Reduced NW wind covwrage

Tidal state early am didn’t help

Sea for 15 mins
Sandwich Tern - 1
Common Scoter - 5
(Two Razorbills off JBP high tide)

Rock Pipits Still feeding young in nest

Nothing new Moth wise but another Pale Prominent - a darker individual than yesterday

Bits and bats

At least one possibly two Spotted Flycatcher in the Royal Hotel woodlands today.  A perhaps surprising SW wind flock of Arctic tern and an even more surprising male Teal out in the low tide channel.  Pete Crooks, Malcolm and Nick.

Arctic Skua - blogging dm off Heysham probably that going in off the SJ later
Arctic Tern - one flock of 37
Common Scoter - at least 450
Sandwich Tern - 5
Great-crested Grebe - 8 in low tide channel
Red-breasted Merg - 5 ditto
Little Egret - 8 ditto
Teal - male
Common Sandpiper - one on skeer

Spot Fly - at least one prob two Heysham Head
Rock pipits intensively feeding young, two further birds loitering along the north wall

Mammals
Grey Seal 2+

Moths
Pale Prominent, Green Carpet (rare here), Heart and Dart, Common Wave, Lime-speck Pug new for year

Black Guillemot, skuas and scoters

Pleasant seawatching conditions today with a light north-easterly, calmish seas and a background of cloud resulting in the following being seen from the harbour and later from Half Moon Bay:

Black Guillemot - 1 whizzed out past the wooden jetty at about 1010h
Common Scoter - many milling about near the turbines then they all took off and headed NW as the sky cleared. Minimum of 600.
Arctic Skua - 2+ 2 (see phonescoped photos below - Thanks to Chris Vaghela) These appeared nearer to high tide.
Arctic Tern - 64 in, 1 out
Sandwich Tern - 18 in, 1 out
Swallow - 4. Worryingly low numbers this year.
Red-breasted Merganser - 1 in
Grey Seal -4 floated in

Harbour
The Guillemot was still floating about.
Rock Pipit(s) busy feeding young in the nest.

Middleton
Returning Whitethroat and Lesser Whitethroat caught on the CES (Constant Effort Site - a scheme to assess adult survival rates and abundance of adults and juveniles). Will check ages and report later, most only survive for 2 years but the oldest recorded Whitethroat (which winters in west Africa) was 7.7 years and the oldest recorded Lesser Whitethroat (which winters in east Africa) was 9 years.

Now for the stars of today’s show as they progressed along the Bay:

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'!!)