelming end to the month unless you are into 'Beautiful morning isn't it?' greetings from the punters on Ocean Edge and lots of the likes of Orange Tip butterflies!   Garwa and Grawa serenading from either side of the office was about as good as it got - Garwa are only passage migrants here.  Sea passage much reduced from yesterday and attempts to pick up Ian's north-east-bound-over-the-sea heading your way Hooded Crow ending in abject failure

The ringing totals for April represented a reasonable effort with out any 'big' mornings due to being late arriving on the 18th.  250 birds were ringed; almost all Willow Warbler (107), Chiffchaff (42), Lesser Redpoll (38) and Blackcap (25), next best the last six of the record spring Robin migration early in the month and six Lesser Whitethroat.  Unusual ringing activity for here comprised a Pied Flycatcher on 18th and a very early out of habitat Reed Warbler in the office nets on 19th.  

General miscellany from sea/coast/land
Arctic Tern - 31 in (two groups)
Gannet - ONE (!) in
Sandwich Tern - just 17, mainly buoy-bound
Guillemot - one in, one as usual in the harbour
Turnstone - incredibly low numbers for this time of year with just 30 on the wooden jetty
White Wagtail - 3 north
Lesser Redpoll - 2 north
Swallow - 28 - an improvement- north
Sand Martin - one north
Wheatear - 4 OE foreshore
Jackdaw - two high flying migrants
Garden Warbler - singing male by office and two other singing males on Heysham NR circuit - all presumed migrants
Grasshopper Warbler - singing male in tank farm also yesterday
Green Woodpecker - one call from reserve - two calls yesterday - not logged for the day - not present before so late into breeding season but surely an unpaired extralimital bird?

No migrants in the mist nets other than a Lesser Whitethroat and possibly a Goldfinch

The bad news for moth trappers and the like is that there seem to be a lot of queen social wasps around this year (up to 8 at any one time on my cotoneaster flowers) and the small number of boxes on Heysham NR had three nest starts on the roofs which is unprecedented - also 8 Great Tit, three Blue Tit and a few nest 'starts'

Mammals
Grey Seal and very distant view of probable Harbour Porpoise fin

Just passing through

Bird interest was all at sea today with Terns, Gannets and a skua passing through:
Arctic Tern - 86 heading into the Bay
Little Tern - 1 flew out past Heysham Harbour
Sandwich Tern - 31 blogging. Two mating on one of the buoys.
Gannet -71
Arctic Skua - 1
Great crested Grebe - 10
Red-breasted Merganser - 7

Vis was minimal:
Tree Pipit - 3
Redpoll sp - 3 heard
Swallow - 3
Whimbrel - heard in the morning and 2 seen in the evening.
Wheatear - 6

The Guillemot was still in the harbour.

A trickle of Willow Warblers moved inland in the hour and a half after dawn, with 4 adults returning to their breeding site at Middleton. Whitethroats are making an appearance now. A Grasshopper Warbler reeled in the tank farm and one was ringed at Middleton NR.

Cumbrian Bonxie tops a varied seawatch in flat calm conditions

Seawatching mainly undertaken by Pete Crooks this morning with me arriving in time for the skuas produced a nice little selection in pleasant conditions

Red-throated Diver - 8 in and 7, not necessarily the same, out
Great Skua - one flew in on the far side about 0835hrs (IOY)
Arctic Skua - light morph flew in including a brief landing at 0730hrs
Gannet - 1
Common Scoter - flock 20
Carrion Crow - one in-off
Sandwich tern - c15 blogging
Arctic Tern - rather odd!  Flock of 63 see quite close inshore but high, heading in from OE side, not seen NHW side (flew overhead?), then about 30 mins later a very distant flock of about the same size and presumed this species flew out on the far side (poor visibility inland for overland migration this am)
Guillemot - one on and one in harbour
Whimbrel - 2 OE side, one past NHW

No landbird migration during this seawatch other than the crow!

Harbour Porpoise - ad & juv close inshore (IOY)

A few odds and ends seen by Janet between Ocean Edge and the south harbour - thanks for these:

Seabirds during a North of west wind

A short and then slightly longer midday seawatch with Steve Dodgson was unexpectedly productive as Hannah had rewritten the west of north wind rules (also unusual reports of inland Arctic Terns during winds with not a scrap of east in them)

Arctic Skua - medium range dark morph then close light morph in (first LM of year).  Two very distant skuas were reported flying out mid afternoon
Kittiwake - flock of 6 (one 2cy) in
Common Scoter - flock of 3 in
Red-throated Diver - sp bird in at long range
Fulmar - one rapidly out
Guillemot - one harbour mouth (same as below? )
Gannet - ad out then u-turning

Miscellany
Wheatear - 4
Whinchat - Male
Great crested Grebe - three displaying pairs in low tide channel
Guillemot - one by waterfall