Glaucous Gull

Very light breeze, variable at times but mainly westish. High cloud with sunny spells.

Seawatch report from Pete:

Sea 0715 to 0950:

2cy Glaucous Gull NNW 0742

2 dark morph Arctic Skua in at 0753

30ish blogging Sandwich Tern

17 Common Scoter out

8 Red throated diver out (7 in summer plumage)

Pink-Footed goose 300 NW 07:30

Heysham Nature Reserve 

Janet had a walk around:

Green Woodpecker 1 yaffling from the wooded area just south of the bottom car park

First Speckled Woods this year

Janet could only locate three Mallard ducklings today

Kevin Singleton also visited today, his pictures may explain what happened to the other three ducklings.

Duckling.........

........Great Black-Backed Gull. In Kevin's words "a huge brute"

South Shore (MD, KE)

Wheatear 8 (6 on foreshore plus 2 near lighthouse)

Wheatear on the sea wall near lighthouse 

Linnet 2 near lighthouse, they bred here last year.

Rock Pipit 4 (1 on Red Nab, breeding pair plus what appeared to be the one legged bird near lighthouse)

Kevin Eaves took this shot of one of the pair.

Rock Pipit

Nature Park

Chiffchaff 2 singing 

Blackcap 3 singing

Kevin went all Beatrix Potter!
Still, nice to see no sign of myxomatosis 

Heysham skear - low water 17:40 (MD)

Eider 150

Red-breasted Merganser 10

Great Crested Grebe 1

Little Egret 11

Sandwich Tern 2 started feeding at low water, the sea was flat calm, unfortunately the sky was white, making them difficult to spot, best against a dark background, this is the Power Station.

Sandwich Terns

I managed a clip of one feeding dive, this time unsuccessful.

Eventually they both must have caught as they settled on a small island for a rest.

Willow Warbler fall

A misty start with occasional light rain. The sun came out in the afternoon and another patch of evening mist. Light west to WSW wind.

Middleton Nature Reserve (MD)

I just had a short walk around (dog walking duties)

The ponds not closely checked but still 2 pair plus 1 Mute. 4+ Coot, 4 Moorhen, 2+ Little Grebe

Pete advised that this morning's conditions were ideal for a Willow Warbler fall, and so it proved.

Willow Warbler 6 singing males plus at least 4 others

Chiffchaff 7 singing males

Blackcap 1 singing male plus anoth male and female seen

Cetti's Warbler 2 singing (no swimming pond and central marsh males)

Wheatear 4 together - I'm so used to seeing them on the shore rocks, they always look strange when perching in a tree.

Four Wheatear

Jay 3

Tim checked out Heysham Head:

Took the binoculars down to the Head late morning-lunchtime. 

3 Rock Pipit on the cobbles at the Throbshaw end of Half Moon Bay. Could hear another 150m towards HMB, but did not see it. Later on the way back saw a RP parachute in front of the cliffs. 

5-6 linnets 

Similar greenfinch 

A pair of RB mergansers fishing just off the HMB rocks. 

1 little Egret

 

In the wood -

3 very quarrelsome Jays

2 Chiffchaff

Heysham skear low water 17:00 (MD)

Very infuriatingly, the mist rolled in just as I reached the water's edge, so stuff on the sea was largely obscured.

Pale-bellied Brent goose 4 on north side of skear - seen before the mist arrived, there were no others.

Red-breasted Merganser 5

Great Crested Grebe 2

Eider c100

The above three records affected by poor visibility.

Little Egret 12 - here are five of them shrimping

Purple Sandpiper 1 - the Turnstone that roost on the wooden jetty feed on the skear. It stood to reason that the Purple Sandpiper, that has been in association with them, will feed here too. But their plumage is ideally camouflaged for the skear, making them very difficult to see and today's mist made it even harder. I eventually managed this misty clip.

First Common Tern plus plenty of passing passerines

NNE light breeze moved to SE by the afternoon. A fair start then steady rain till mid afternoon.

Heysham Nature Reserve 

Jean managed a ringing session:

Just a few retraps plus a Jay.

In contrast to yesterday's long distance Robin, we received news of a Dunnock ringed here in 2018. Found dead at Heysham!

Report from Pete:

Seawatching from Heysham north wall to 0920 - most of birds past just offshore with no overhead vis:  Common tern new for year 

1 Gannet

1 Common Scoter

1 Razorbill

1 Arctic Skua

6 Sandwich Tern

506 Meadow pipit

83 Swallow

26 linnet

23 Sand Martin 

(but no pied wag!) 

Undoubtedly missed stuff going under and possibly over the scope, esp hirundines which were mainly closer in.  Most of meadow pipit at or just inside yellow buoy range heading NNE

South shore 09:45 - 10:30(MD)

The wind had shifted slightly and the passage flight line changed. In a few minutes at the saltmarsh c12 Meadow Pipit and 5 Swallow went over. No other overhead movement seen along the wall or out from the roundhead.

Wheatear 6 (2 moved through on the way out and 4 more on the return - it was raining by then)

Rock Pipit 3

Linnet 5 flew from south to north side of the harbour

Kevin took this shot of a male Blackcap in his garden today

Angela Gillion took this shot of the first Mallard chicks on the main pond Middleton Nature Reserve 

Mallard with at least 6 ducklings swimming 

about much to the annoyance of the swan! 

Egyptian Goose adds some glamour

The ESE wind freshened during the day. Mainly high cloud with occasional sun and a couple of light showers.

First an update from Pete of a long distance Robin:

There is always a small spring passage of Robin at Heysham and one was caught with someone else’s ring on 2/4/22.  We’ve just found out It was ringed on autumn passage last year at Nanjidzal, Lands End.  Maybe Scottish or maybe Scandinavian bird?

Jean and Pete managed some vis this morning. Report from Jean:

Vis 0720-0920:

Meadow Pipit 181

Linnet 23

Goldfinch 12

Pied Wagtail 7

Lesser Redpoll 6

Swallow 6

Sand Martin 2

Chaffinch 1

Kestrel 1

Carrion Crow 9

Woodpigeon 6

Greylag Goose 1

Over the sea:

Egyptian Goose 1 (technically a MEGA)

Common Scoter 3

Red-throated Diver 1

Great Crested Grebe 1

Shore out from Half Moon Bay (MD)

10:00 - 11:00

Sandwich Tern 7 around the buoys. Unfortunately, these neap tides go out so slowly that the buoys were still beyond my camera range. This was about as good a clip as I could get. The birds flying north are just Oystercatcher.

Meadow Pipit a steady trickle north 18 in the hour

These Knot were on the shore in front of the old heliport wall. Like me, they were impatiently waiting for the tide to go out. This clip shows two things: a few are now moving towards summer plumage and one of them was colour ringed/flagged. Unfortunately not clear enough to read, and it immediately moved behind the group when I spotted it.

A second check in the afternoon 14:00 -15:00. The east wind was much fresher, there was no sign of any Sandwich Tern, but still a few:

Meadow Pipit 5

Swallow 4

This is something that I've never really understood and seems to becoming more common. This picture is cockles just below the mud surface. They are so tightly packed that they can't burrow any deeper.

A tightly packed clump of Cockles just below the mud surface

This one was about 0.5m diameter and there were probably 30 such clumps around the area. I understand why the cockles in the middle can't get deeper, but you'd imagine the ones around the edge would move out. The following is my best theory, but if anyone knows differently or has other ideas please let me know (MD).

These clumps tend to form where the mud is soft, perhaps too soft to allow Cockles to burrow up once they have gone below the surface. If there are small patches of firmer mud, the small cockles could occupy it normally, but as they grow, they would fill the area, as above, and presumably some around the edge drop into the abyss. Fortunately for the cockles, they have reached a size larger than the Oystercatcher can open, and the surrounding soft mud deters any sensible human walkers. Not sure if this type of clumping is becoming more common because cockle numbers are increasing or the extent of soft mud is increasing ( or both).

Heysham Nature Reserve 

Willow Warbler 2+ could be heard from the car park. This is a rubbish clip, the wind is howling and the bushes swaying. But it's so nice to hear Willow Warbler again, I thought I would share it anyway.

Janet took these lovely shots of two different male Orange Tip Butterflies. There was a small white and grey butterfly around as well, it could have been a female Orange Tip, or a Small White.

Male Orange Tip

Things are starting to move......

Light breezes today mainly SSE. Plenty of sunshine in the morning, but mainly high cloud cover after lunch.

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Report from Alan:

The weather this morning was not what was originally forecast. We had expected the sky to cloud over in the early hours and possibly drop some migrants.  In the event it was clear and frosty first thing and clouds were forming only from mid morning.

The catch at Middleton was predictably low for the five nets set:

Single retraps of Wren, Reed Bunting, Dunnock and Cetti's Warbler. This Cetti's was ringed  in 2017 and has been caught regularly since then.

Blackcap  2

Dunnock  2

Lesser Redpoll   4

Two Meadow Pipits only were seen passing over.

The moth trap set overnight captured one Early Thorn and one Clouded Drab.

Pete Crooks paid an early morning visit:

Heysham North Harbour Wall (7.30 – 8.05 am)
2 Red-throated Diver – 1 in winter plumage & 1 in summer plumage together on sea, drifted out on ebbing tide
7 Common Scoter (4 male, 3 female) flew out of the Bay

Knowlys Road, Heysham (8.15 – 8.30 am)
1 Red-throated Diver – winter plumage, different to previous bird
130 Eider
4 Red-breasted Merganser

Pete (M) also checked some key areas.

Redpoll 3 over Middleton/Heysham 

Willow Warbler c4 early on at Heysham Nature Reserve (first records this year)

2cy Shag fishing just north of Heysham head

3 Twite old heliport then flew towards Heysham Head 

2 Sandwich tern

6 Common scoter flying out (different to Pete C birds)

Alan Physick checked the north wall on the afternoon rising tide:

Sandwich tern 10+ on buoys by North wall, singles passing and fishing,

I had a look at 18:30. The terns were still blogging around the two buoys, but too far from
the north wall for my camera to discern any detail, so this shot is just to show location (MD)

Shag 1 2nd calendar year roosting on wooden jetty, probably the one seen feeding earlier out from the Head.

Wigeon pair + Shelduck 18 on Red Nab

No Brents seen or reported today

Linnet 9 (2, 4 and 3) along the Power Station perimeter fence

Rock Pipit 4

Another Osprey

The breeze started off from the north before drifting to NNW then WNW. Some high cloud, but plenty of sunshine.

Middleton Nature Reserve (MD)

Did a full circuit of the east side of the reserve today.

Mute Swan 2 breeding pairs plus a single adult

Coot 5

Moorhen 5

Teal 2

Gadwall 6

Mallard 8

Little grebe 2 trilling on the main pond plus at least one on "no swimming" pond

Osprey 1 - 10:05 - it flew low in a line from the SE corner of the golf course towards Heysham Nature Reserve. I was along the track to the east of the golf course, surrounded by trees. I could hear the gulls creating and knew it must be a raptor, so I moved into a more open area and got my camera ready. Fortunately, its flight line gave me a good, but short view.

A couple of stills from the above clip. It didn't appear to be a ringed bird.

A little later I kept hearing a "raptor" calling. But the gulls weren't interested, only the corvids were agitated. Turned out it was a Jay. Much less harsh than their normal screams, not a call I'd heard from them before. I had to check with Pete who advised "a territorial Jay"

Warblers:

Cetti's warbler 2 singing males. The "no swimming" pond bird plus another in the SW corner of the main pond. The marsh birds not heard.

Blackcap 3 singing males

Chiffchaff several 

One of today's Chiffchaffs. Presumably the dark staining on its face 
the result of feeding on nectar or pollen on passage.

Male Small White was the only butterfly seen

South shore, towards high water(Alan Physick and MD)

Three dredgers in operation. No sign of the Shag or birds out from the harbour.

No sign of any Brent either, but they do not always come to the south side on these low neap tides.

Shelduck 33

Rock Pipit 2

Wheatear 2 on eastern side of saltmarsh 

First Swallow - albeit a bit late!

Calm and clear till mid morning then the west breeze picked up slightly. Increasing cloud cover leading to some light afternoon showers, then a major evening downpour, of what is probably best described as wet hail.

Low water around the skear birds.

Count by Pete:

261 Eider

8 Great Crested Grebe 

13 Red-breasted Merganser

32 Pale-bellied Brent goose

I walked out on the skear. It was clam and sunny at low water, allowing both some clear pictures and videos not blighted with the sound of the wind, just the sounds of the skear (MD).

This first shot is just to give a feel of the skear this morning. A flat calm sea. Two
Cormorants relaxing on Conger rock, and a ship disappearing over the horizon
(or sinking into the sea, depending on your  view of the earth!)

This clip you can hear the soft grunts of the Brent and the (Frankie Howard like) display calls of the Eider, plus the ubiquitous Oystercatcher.

It's nice to see the Brent so relaxed now, after a winter of scraping the bottom of the weed barrel, by feeding on the gutweed directly below the sea wall. The weed in that area is now almost a metre long as they have not ventured there since abundant weed became available in other areas. It just shows how much they must have braced themselves to feed amongst the regular dog walkers. Weed is plentiful all around the skear now, this is a nice shot of three Brent, the lead bird can't even be bothered to eat the strand of gutweed dangling from its bill.

Pale-bellied Brent geese

This Great Black-Backed gull has found a dead plaice. It's currently too wide for it to swallow, but it won't give up. It will work on it at low water, then leave it till low water the following day. After a few days the cumulative effects of its pummelling plus the mass reduction by shrimps crabs etc, will enable it to swallow the carcass. I've known them spend a week with a fish, this one won't take that long, it is a "spent" plaice (recently spawned), so it's already very thin.

About 16:00 the sky went black and a very heavy hail shower started. I went to check if it had grounded anything.

This Wheatear was on the saltmarsh, it was motionless (sadly, unlike myself - sorry about the wobbling). It seemed to be in a torpor, perhaps ruminating on the wisdom of leaving warmer climes.

This clip is a minute later, still motionless, then suddenly, quite early in the clip, it becomes very animated and casts out a waste pellet. So, it was indigestion (literally). After that it was quite active, the hail was easing, so it moved on just after this clip. I wonder where the source of the pellet was originally eaten (MD)

This is a still from the above clip. The pellet is circled after it rolled down the rock.

Middleton Nature Reserve 

The hail was easing. Wildfowl as yesterday. But this is where the Swallows were. At leat 2, probably 3.

One of this evening's Swallows over the main pond

First Skua

Very strong overnight "westerly" winds eased slightly and quickly moved to WNW then NW. Showers.

Pretty much just Pete's stuff today. He started early - 0625-0715

Early morning dropping tide seawatch at Heysham saw the wind go NW as opposed to WNW about five hours before forecast.  

Best a dark morph Arctic Skua new for year last seen sat on sea

4 Gannet,

7 Common Scoter

1 Razorbill/Guillemot 

1 Red-Throated Diver

An afternoon check located:

Purple Sandpiper with a large group of Turnstone at the base of the sloping heliport sea wall near the Cafe. Unfortunately the Turnstone and the sandpiper quickly moved off, there is a lot of disturbance here. 

Pale-bellied Brent goose 28 on Red Nab

Wigeon pair

The only bits I (MD) can add to the above is

Shelduck 9

Rock Pipit 4

Meadow Pipit 3 grounded together behind the foreshore bund

Linnet 2 near lighthouse 

Grey Seal No.2 outflow, but it was busy fishing and only revealed itself briefly a couple of times.

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Just the two main ponds checked

Mute 2 breeding pairs

Moorhen 2

Coot 7

Mallard 6

Gadwall 8

Little grebe 2 at least on main pond 

Cetti's Warbler - "no swimming pond" male singing

First Tern

A fresh SW to SSW wind. Some sunshine and some showers.

Pete and Jean checked from key locations - report from Pete:

North side low water channels

341 Eider

18 Red-breasted Merganser

8 Great Crested Grebe

2 Pintail 

Red Nab

32 Pale-bellied Brent goose

6 Dark-bellied Brent goose 

Heysham seawatch - too clear and wind too SSW, but:

Single Sandwich tern new for year 

12 Gannet

30 Common Scoter 

7 Red-Throated Diver 

4 Guillemot

1 Razorbill 

1 drake Goosander (uncommon in the recording area)

South shore (MD)

The earlier Brents had left Red Nab when I passed at 13:00, but at 13:15, 32 Pale-bellied, almost certainly the same birds as above, returned from the north side.

Some of the 32 Pale-bellied Brent flying to Red Nab

On returning to Red Nab at 14:00 the Pale-bellied had been joined by 9 Dark-bellied. There were two with the Pale- bellied and these 7 together.

This next clip is just to show how lighting affects the appearance of birds. I went to the other side of them and the sun came out briefly, making them look quite pale, but they are dark-bellied.

Strangely, as the tide flushed the birds, only six of the above seven birds flew off together, presumably the same six seen earlier.

Dark-bellied Brent

Wigeon 2

Rock Pipit 4

Shag 1 2nd calendar year in the harbour - first record for a while

2nd calendar year Shag 

Alan has a limited number of hard copy Observatory Annual Reports (full of useful information about species distribution for the recording area, as well as the record of last year's sightings and ringing details. It's not just Birds, but Butterflies, Moths, Mammals etc). If you would like a copy please contact Alan Draper (alanxhill@btinternet.com). A nominal contribution of £4 if you can collect, or £5 if you prefer Alan to post (If outside UK postage will be higher)

A good variety of seabirds on seawatch, plus a Purple Sandpiper

Fresh west to WSW wind. No sun but plenty of showers.

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Just a quick check of the two main ponds. As expected, yesterday's scoter had moved on overnight.

Mute Swan 2 pair

Coot 7

Moorhen 2

Little grebe 2 at least

Mallard 6

Gadwall 10

Pete and Jean managed a bit of sea watching.

Report from Jean:

Seawatch 11:50hrs - 13:30hrs (High tide 14:39 9.07m)

Migrating seabirds  included;

Gannet - 21 into Bay, 2 out of Bay

Red-throated Diver - 1 summer plumaged bird into Bay, 1 summer plumaged bird and 1 x 2CY out

Fulmar - 1 into Bay

Razorbill - 1 out of Bay

Inshore movements seen from Heysham churchyard, all birds heading to high tide roost areas to south :

Brent Goose - 48 PBB, 3 DBB

Turnstone - 255  

Purple Sandpiper - 1 with the Turnstone

Black-tailed Godwit - 6

Oystercatcher - 1711 

Curlew - 30 

Shelduck - 4

Eider  - 5 prs plus a male 

Also seen:

Rock Pipit - 3

South Shore towards high water (MD)

Brent goose 50+ They flew overhead as I was approaching the wooden jetty, not easy to count accurately and check the birds when they fly over quickly. They were obviously the same birds from Jean's report, but they had picked up two flocks of 3 Dark-bellied

Pale-bellied Brent goose 40+

Dark-bellied Brent goose 8

All the Pale-Bellied birds were in the main flock, but there were also at least two Dark-bellied amongst them.

Two Dark-bellied Brent geese, top left, with the main Pale-bellied flock

Two following flocks of three birds, both were Dark-bellied

Unfortunately the Brent were just leaving Red Nab and flying towards Potts corner as I returned to Red Nab.

Shelduck 17

Eider 10 out

Purple Sandpiper 1 - at this point I wasn't aware that Pete/Jean had seen one flying south with the Turnstone, but I always check roosting Turnstones for Purple Sandpiper. There were some Turnstone resting on No.1 outflow rails with Redshank, unfortunately it was obvious that a couple of walkers approaching from the other direction were going to flush them. I had my camera ready and set for the expected Brent (flew over about 2 minutes later) so I took some shots as the spooked birds flew off. Fortunately the sandpiper was with them. Almost certainly the same bird seen earlier past Heysham Head.

Purple Sandpiper - circled

Same shot as above, but cropped further 

A third of a second later and zoomed in further

Rock Pipits 6

Wheatear 1