Plenty of geese "around"

A light NW, later shifting to NE wind. Plenty of sunshine with an odd light shower.

Heysham Head (MD)

I went at low water to check the location of the reef I saw yesterday. Today's low water was 0.3m higher than yesterday so the the reef wasn't as exposed. I doubt it is a new feature, but is certainly higher than previous years and if the honeycomb beds don't get smothered by this year's mussels, it will continue to grow. It is directly out from Heysham Head, and today appeared as two separate reefs, but they are connected.

A honeycomb worm reef forming out from Heysham Head. It will only be visible during the 
lowest tides (1m today), but will attract marine life around it and should be attractive to diving birds.

Looking north from the Head on these low spring tides you can see the full extent of the 
skear. The outer skear is on the far left. The rest visible on this shot is the middle skear.

Rock Pipits 5 at least, there was a displaying male on the northern tip, he attracted two other birds. Below the high cliffs were two lots of two birds, possibly one of these pairs had been with the displaying male earlier.

Greenfinch 10 - they were concentrated in the bushes at the northern edge of the Head. These are some of them.

Linnet 2 (but the gorse on the southern section not checked)

Goldfinch 2 in the wooded area

There was lots going on in the Glebe garden (always worth a visit). This male House Sparrow made me smile, where else would a House Sparrow want to nest?

He managed to attract a female

Following yesterday's theme of spring flowers.........

A lot of snowdrops are already going over, but this stand was nice

As were the swathes of Crocuses - Daffodils nearly out too

South shore (MD)

Kittiwake 2 adult and 4 first winter still in the harbour. This adult was taking a bath.

Shag 1 immature on wooden jetty

Immature Shag, third from the left.

Pale-bellied Brent goose 6 - they were just landing on Red Nab as I walked out, and on my return they were obviously getting ready to leave, so I took this clip.

Rock Pipit 4 - lighthouse, Red Nab and 2 on saltmarsh. So minimum of 9 seen today

Common Snipe 3

Jack Snipe - 3 snipe that flew from the line of marsh grass to the south and landed on the saltmarsh looked to be Jacks

Middleton Nature Reserve (Mark Jones)

Mute Swan 5 juvenile on the peninsula, the 2 adult were back on the pond, other wildfowl unchanged.

Male Pochard on "no swimming" pond

Cormorant feeding on the main pond

Just out of the recording area - Pete checked the large numbers of, mainly, Pink Footed geese feeding in the fields adjacent to Oxcliffe Road. Unfortunately, many remained obscured by the hedges, but out of the visible birds he managed to locate:

Barnacle Goose 4

Russian White Fronted Goose 2

It was a lovely day.....

A light overnight frost. Almost breathless early on then a light NW breeze freshened slightly. Sunshine all day.

First a few of the brilliant shots Howard took of yesterday's colour ringed Knot. Definitely worth opening to really enjoy.

Today

Heysham skear - low water 08:00 (MD)

It was a beautiful morning to be on the skear.

Pink-footed goose 3 skeins SE totalling 170. 2 skeins north totalling 96. Both directions looked like local movement. These are some of the north bound birds, directly over my head.

Eider c40 but almost certainly more in the outer channels - these are 4 flying in.

When the tide begins to come in the crabs come out from under the mud to feed. I'm surprised there are any left the speed the Eider catch and eat them!

Great Crested Grebe 2

Red-breasted Merganser  12 - this is a feeding party, mergansers also take crabs.

These three males had something other than feeding on their minds. 

Did you spot the gull with a starfish?

Little Egret just 1 again - I didn't see it catch anything, they don't seem to bother with the crabs, despite this Redshank showing how it's done.

I managed a nice shot of it flying off disgruntled 

Waders - many more than what's recorded here were on the outer skear and beyond: Oystercatcher c1,000, Knot 50, Dunlin 10, Curlew 20, Redshank 100+, Turnstone 50+

Skylark 1 over to north.

A new reef has formed/grown. It looks to be out from Half Moon Bay and is covered in honeycomb worm beds. Reefs like this attract small fish, so should in turn attract small fish eating birds. Not at low water like this, but when the reef is underwater.

This large reef seems to be halfway between the skear and the North wall buoys
I'll check the location properly tomorrow 

Middleton Nature Reserve (MD)

There were just the 5 immature Mute Swan on the main pond. 2 adult were on Tim Butler, but I don't think they were the ones normally on the main or "no swimming" ponds.

Mallard 9

Gadwall 8

Pochard 1 male

Teal 2 on "no swimming" but several heard on Tim Butler pond

Coot 6

Moorhen 6

Snipe 1

Woodcock 1

Roe Deer 1 male

It is still February, but it did feel like spring today. This Dunnock was singing.

A queen Bee sp flew by, and......

 Primroses in full bloom

Knot......a good day at the office!

A light, mainly NW wind. Overcast with the occasional light shower.

Kittiwake - 5 resting on their pipe in the harbour yesterday - ref Kevin

Heysham Nature Reserve (MD)

A pleasant stroll around mid morning, nothing spectacular, but plenty to see:

Blackbirds 10+

Song Thrush 2 singing

Long-Tailed, Great and Blue Tits in good numbers

Goldfinch c30 , Greenfinch c10 and Bullfinch 8 - no Chaffinch of Siskin seen or heard.

These Goldfinch are feeding on the Alder cones - Song Thrush singing in the background 

This is a male and two female Bullfinch feeding on the swelling buds.

Male Bullfinch

Just a few each Robin, Dunnock, Wren

A lot of Magpies, there seemed to be 8 bickering plus another 4 trying to go about their business. Carrion Crow 2

Wood Pigeon 6

Moorhen 2

Sparrowhawk  inevitability 1

Roebuck 1 young male - he had a good look at me before deciding that I wasn't to be trusted.

So, plenty of wildlife to enjoy here, even through there was also a children's nature day in progress.

A little later Jean did some ringing here, this is her report:

I did a bit of ringing today. Yet more Bullfinches. Nine different ones have been caught recently (11th, 14th and 22 Feb)

Today's haul from 11:55 to 13:50:

Goldfinch 7 (only one retrap)

Bullfinch 4 (two retraps)

Long-tailed Tit 6 (3 retraps)

Blue Tit 5 (3 retraps including one from 2019 and one from 2021 originally ringed at Middleton NR)

Imperial Rd (MD)

Just a quick look in passing late morning

Buzzard 1 - heard only, it must have been on the far side of the trees

Teal 21 - these are some of them - not an overly informative clip as far as the Teal goes, but it does give a good idea of the terrain west of Imperial Rd.

Common Snipe 2 flying around

Stock Dove 2 flew north

Jackdaw 65 feeding on a small area of higher ground. A lot of the lower land is waterlogged, perhaps the invertebrates have moved up.

Heliport 

At 10.3m today's high water is the highest it will be till September. Howard was there to try and read any colour ringed Knot. He managed to read an astonishing 22 birds! It will take him a while to go through his many pictures.

Just out of the recording area

Mark Jones watched the tide cover the marsh grass near his caravan just south of the recording area. Four Skylark were flushed. This one deciding to sing.

I really miss them singing in the recording area, they used to provide an almost constant background music!

Barnacles top a busy goose day

A light SW wind overcast but it remained dry.

There was quite a bit of varied goose movement today, mainly Pink-Footed. Kevin Eaves saw a very high flock of c2,000 heading NW 14:30 in a purposeful manner. Pete advises that Pink-Footed geese have also been heading north along the east coast today.

More local movement was a low skein c200 to the east over my house at 09:00 and c80 south at 15:00.

But not just Pink-Footed.

Barnacle Goose 6 to NW over Middleton Nature Reserve at 12:05 - scarce in the recording area

Barnacle Geese - a heavily cropped shot, they were quite high (MD)

The local movement of the Brents is covered below.

Red Nab to Saltmarsh 10:00 -10:45 (MD)

There were no Pale-bellied Brent feeding on Red Nab as I arrived, then 10 flew in from the south (more on this later)

Wigeon c200

Shelduck c80

Rock Pipit 2 - 1 each Red Nab and saltmarsh 

Turnstone 50 in one flock

Common snipe 86 flushed from saltmarsh 

I didn't wait till the saltmarsh was fully covered, but did wait till the tide covered the line of marsh grass to the south of the saltmarsh. No Jack Snipe seen today.

This is looking south from the saltmarsh, on the left is the "rocky outcrop", and far left the faux castle.
The dark line just above the waterline is the line of marsh grass which now follows the freshwater 
channel. Water almost constantly drains over the shoreline here, again more on this later.

Great White Egret 1 SE 10:20

Great White Egret - another heavily cropped shot

Heliport 

Just a couple of the ringed Knot identified by Howard today.

Spot the ring.......you'll probably need to open the picture 

Heysham Head (Mark Jones)

It was a nice day for a walk around the Head, if nothing else, the views are great.

Curlew

Eider

Redshank 

No Rock Pipits seen or heard

Middleton Nature Reserve (MD)

Just a stroll around exercising my daughter's dog. This is where I saw the Barnacle geese.

Mute Swan 2 adult 5 immature 

Pochard 1 male

Gadwall 4

Mallard 4

Teal 2

Coot 4

Moorhen 6

Little Grebe 2

Great Spotted Woodpecker 1

Sparrowhawk 1

Just out of the recording area

Mark Jones has just arrived at his holiday caravan. The beginning of the caravan site can be seen in the above shot from the saltmarsh, it is just south of the faux castle which is nominally the southern boundary of the recording area. Look what Mark saw when he opened his curtains this morning.

The important thing here is the green swathe close in. The coastline here is boulder clay and groundwater constantly seeps out below it (even during the deep freeze and hot spells). This results in gutweed growing between the rocks. It's a relatively quiet area, but the few walkers around must pass along here, otherwise the Brent would be feeding here constantly (at any time except during the highest spring tides). Perhaps this explains why the Red Nab birds arrived from the south today (they normally come from the play area rocks to the north). 

The ground water eventually drains into the creek that defines the saltmarsh and it is now lined for most of its way by marsh grass.

Grey Plover and Ringed Plover in the same area

Cetti's warbler singing at the top of Carr Lane to the caravan site, Mark has not heard one here before

Jack Snipe turn up

A fresher SW wind. Overcast but mainly dry, just occasional drizzle 

Heliport 

First a couple of nice shots that Howard took yesterday.

Rock Pipit on the heliport sloping wall

Curlew dismembering a shore crab before swallowing it "whole"

The Knot were more active today and Howard and Richard managed to identify 11 birds

One of today's colour ringed Knot

Red Nab to Saltmarsh - high water 11:15 (MD)

No Brent geese seen this morning, but still lots of Wigeon and c30 Shelduck

Red-breasted Merganser 1 female 

Lapwing 14 on saltmarsh 

Also, Curlew, Oystercatcher, Redshank and Turnstone 

Some of the Turnstone - sometimes it hardly seems worthwhile taking "colour" photographs!

Rock Pipit 4 - 1 on Red Nab plus 1 + 2 together on the saltmarsh 

Reed Bunting 3 on saltmarsh 

Today's high tide at 9.3m easily covered the saltmarsh, as would the overnight tide. The snipe tend to get "fed up" of being flushed and numbers normally reduce as the spring tides progress. Even so, reasonable numbers again today.

Common Snipe 76 flushed from saltmarsh by the rising tide......then

Jack Snipe 4 - these flew in together from the south, probably flushed from the line of marsh grass now stretching along the shore between the rocky outcrop and Potts Corner. They made to land on what little was left of the saltmarsh. 1 did land, but the others turned round and headed for Middleton Nature Reserve.

Just out of the recording area - Heysham Moss Nature Reserve (MD)

This reserve is along the eastern boundary of the recording area, but always worth a visit, although I didn't have very much time today

Barn Owl 1 - a dog walker with a couple of dogs was approaching, I think they may have flushed it. 

Barn Owl

This clip isn't great, I was trying to get to higher ground for a better view. The bark towards the end is one of the approaching dogs.

I expect its hunting sorties will take it within the recording area. One to watch out for.

Knot initially static, Snipe erratic

Quite a light SW wind. Mainly overcast but it managed to stay dry(ish).

First, Janet sent these shots she took during a walk along the south sea wall yesterday.

Blue Tit, choosing a sunflower seed from a selection of treats
left by regular visitors to the Nature Park

Red Nab Rock Pipit

Turnstiles on the sloping sea wall

Redshank on No.1 outflow 

First winter Kittiwake, also on No.1 outflow

First winter Kittiwake feeding on No.2 outflow

Curlew on Red Nab rocks

Back to today, I just checked the saltmarsh at high water (MD)

9.3m high today, enough to flush any Jack Snipe, but none seen.

When I got there, tide was already as high as it reached yesterday, even so there were still lots of Common Snipe being flushed. 124 counted leaving the saltmarsh plus two flocks (27 and 32)  flew over, didn't land today, from the NW. I suspected they came from the Heliport area, and Jean's report below suggests that was the case. Anyway, it resulted in an impressive total......

Common Snipe 183 - these are some of the birds leaving the saltmarsh 

Pale-bellied Brent goose - 14 seen flying from Red Nab direction towards Potts Corner at 09:45. Once again, Blackpool Tower finds itself in the background.

Reed Bunting 2

Rock Pipit 1

Heliport 

Howard had the opposite problem to recent outings, the main body of Knot was stationary in the middle of the outer wall.

Knot and Oystercatcher on the outer Heliport wall

Still, perseverance eventually paid off and he did manage to read two ringed birds

Colour coded ringed Knot

Howard had to leave, but Pete and Jean were doing a webs high water roost count, this report from Jean:

High drama on the heliport today with a female Sparrowhawk spooking 4200 Oystercatchers, 10200 Knot, 350 Redshank and 100 Turnstone. The Sparrowhawk was making off with one of the waders when a Peregrine swooped down on the Sparrowhawk and chased and swooped a bit more but the Sparrowhawk managed to escape with its dinner.

About a third of the Knot heading off

Loads of Wigeon at Red Nab - 285 - and 40 more on the saltmarsh. 14 Pale-bellied Brent at Red Nab (same birds as above).

51 Cormorants and the Shag roosting on the wooden jetty.

Imperial Rd (MD)

Just a quick in passing check

Little Egret 4

Song Thrush 2 singing

Redwing 1 in a bush by the road

Redwing

Thrush sp 6 small thrushes flying south

Nothing new, but a wealth of birds

A moderate SW wind mainly overcast with light showers

South shore - high water 09:40 (MD)

We are just moving back to spring tides, but high water today was only 8.6m and it only just covered the edges of the saltmarsh.

Today's high water at the saltmarsh 

So I was surprised at how many snipe were lifted by the tide

Common Snipe 108, absolute minimum. I counted this many lift, in several groups, and head towards Middleton Nature Reserve. Then c20 and c30 came in and landed on the marsh. I couldn't tell if they were returning or if they had arrived from elsewhere, so there was little point in continuing counting.

Common Snipe lifted by tide

Common Snipe coming in to land on the saltmarsh 

This is the smaller of the two flocks coming in to land.

Reed Bunting 1 on Saltmarsh 

Rock Pipits 4 - 1 on Red Nab and 3 between lighthouse and waterfall.

By the time I reached Red Nab it was largely covered. These Oystercatcher and Redshank were roosting on the sloping wall. I knew they were going to take flight as someone was approaching them with a phone camera. It's just to show the number of birds around Red Nab, it ends on a few of the Wigeon.

Shag 1 immature on wooden jetty

Kittiwake 9 (2 adult) on outflows and in the harbour

Pale-bellied Brent Goose 6 - on my return just a few rocks were exposed on Red Nab, but the Brent were already feeding.

Heysham skear - low water 16:40 (MD)

Pale-bellied Brent goose 10 (8+2 although all together, two birds were regularly shooded away). They were feeding in the SW skear corner, there is no weed growing there this year, but they were finding plenty of broken weed collected in the corner by the wind and the tide.

This clip starts with 3 Bar-Tailed Godwit, again, just to show the diversity of birds around.

Eider c80 - these are some of them

Red-breasted Merganser 2

Little Egret 1 feeding

Oystercatcher, Redshank, Turnstone and Curlew plus

Bar-Tailed Godwit 3

Knot c2,000

Dunlin 30

Dunlin - all but one on the up beat - there's always one!

These are Black-Headed gulls, Redshank and Dunlin

By the time I'd got back to the skear corner it was low water. There were now only 8 Brent. I don't know if they had been there all the while I was out. Either way a little later, they flew off north.

Pale-bellied Brent geese

Better variety today, plus an "Inland" Kittiwake

A day of two haves.....the strong overnight SW wind soon eased. Rain showers reduced in frequency and length as the morning wore on. The afternoon was sunny.

South shore mid morning (MD)

It was raining for much of the walk, but you could see the clear weather front approaching.

Clear weather approaching from the SW

Wigeon c200 Shelduck c50 on/around Red Nab

Reed Bunting 1 on saltmarsh 

Rock Pipit 3 - 1 each on foreshore, Red Nab and near lighthouse 

Knot c1,500 flew past the roundhead in two flocks

Shag 1 immature on wooden jetty

Kittiwake 9 - 2 first winter feeding on No.2 outflow. 2 adult and 7 first winter in the harbour, mainly on their pipe.

Adult Kittiwake with a white winged feral pigeon
- this bird can be frustrating when you only get a glimpse of it in flight

These Great Black-Backed gulls appear to be bonding, shame you can't hear them clearly with all the background noise.

Pete managed to read the Iceland ringed Oystercatcher on the Near Naze - White XE

Ringed as an adult male nesting 31/05/21 

Árn.,Selfoss,Svarfhólsvöllur (golf course), south ICELAND 63 94N 20 97W

Also seen breeding the following year in the same area 9/04/22 - 10/07/22

Now seen twice at the Heysham Near Naze 26/12/22 and 17/02/23

Also:

Mediterranean gull 1 adult in the harbour at lunchtime 

Middleton Nature Reserve (MD)

A very pleasant afternoon stroll in the sunshine! No Stonechat seen today.

The Pochard was back, plus 4 Gadwall, 2 Teal, 11 Mallard, 3 Coot and 4 Moorhen, plus the Mute Swan family.

Little Grebe 3 at least, including a trilling bird on the main and "no swimming" ponds. This bird was on the "no swimming" pond. It has caught what looks like an invertebrate. There were no gulls around today so it ate its meal where it surfaced.

Kittiwake 1 first winter bird resting on one of the shallow scrapes on the western marsh. This is about 1km inland from the harbour and at least 0.5km from the nearest reach of the highest tide.

I couldn't resit checking where I "released" the Smooth Newt yesterday. I decided there were two likely scenarios, one, she lay where I left her, having not made it. Or, two she wasn't there, meaning she had at least revived enough to move on. This is the stone where I left her.

When I got there, the stone was bare 😊

But, there was a third scenario. If you look closely at the top right hand corner of the stone, you can see a newt looking back at you. Not only had she revived but was now looking healthy and happy with her new environment.

This is just a detail from the above shot
I doubt she recognised me today.....I didn't have my mitts on