A new Med was as good as it got

A light ESE breeze, the sun continues to shine.

Heysham skear - low water 09:50

Canada Goose 13 north 09:40. Flight line was inland to the east of Heysham Rd, seen before I set off.

No Eider or Mergansers

Great Crested Grebe 1

Oystercatcher c60

Curlew 42

The mussels have completely reclaimed the skear this year, although storms can change things quickly.

Mussel beds as far as the eye can see

The exceptions being Honeycomb worm reefs flanking both the south and north sides, but the north side ones are largest.

The finger of lighter brown beyond the mussels are some of the north side Honeycomb worm reefs

South shore - high water 15:20 (MD)

Rock Pipits 4 near lighthouse, 1 taking food to the nest hole another stood above the hole and the other two feeding together and not chased off, even though they seem to be adults.

Linnet 3 near lighthouse 

Meadow Brown 1 in scrub near the lighthouse - 1st record this year

Meadow Brown, the fuzzy area at the bottom is the edge of the sea wall.

Second summer Common Gull between the outflows 

Red Nab:

Grey Heron 1

Little Egret 1

Oystercatcher c100

Curlew 1

Black-Headed Gull c60

Mediterranean gull 1 first summer, not the same first summer as seen last week

First summer Mediterranean Gull

Flying, resting and finally, swimming.

Saltmarsh:

Black-Headed gull c50

Lapwing 1 (returned?) 

Lapwing 

BHG numbers growing quickly

The east wind shifted more to SE during the day. Sunny after an overcast start.

South shore

I had a walk along the sea wall on the early rising tide mid morning (MD)

Black-Headed Gull c200 - there were 160 on No.1 outflow and the beach between the outflows.

No Mediterranean Gulls seen today

Common Gull 5

First Summer Common Gull

Common Gull and Black-Headed Gull

The Herring Gulls nesting on the Harbour platform have at least 2 chicks

The Rock Pipits continue to confuse. There were four near the lighthouse, all appeared to be adult. One was taking food to the nest hole. A fifth bird was display calling from the platform near the waterfall.

Red Admiral 1 just behind Red Nab.

This Song Thrush was collecting food in the Nature Park 

Kevin Eaves had a check for insects. 

Six-spot Burnet were emerging from pupae attached to the wall.

Six-spot Burnet moth

Also these two from yesterday:

Red-and-Black Froghopper

Peppered moth

One of the many Four-spotted Chasers on Middleton Nature Reserve today
Picture by Janet

Jay on Heysham Nature Reserve car park fence

Heysham skear (MD)

A pleasant evening stroll as the tide exposed the skear.

Red-breasted Merganser 4 - 2 pairs

Great Crested Grebe 1

Oystercatcher c100

Curlew 28

Whimbrel 2 together

No small waders again today

Sanderlingless day

The sun didn't break through the clouds till early afternoon, then remained sunny. A light east wind.

Heysham skear (MD)

Again, two quick checks today, one in the morning as the skear was being covered and again in the afternoon as it became exposed again.

Eider 2 female. One alone, the other with at least 8 small chicks. They weren't easy to count as even at this stage they are diving for food.

No sign of the young family in the afternoon 

Red-breasted Merganser pair

Red-breasted Merganser pair

Great Crested Grebe 1

Litter Egret 3

There are still lots of Herring Gulls around (the original seed mussels are now much to large for them, but there are newer ones to be had), and a few Lesser Black-Backed, but there were also many more Black-Headed Gulls today, than of late. At least 40.

Oystercatcher <100

Curlew 8

Today's title sounds like an obscure festival created by greeting card manufacturers, but is just a statements on the lack of any sightings or reports of Sanderling today........Happy Sanderlingless

Someone was busy overnight, rock balancing. I took these shots to display them, but also to show the stage of the skear when I went out this morning.

Rock balancer's art, with the skear behind. This was 09:00
The arrow points to the location of the smaller stack in the picture below

Amazingly they all had avoided being toppled by 10:00 and this and 
the right hand one above were still standing at 18:00

Red Nab 1hr before high water (MD)

There were quite a lot of Black Headed Gulls here too c40

Herring and Lesser Black-Backed gulls 4 each

Common Gull 2 x 1st summer

Mediterranean Gull 1 adult.

Mediterranean Gull under the wing of a Black-Headed Gull

Little Egret 2

Grey Heron 1

Grey Heron

Oystercatcher c50

Curlew 2

Ringed Plover 1

Ringed Plover

Last night's high water of 9.4m was the highest of this set of spring tides and should have filled the "pool" near the sea wall, but the high atmospheric pressure and offshore breeze obviously held it back.

Red Nab "pool" near the sea wall. The tides will not be high enough to reach here again
till early July, so barring heavy rain it will remain an empty pool!

Alison Hayward has kindly provided a detailed account and some photographs of the insects seen along the south sea wall, when she and Kevin Eaves checked on 29th May:

Lots of different groups represented 

Large number of Rove beetles all seemed to be one of the Philonthus species.

2-Spot, 7-Spot, 11-Spot and 14 Spot Ladybirds all present. 

4 Red Headed Cardinal Beetles and one Scarlet Lilly Beetle. 

Several Stitona Lineatus weevils, and Alder Leaf Beetles also present and one each of Altica sp., Oulema duftschmidi/melanopus agg (Cereal Leaf Beetle), Harpalus sp. and Amara sp.

Similar to yesterday

A light variable breeze, mainly east in the morning and evening but west during the day. The sunshine continues.

Heysham skear (MD)

Two quick checks again, one in the morning as the tide covered the skear and again in the evening as it became exposed again.

Grey Seal 1

Great Crested Grebe 3

Red-breasted Merganser pair

Eider 1 female

Little Egret 6

Grey Heron 1

Oystercatcher <100

Curlew 7

Whimbrel 2 (morning only)

Dunlin flying flock of 6 (evening only)

Sanderling none seen in the morning, 23 (7, 11, 4 and 1) in the evening and I expect there were more, we are back to spring tides now and the skear is exposed so quickly it is not possible to check it all as it becomes exposed. These are some of the group of 11, one finds a small invertebrate.

The solitary bird was just resting on a rock. I had to pass close by, but managed not to disturb it.

Sanderling 

Almost out of the recording area.....this from Janet.

There was a load of Narrow-bordered Five-Spot Burnet all emerging at the same time, on the footpath that goes down to the railway line near the Moss at the back of the large estate.

Narrow-bordered five-spot Burnet

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

I went to see if there were any Black Darters around yet, it is a bit early still, but it has been warm. No darters seen but the warm weather has already dried up much of the surface water, just a few small, shallow pools remain.

Four-Spotted chasers everywhere 39 counted in a relatively small area.

Emperor 3

Large Red Damselflies several, many ovipositoring

Azure Blue Damselflies ditto - these are some of them ovipositoring. They look like they are rehearsing assembling a pantomime Loch Ness Monster.

Butterflies all large!

Large Heath 1

Large White 3

Large Skipper 5

A sprinkling of waders

 As yesterday the NE breezed switched to NW mid morning. The sunshine continues 

Heysham skear 

low water 06:45 (MD)

I watched the tide cover the skear again.

Greylag goose 2 SE

No grebes or Eider seen

Red-breasted Merganser pair

Little Egret 6

Grey Heron 1

Cormorant a couple fishing and a flock of 5 south.

Cormorants 

There wasn't a lot of waders, but a reasonable variety for this time of year

Oystercatcher <100

Curlew 2

Whimbrel 1

Turnstone 1

Dunlin 2

Sanderling 1 - same area and similar plumage to yesterday's bird.

Sanderling 

Ebbing tide mid-afternoon 

Another quick check, as the skear was being exposed, located 13 further Sanderling, a flock of 10 flew in from the south, quickly settled and fell asleep. And were still where they landed when I left

Eight of the ten sleeping Sanderlings, presumably they had flown some distance 

Another three were feeding together. These are two of them.

Curlew 16

Eider 1 female

Great Crested Grebe 1

Red-breasted Merganser pair

Janet took these shots on Middleton Nature Reserve 

Moorhen

Common Whitethroat 

Quite a worn Holly Blue

Large Skipper

Shield Bug

Burnet Companion moth

Silver-ground Carpet moth

And this one on the north end of Moneyclose Lane

Cinnabar moth

Meanwhile, Kevin Eaves caught some nice photogenic nocturnal moths in his trap.

Peach Blossom

Pebble Hook-tip