Brents increase, and increasingly flighty

The SE winds continue although not as fresh today. At 15:00 it swung briefly to SW, but then returned SE. Dry all day with occasional sun.

Heysham skear - low water 10:25

Pale-bellied Brent 28 scattered around the skear, mainly at rest - more on Brent later.

Eider c100 close in plus a similar number feeding further out

Still no sign of Great Crested Grebe

Red-breasted Merganser 5 (pair plus individual 2 males and a female)

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Both myself (MD) and Kevin Singleton checked out the two main ponds today.

Mute Swan 7 adult plus 7 juvenile on main pond. 2 adult on "no swimming" pond

Mallard 8

Gadwall 8

Moorhen 6

Coot 1 

Little grebe 2 - both on main pond, one trilling.

Chiffchaff 1 near main pond car park.

South shore mid afternoon 

Pale-bellied Brent goose 65 at least, almost certainly including this morning's birds. There were at least 13 already feeding on Red Nab, when another 50 arrived and landed on the sea. Later 2 more flew in. All the birds were flighty and most remained on the water, rather than feed.

Shelduck 40

Wigeon c150

Shag 1 2nd calendar year flew into the harbour 

Possibly more to come

Brent behaviour changing

A strong SSE wind all day, possibly easing slightly in the afternoon. High cloud with some sunshine. Rain started just before dusk.

Pale-bellied Brent Goose 35 - at low water there were 25 around the skear, a group of 20 and another of 5. But neither group was feeding, the 20 were just resting and preening in the skear corner. The 5 just resting on the calmer sea on the north side. Presumably, the longer days and greater availability of weed (it is growing quickly now) provides them the opportunity to rest and conserve their energy for their long migration flight. These are some of the birds in the skear corner. I've never seen them just sat on the mud like this (MD)

In the afternoon a flock of 35 arrived towards Red Nab. 12 behaved typically and flew to the freshwater stream for a drink and a freshen up. But the rest seemed to be unfamiliar with the area, they landed on the beach and went to the water's edge for a drink.

The freshwater stream does feed into the sea here, but the water must be very saline. But they did appear to be drinking. Very unusual, particularly as just 100m across the beach the stream will be fresh.

The light was very frustrating, it was directly behind the birds, making many look like dark-bellied. I had to go on the shore to be able to look back at them to make sure. They were all pale-bellied. After they had a drink, they took to some vigorous bathing. This clip shows some of them, and the effect of the strong light behind them, you can't even make out the white crescent on their necks.

These are four of the birds from the above clip, as they flew to Red Nab

Also from skear this morning:

No Great Crested Grebe or Red-breasted Merganser seen

Eider c150

Wigeon 9

Also from south shore this afternoon:

Shelduck 50

Wigeon 250

Shag 1 2nd calendar year on wooden jetty

Rock Pipit 1 on Red Nab

Whooper galore. And, Jaz....solo no more.

The cold east to SE wind continued and freshened during the day. Mainly sunny in the morning, although visibility was limited, you couldn't see the other side of the bay. Mainly overcast after lunch.

Yesterday, Jean advised that the Whoopers were on the move. None were located yesterday, but today:

Whooper Swan 69 minimum. There were at least 47 on the sea beyond the skear, plus 9 high to the north. 

Jean had another 12 north from Heysham Nature Reserve and there was a single bird out from the Harbour.

David Kaye saw 38 on the sea from the Barrows, these could have been some of the ones seen earlier from the skear, or possibly additional birds.

These are the 9 Whooper flying north over the skear 09:00. Surprisingly difficult
to locate against the clear blue sky, despite them flying right over my head! (MD)

These are some of the Whooper on the sea, out from the skear, they were much further out than this clip suggests.

This next clip gives a sense of how the camera zoom foreshortens distance. These two flew towards me, for what seemed ages, without getting much bigger, I was expecting them to be almost at the skear by the end of this clip. Instead.....

Other stuff on the skear:

Eider, Great Crested Grebe and Red-breasted Merganser not counted, but present in similar high numbers than of late.

Pale-bellied Brent Geese 23 in the SE skear corner (some were also on Red Nab in the afternoon). There is some broken weed around still, but these birds were mainly resting, preening or exercising their flight muscles. They look to be getting ready to cross the Atlantic.

Also over the sea - ref Pete

Red-Throated Diver 2 in at 13:45 (in the Cumbrian half of the bay's air space)

Common Gull 27 adult "dribbling" north in an hour

Shag 1 2nd calendar year on the platforms near the harbour waterfall

2nd calendar year Shag 

Grey Seal between the outflows, but only showing periodically and briefly to breathe.

Finally, a bit of good news. Pete is a member of a Facebook group for lost birds of prey. Through that he discovered the details of the escaped bird seen on Sunday. It's called Jaz, and is a 2nd calendar year female Lanner Falcon. Happily Jaz is now reunited with her owner.

Jaz, now safe and sound at home. Hopefully a little wiser from her experience.

Lots of birds again.......unfortunately unidentified!

An overnight frost. A cold east then SE wind. Dry with some sunny spells.

Heysham Nature Reserve (SC)

GSWoodpecker drumming, 

Water Rail calling from marsh, 

single Jay and a female Sparrowhawk. 

36 Pink-footed Geese north.

Imperial Rd

Just a brief look on way along the bypass (MD)

Common Buzzard 2

South shore mid afternoon 

Pale-bellied Brent goose 7 on Red Nab

Shelduck 21

Wigeon 150 (Shaun counted 220 yesterday)

Eider 1 female

Common gull 1 2nd calendar year, initially I confused its pale underwings with the clean underwings of a Mediterranean gull. I fell into the trap of "seeing" what I expected to see! (MD)

2nd calendar year Common Gull

Shag 1 2nd calendar year flew out of the Harbour and landed on the wooden jetty.

Rock Pipits, none seen or heard on Red Nab, along the sea wall or along the harbour wall. There were two together on the saltmarsh 

Reed Bunting 3 on saltmarsh 

Two Rock Pipits and a male Reed Bunting feeding amongst the saltmarsh flotsam 

Common Snipe 2

Jack Snipe 1 - this was a bit of a surprise, the 9.1m tide only half covered the marsh

This is what today's title refers to, loads of birds flying way out from the saltmarsh, presumably something flushed everything from Potts Corner. I can't decide what they are, but obviously more than one species involved (MD)

These two Herring Gull were in the harbour, I've no idea why the focus keeps fading, it's as if the "intimate" bits were being censored. The "sleeping" bird opens one eye, clearly not really asleep.

Just out of the recording area:

Black Redstart female/immature at Sandylands ref Jon Carter

Good coverage = lots of birds

 NE wind eased to a light E breeze by evening. Sunshine all day.

Bumblebees were seen today in several locations, none clearly enough to confirm species.

Pete and Jean conducted a thorough count of the birds in the low water channels out from Heysham Head:

Eider (a very impressive) 612

Wigeon 4

Red-breasted Merganser 19

Great Crested Grebe 14

Common Scoter 1 drake (seen by Shaun)

Pale-bellied Brent Geese 20 (later on Red Nab, then back on skear in the evening).

Middleton Nature Reserve (SC)

A morning check:

Central marsh - Water Rail heard and a pair of Gadwall. 

12 Gadwall on Main pond and a pair on Tim Butler. 

Group of 23 Magpies quickly through heading north to Golf Course.

South shore

Mediterranean gull 1 2nd calendar year on outflows (Andrew McCafferty)

Shag 1 in the harbour, Rock Pipits 2 on harbour wall (Shaun)

My stroll around the south side was in the company of a guided walk arranged by Deborah Woods as part of  "The Bay:A Blueprint for Recovery". For once the walk coincided with very pleasant weather. Unfortunately the planned timing of the walk was interrupted along the dog walk path by the crows announcing the presence of an "unwelcome" visitor. A large Falcon.

Then it revealed that it had jesses (not unexpected)

But not just jesses, but also a radio transmitter 

Its appearance suggested a Saker Falcon, but Pete advises: You can get sakers crossed with eg peregrine or lugger falcons or the crosses even further hybridised.

This is what the crows thought, the gulls weren't happy either, but circled higher.

It eventually had enough and flew off low to the north.

Despite the interesting distraction the walk was very successful with good views of:

Bullfinch, Chaffinch, Greenfinch and Goldfinch.

A mixed tit feeding flock with Long-Tailed, Blue and Great tits.

Goldcrest, Dunnock, Wren and Robin.

Along the sea wall:

Pale-bellied Brent, Wigeon, Eider, Little Egret, Grey Plover, Rock Pipit,  Cormorant and Shag (although the Shag was by now on the wooden jetty and required a Scope to see clearly).

Heysham skear (MD)

It was such a lovely evening that I couldn't resist a walk out even though little of the skear was exposed before it became dark. The birds too were clamouring to get their late feeding done as skear became exposed. It was good that a thorough count of birds was conducted this morning as it allowed me to just enjoy being there. This clip is just to show some of the activity and the noise (no wind by this time so my camera catches the sounds of the skear, although it never seems to pick up the Eider calls as loud as they seem at the time). It's looking into the fading light so recognition is not easy, but on the water are Mergansers, Eider and Brent. The waders mainly Oystercatcher, but a few Redshank, Knot and Turnstone.

Merganser numbers growing

WNW breeze first thing freshened and moved to the north. Plenty of sunshine.

Pale-bellied Brent goose c15 seen flying north past Half Moon Bay (Pete)

So far, the only other reports are from my morning walk (MD)

Heysham skear  - low water 07:40

Eider 200+ close in, almost certainly many more further out

Red-breasted Merganser 17 (a group of 9, others in ones and twos)

Great Crested Grebe 6

This clip starts with four of the grebes (the one that surfaces actually has a small fish, but appears not to want the others to see it), then pans back over five of the mergansers.

Waders: as ever, Oystercatcher by far the most numerous, Turnstone 100+, Knot c200, also Redshank, Curlew and Dunlin. This Dunlin is ringed, unfortunately, just a metal ring and almost impossible to read in the field.

As the rising tide cleared the birds from the skear, many of the Oystercatcher moved to the shoreline before their high water roosts on the Heliport and Red Nab. This clip is just to give an idea of numbers.

Similarly, these 9 Carrion Crow were resting before being pushed off the skear. Large numbers of Crows on the skear is a relatively new feature. I can't recall seeing them here before the honeycomb worm colonies became established. I don't think they eat the worms, but the form of the colonies seems to trap suitable food within the crevices. The surface they are stood on here is an old, re-exposed honeycomb worm bed. They don't feed on these, only the fresh, active colonies.

Carrion Crows

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Just a quick check of the two main ponds on my way home, fortunately there were some ducks today.

Mute one pair, presumably the aggressive male and his mate, on the "no swimming" pond. 5 adult and 7 immature birds on the main pond.

Mallard 4 (2 pair)

Gadwall 18

Moorhen 6

First Cetti's singing, plus an irregular, albeit symmetrical, visitor.

Lightish west wind drifting to WNW by evening. High cloud all day with plenty of sunshine.

South shore (SC, MD)

Late morning towards high water.

Pale-bellied Brent geese none on this visit and an evening check of the skear. But later on the ebbing tide Shaun saw 31 fly from Sunderland Point towards Red Nab.

Shelduck 19

Wigeon 200+

Rock Pipit 7 at least, there were 5 arguing and displaying around the lighthouse, no sign of the ringed male, perhaps his territory is up for grabs. 2 more together on saltmarsh 

It's amazing how much food they seem to easily find in the narrow strip
of grass before the edge of the harbour wall. This one has a grub.

Turnstone 150 flew from north side to roost on the wooden jetty.

You can just about make out the Turnstone arriving with a couple of Redshank, 
mid frame. The arrow is to show the location of the Shag, see below.

Shag 1 2nd calendar year preening on the wooden jetty (located by Shaun). The picture below is just a record shot, the arrow on the picture above shows it's location on the wooden jetty.

Immature Shag, second from the left

By the time we got to the saltmarsh it was 75% covered. After they have been flushed a couple of times by the spring tides, the Jack Snipe tend to move off when the water reaches them, rather than be pushed to the edges. So we probably missed some. Even so

Common Snipe 2

Jack Snipe 2

Reed Bunting 4 (2+2)

Middleton Nature Reserve (SC)

Cetti's Warbler 2 singing in the central marshes - first records of them singing this year

Water Rail 1 calling at Tim Butler's pool. 

Adult Mute Swan on Tim Butler's. Plus 2 pairs of adults and a single adult on Boating Lake + 7 juvs

No sign of any ducks

Children's Play area (SC)

Mediterranean gull 1 adult

Heysham skear late afternoon on ebbing tide (MD)

Eider c350 (almost certainly many more out of sight)

Wigeon 2 (pair)

Pintail 2 (pair)

Male and female Pintail, the colours tinged by the setting sun

Red-breasted Merganser 12 (one group of 6 plus 3 x 2)

Great Crested Grebe 2

Finally, the irregular visitor. This is only the third time I've found one at Heysham, and only the second on the skear, but each on an ebbing spring tide.

Curled (lesser) Octopus 1 - not Common Octopus as I originally posted. Linda Renshaw pointed out that the common octopus has double rows of suckers on the tentacles, not a single row that this one has. I would have checked, but hadn't realised that there was more than one UK species - thanks Linda (MD)

Octopus can become stranded when the tide ebbs quickly, as they do on springtides.
But they can "walk" over the beach. You can see its tracks to the left.

But strangely, its tracks were leading away from the nearest water. I was going to film it "walking", but as soon as I started filming, it became obvious that it was in distress.

So I picked it up to take to a pool deep enough to not to drain before low water. As soon as I picked it up it wrapped its tentacles backwards around my hand. I took this quick clip, hoping to be able to show you its beak, but it was tucked into its mouth.

As soon as I placed it in a suitable pool it shot off, leaving me a pool of ink as a thank you.

Pool of black ink (centre) and a puff of mud (left) where it scarpered 

But it didn't go far, in this clip you can see it in a classical rest pose. Its colour changes during this clip to allow a better match to the beach. Don't worry about the pink tendril floating past, I don't know what it was, but it was nothing to do with the Octopus, which escaped intact.

Sorry about the heavy breathing on this clip, but I had to move quickly over 50m before I found this pool that I was sure wouldn't drain before low water.

A Turnstone's tale

SE wind with low cloud/drizzle all day.

I had very little time today and my only walk was hampered by constant light rain. Fortunately, Howard has just received this interesting Turnstone history.

There are good numbers of Turnstone that roost on the Helipad outer wall, I took this image during a visit last week as the birds were feeding on the beach on the receding tide, I noticed one bird was wearing a flag and luckily got close enough to get the snap.

The record was confirmed today by Seumus Eaves of the Fylde Ringing Group, 

re: Turnstone AW was ringed at Fleetwood Marine Lakes on 16.12.12, and was aged as an adult at the time, meaning that it was hatched in 2011 or earlier, so this bird is now at least 11 years old. After ringing in 2012 it wasn't re-sighted again until November 2016 and January 2017, and both sightings were from Fleetwood Marine Lakes. Since then it hasn't been re-sighted until last weeks sighting at Half Moon Bay.

Turnstone AW was one of just 47 birds flagged as part of a project that ran for about year, sadly it had to be abandoned because of disturbance.

Only one ringed Knot read today, whilst a good tide it was very flat so few Knot were present on the helipad, luckily out of a group of 11 there was this bird.

These colour ringing schemes, for many bird species (see Grey Wagtail scheme on the side bar), provide opportunity for observers to read rings in the field, although Howard is particularly good at it, with reasonable optics they can be located and read. I usually manage a handful every year . It's not about reading them for the sake of it, the information gained increases the knowledge of bird movement and can identify certain environments and locations that need to be preserved to allow the birds to continue to survive (MD).

South shore (MD)

I just managed a very short check of Red Nab and the saltmarsh, but before the saltmarsh was covered.

Pale-bellied Brent goose 31

Shelduck 35

Wigeon c240

Little Egret 2

Rock Pipits 4

Skylark 2

Reed Bunting 3 

Common Snipe 5

Hopefully more tomorrow 

A decent Jack Snipe count

ESE wind all day. Rain, mostly light, pretty much all day too.

South shore (MD)

10:00 - 11:00 High water at 11:05

Pale-bellied Brent geese 16 on Red Nab.

Pink-Footed goose 44 to SE

Goose sp 18 in a line low over the water heading out, possibly Greylag.

Shelduck 13

Wigeon c150

Rock Pipit 4 (2 on Red Nab plus 2 on saltmarsh). This was one of the saltmarsh birds. Sorry about the wobble, but I was balanced precariously and didn't dare move till the pipit did.

Lack of an onshore wind doesn't prevent a 9.6m tide from covering the saltmarsh, whatever the atmospheric pressure. This is what was flushed today:

Skylark 2

Reed Bunting 2

Common Snipe 26

Jack Snipe 6 at least, possibly 8

Unfortunately, it was raining steadily by this time and my few pictures aren't even as "good" as my usual grainy Snipe shots.

I didn't go along the wall in the morning, but had a quick look in the afternoon.

Eider 4 out from the harbour 

Shag, 1 second calendar year feeding at the waterfall, then it, or another in the middle of the harbour. This clip is good to show the comparison between a juvenile Shag and a mature Cormorant in breeding plumage. The Cormorant is the lead bird (apologies to birders, but many post readers are not, and I am often asked how to tell these two species apart MD)

This is why they were swimming together.......they were being chased......

.............by a brand new Dredger (how exciting!). This is the Van Oord MAAS. Introduced 30/06/21, which probably means that it is younger than the Shag. 

So, a 2nd calendar year dredger. It was certainly much quieter than previous models.
It is a water injection dredger, which means the mud is fluidised and should drift off
with the tide, plus some through the outflows at Heysham I expect. Hopefully not too
much will end up on the Sand Mason worm beach next to No.1 outflow. We'll see.

Heliport area

Howard managed to read some colour ringed Knot from the near naze, despite the less than ideal conditions. At least one of today's birds is new to the recording area.

This is from a new ringing area for Heysham - Dundalk Bay Ireland

This one at Ainsdale England

This is from Ynyslas Point Wales

Longer days allow return to outer skear

Overnight frost. A very gentle NE breeze freshened slightly and shifted more to the east. Sunshine all day.

South shore - high water 10:20

Pale-bellied Brent goose 50 on Red Nab towards high water (later c25 around the skear at low water). These are just a few of them, I've shared this clip as much for the audio as the video. You can hear the Brent "grunting".

Wigeon 200+

Shelduck 36

Shag 1 2nd calendar year flew out of the harbour 

No sign of the Little gull today

Greenfinch 15 in scrub around Red Nab.

Greenfinch 

Rock Pipits 5 - including this one which, unusually, was perched on a caravan aerial.

Today's high water of 9.1m was 0.6m higher than yesterday, in theory. In practice, the low wind and high atmospheric pressure, meant it only covered the same amount of saltmarsh as yesterday. Still it managed to flush:

Common Snipe 16

Skylark 4 (3 moved off south 1 landed back on the marsh)

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Mute Swan - just one adult on the "no swimming" pond, chasing off two immature birds. The other 5 immature and 5 adult were on the main pond.

Moorhen 6

Mallard 2 male

Gadwall 25

Pochard 1 male

Imperial Road

Just a quick look to see if any Stonechat were around. There wasn't, but there were four Roe deer. Two bucks and two does.

This is the larger of the two bucks, its six point antlers already impressive,
but still growing as they are still covered in velvet.

All four are on this clip, you can hear the bypass traffic passing no more than 60m from the deer.

Heysham skear 

Today's low water of 1.2m at 17:25 meant that I could visit the outer skear for the first time since late autumn. 

I didn't actually go across to the outer skear, but this is the first channel that marks the boundary between the mid and outer skear. There is no doubt that this section of skear will support mussel beds again this year.

Western end of the mid skear with the first channel left of image.

Other areas are definitely in the realm of the honeycomb worms. There is a long reef along both the north and south sides. The southern reef may succumb to storms, but the northern reef will not. Indeed it will almost certainly increase in height through the summer. This clip shows part of the north side honeycomb worm reef.

Other areas fate this year will depend on conditions as the seed mussels develop. This large area of the mid skear could go either way.

Part of the middle skear, currently covered in clumps of honeycomb worm colonies.
Hopefully, these will be covered as the seed mussels arrive and grow.

Eider c150

Male Eider looking fine in the evening sun

Great Crested Grebe 10

Red-breasted Merganser 5

Little Egret 3

Finally, this is nothing to do with nature, but I found it interesting (MD).

This was this morning, the aeroplane appears to flying along a track where it's contrails will later be.

But it is just a coincidence that the angle of the sun casting a shadow of the contrail behind the plane, is exactly the same angle as the plane's flight line