Hanging in there pays off

A first for Lancashire today - a Rock Pipit observed carrying a faecal sac!   Next best were a couple of Pomarine Skuas sitting out the rain on the incoming tide and lifting and heading north east as it lifted.  Doesn’t get much better than that on a routine local patch day!

Sea 0620- 0820
Arctic Skua - dark morph up the close channel before the heavy rain at about 0635
Pomarine Skua - two light morph as described above about 0740
Gannet - 6 in
Common Scoter - 3 out, 7 in
Sandwich Tern - one (!) out
Swallow - 16 in
Red-breasted Merganser - two in

Rock Pipit - attending best with food and see above

Office
A few nets left up and produced migrant-wise a couple of long winged Willow Warbler and a passage Lesser Whitethroat

Mammals
Two Grey Seal

Butterflies
First Small Copper

Puffin and other bits on the sea, blazing sunlight and very little on land

Sea 0615-0730
Puffin - two floating in 0710ish, then flew out and away towards the turbines and south end of Walney
Razorbill/Guillemot - 1+15 distantly out
Arctic Tern - flock of 11 early on and that was it
Sandwich tern - two first thing only
Common Scoter - 4 out
Gannet - about 13, possibly as many as 16
Carrion Crow - two in-off
Knot - 15 north
Swallow - 22
Whinchat - one flew through the seawatching field of view and landed on mound = female

Rock Pipit - seen once feeding young

The first rugrat of the season in the mist nets - a Blackbird!

Moths
The localised Ruddy Highflyer was in the moth trap yesterday ie a 14/5 record.  This is an easy one where eg the three streaks running from the apex of the forewing are in a 'line' and not overlapping -melanistic ones (common) are a different ball game as regards separation from May Highflyer

Bits and bobs over the sea

Some pics from yesterdays firsts of the season on Heysham NR: Thanks Janet

Nothing to dissipate the premature end of spring season feeling - we need some heavy showers - but at least the sea offers a visual opportunity for the dribs and drabs as opposed to trying to find the one decent bird in the bushes when there is so much vegetation here

Sea 0700-0830
Arctic Tern - flock of 10 in
Gannet - 7 in, one out
Razorbill/Guillemot - 3 out
Common Scoter - 42 in, one out
Sandwich tern - at least 11 flying backwards and forwards
Swallow - 15 in

Rock Pipits still feeding young in the nest

Red Nab/Ocean Edge
Pink-footed Goose - single on Red Nab
Mute Swan - 4 x 2CY sitting on mudflats
Little Egret - 4

Beasties on seawatch
Grey Seal - 2
Harbour Porpoise - 1

Middleton Nature Reserve - mid afternoon (MD)
Dragon flies:
Four-spotted chaser 3

Broad-bodied chaser 1

Damselflies - several of each
Azure
Common blue
Blue-tailed
Large red

Butterflies and moth:
Orange tip - lots
Peacock 6
Green-veined white 10
Small heath 3

Mother Shipton 1

Dangerous weather

This feels like the soporific days of summer where the migrant-related incentive is seriously blunted and alarm settings get later and later when the opposite should be the case.  Mainly unidentified auks on a seawatch are not going to change that, even though there are surprisingly limited opportunities to see them here.   Nailing a Puffin on a seawatch, currently the most likely new species for the year, does not encourage a daft o'clock start.   A bit of cloud cover and showers and either a continuing easterly or a south westerly hooley is needed to restore the early morning cutting edge

Sea 0640-0745
Razorbill/Guillemot - 36 out
Guillemot - 26 out, I on
Sandwich tern - at least 24
Swallow - 8
Sand Martin - 1
Common Scoter - just one flock of 6

Rock Pipit - young still being fed in nest

Ocean Edge/Red Nab
Common Sandpiper - 1

  

Auk day

Pleasant seawatching conditions for once with calm seas, a very light variable wind and warm sunshine.
Today it was the turn of auks to provide the main highlight of the watch.

0710-1010
Auk sp 74 into Bay and 106 out of the Bay
plus definite Razorbill 18 in and 8 out
plus definite Guillemot 4 out
Common Scoter 253 in and 22 out (a tiny fraction of the count off Walney yesterday - see Walney blog)
Gannet 5 fishing and probably same 5 out
Kittiwake 1 in, 5 out
Manx Shearwater 1 out
Arctic Tern 4 in
Little Tern 1 in
Sandwich Tern 4 in, 3 out and 10 blogging
Little Egret 1 out
Swan sp (presumably Mute) 9 headed towards Grange
Pink-footed Goose 3 north

Ocean Edge
Black-tailed Godwit 2
Dunlin 65
Grey Plover 1

Heysham skeer - low water (MD)
A total of 54 Godwit including Islandic Black-tailed

Mute swan 1
Sandwich tern 2

South wall roundhead - evening
Rock pipits - both birds feeding young in nest
Guillemot- still near waterfall
Common sandpipier 1 on sloping wall near wooden jetty

Early morning seawatch

Heysham North wall  (Pete Crooks) 0525 - 0830 - 83 Arctic Tern, 17 Kittiwake, Sandwich Tern c6, 19 Gannet, c120 Common Scoter, 1 Mute Swan, 1 Black-T Godwit, 1 Rock Pipit just tootling around on its own - the ‘mythical’ spare bird?!

1 Grey Seal

Sea so far hasnt included any albatrosses!

Not too bad this morning and Nick has just texted to say the Arctic Tern passage has 'flurried' with 80 in last 15 mins 0900-0915

Sea 0615-0930
Arctic Tern - 200 counting Nick's latest 80 (one gang of 40 high inland over Heysham Head just prior to the first DM Arctic S doing the same)
Black Tern - one on its own close inshore heading in
Common Scoter - 80ish mainly going out
Manx Shearwater - unusually tight flock of six in (IOY)
Kittiwake - high flock of 6 adults in
Arctic Skua - one DM high NE over Heysham Head 0625, one int/DM in 0750
Sandwich Tern - counting distant birds well over 60 blogging, gradually reducing as the morning went on
Swallow - c40 in
Sand Martin - 2 in

Rock Pipit - both parents seen with food for the harbour wall pair

Guillemot - still in harbour near waterfall, often sitting on structures (has been reported as a 'penguin'!!)

Thats more like it - Morecambe Bay hosts a major passage

 Coverage was by Nick Godden (SJ), Malcolm Downham on Heysham Skeer, Pete Marsh and Jean Roberts at Heysham sites. 0600 to 1515 at one site or another. This is the combined effort with duplication almost certainly avoided unless some birds went high inland but then returned to the sea to the south  behind observers - highly unlikely.  The cloudy and sometimes wet conditions seemed to lead to many birds hugging the sea although it was noticeable from mid afternoon that more birds were climbing high.  Thanks for the pics Malcolm

Arctic Tern - c2910 in
Black Tern - 65 in, most during the heavy rain when Nick absent - biggest flocks 28, 13, 8
Arctic Skua - 19 in - as far as I am aware all were dark or darkish morphs and all ones or twos heading in
Pomarine Skua - two light morph together early pm - no observers at Heysham at the time
Little Tern - one in 0655 only seen SJ
Roseate Tern - one in 0712 only seen SJ
Sandwich Tern - c20 blogging
Common Tern - 12 scattered amongst the Arctics - easy to pick out!
Hobby - adult in low over the sea then up over Heysham
head
Swallow - c35 in
Whimbrel - c18 in
Kittiwake - 146 in two flocks - only seen off SJ

Trickle of landbird migrants but limited coverage

Not a lot of yesterdays birds left

Still to do another check but the early morning round suggested no a lot new had arrived and a lot had disappeared from yesterday despite unhelpful night migration weather overnight

Wheatear - 7
Whinchat - 1
Arctic Skua - lingering dark morph which then disappeared towards Walney was the only seabird seen - no terns
Red-throated Diver - 2 on
Great-crested Grebe - one flew over from Barrow direction and landed off Heysham head in the usual GCG channel - new bird [clutching at straws for interest today!]?

A single net was put up for a bit and caught three Willow Warbler, a new Lesser Whitethroat and strangely an unringed adult male Great Tit!

Stock Dove appear to be breeding on Middleton this year.  Recently they have been an erratic visitor to eg the rubble mounds on Middleton after when we first started here in the 1980s being a quite widespread breeding bird in eg rabbit burrows

Thanks Malcolm and here is Dan's Portland Bill-style Tree Pipit vis mig shot from yesterday!

 

 

East coast style fall

Thanks Dan

Worked Heysham with Dan this am with Malcolm out on the skeer.  Contact with Ian and our own observations saw that the weather was not conducive to sea passage into the Bay.  Plan B was a landbird search and the bits and bobs of isolated bushes were a productive starting point including Grasshopper Warblers lurking on both the South Qusy and North harbour wall.  One isolated buddliea along the north wall held at least three Willow Warbler (one cold coloured bird), grasshopper Warbler  and two Wheatear.  Unfortunately there was a mixup over who was available for ringing and it was impossible to get any real handle on eg Willow Warbler numbers

Coastal grounded
Willow Warbler - 10 plus
Wheatear - minimum 40 in gangs of up to nine
Whinchat - 3 (one Male)
Whitethroat - one heliport seawall
Garden warbler - one Heysham Head
Tree pipit - one in off
Grey Wagtail - late migrant in off
Arctic Tern - Singleton spiralling high and 10 in distantly

Knot - 1300
Dunlin - sev thousand south

Grey Seal - at least 5 (3 juvs)

 

 A few of today’s other birds from coastal coverage from Dan and Malcolm - thanks for these