Kittiwake still moving through in numbers

A light east morning wind switched to NW in the afternoon. A dry day with some late sunshine.

Seawatch report by Pete:

0600-0930 (MP, JR, TW, PM). 

All about second day of late adult Kittiwake passage - are these high Arctic eg Svalbard-bound? Just half a dozen or so 2cy.  A bit murky for overlanding though:

Kittiwake - 312 in (85 largest flock), 92 out - not necessarily same based on flock sizes

Common scoter - 153 in, 40 out

Red throated diver - 5 in, 4 out

Sandwich tern - 16 in, c25 blogging 

Manx Shearwater - 3 plus 7 in - first of year for heysham and year tick

Gannet - just 2

Common Tern - one out

Arctic Skua - lm and dm together with another dm trailing 300m behind - in at c0910

One swift and about 5 swallow

Just a grey seal mammal wise

Also singing male whitethroat north harbour wall 

Common Whitethroat on Heysham Head - Tim Woodward 

Heyshan Skear - low water 14:40 (Malcolm)

Eider 127

Red-Breasted Merganser 4 - these three females are having, what can only be described as, "an exchange".

Great Crested Grebe 2

There were only Oystercatchers (500) as I was walking out, but eventually 6 wader species were seen.

Turnstone just one

Bar-Tailed Godwit 27 - 20 along the western edge of the skear plus 7 along the shoreline 

Knot 18 - 14 along the western edge of the skear, plus 4 along the north edge.

These are some of the Godwit and Knot along the western edge.

Ringed Plover 19 in single flock

Most of the Ringed Plover

Whimbrel 2

Whimbrel on sandbar just north of the skear

Middleton Nature Reserve (Malcolm)

Just a quick afternoon check on the way home.

Mute 1 nesting pair

Gadwall 3 male

Mallard 10 (1 female)

Coot 4

Moorhen 4

Little Grebe 2 on "no swimming" pond.

Singing warblers

Cetti's, Sedge, Reed, Willow, Common Whitethroat, Blackcap and Chiffchaff 

Pheasant 2 calling males

House Martin 8 stopped off briefly at the main pond, before continuing north.

House Martins

Butterflies:

Orange Tip several

Large White 2

Small White 1

Brimstone 2 - this short clip shows a male and female mating. They seldom rest with their wings open, so this is a nice opportunity to see just how pale the female's upper wings are, compared to the yellow of the male and her underwing.

Female and male Brimstone 

Silver Y - 10+

Common Blue, Azure Blue and Common Bluetail damselflies now abundant.

Four-Spotted Chaser 5

Four-spotted Chaser

Broad-bodied Chaser 1 each male and female.

Male Broad-bodied Chaser

Impressive seabird list

A light early east wind freshened during the day as it mover more to the north.

Seawatch report - Pete

0525-1130 with Mark Prestwood; in unless stated: 

Kittiwake - 147 in 15 flocks- many high flying and some could have been missed

Red throated Diver - perhaps the same three sp seen close inshore on three occasions

Arctic skua 1, 2, 1 then one got off sea and chased terns (2LM, 3 DM)

Sandwich tern at least 50

Arctic Tern - single and flock of 30

Little Tern - one

Black Tern - one 

Gannet - c35

Aythya spp prob Tufted distant flock of three

Common Scoter - just 40

Fulmar - 2 (first record since May 2022)

Little Gull - 1st summer

Bottle-nosed Dolphin - 4-5 chasing ?tuna

Middleton Nature Reserve (Janet)

Grasshopper warbler reeling in central marsh 

Lots of Silver Y

A bugs eye view of a Silver Y

Male Small White

Common Buzzard

Grey Heron

First Orchids flowering

Heysham Head (Edward Wilkinson)

Linnet

Goldfinch feeding newly fledged young

Greenfinch 

Wren

Common Whitethroat 

Lesser Whitethroat 

Little Egret

Eider

Not the same fresh faced fox photographed by Janet yesterday

Heysham skear - low water 13:40 (Malcolm)

Just a quick check, it doesn't take long on these neap tides.

Eider 109 - this female surrounded by 13 males, you can just about hear them calling.

Red-breasted Merganser 1

Great Crested Grebe 5

Little Egret 2

Oystercatcher 800

Bar-Tailed Godwit 12

Bar-Tailed Godwit

Knot - there were only 2 on the skear as I walked around. Then as the tide was coming in a flock of 44 arrived, gained hight and headed off to the NW.

Lesser Black-Backed gull with one of the original solitary Knot

Knot gaining height before flying off

Just a nice shot looking north from the skear.
Cormorant and Eider in the foreground with the South Lakes in the background.
Can't imagine why I like being out here!

That’s more like it!!!

The early light NE wind switched to SE later in the morning. A basically dry day with just the odd spot of rain.

Seawatch Report - Pete:

Heysham north wall Sea 0535-0800: in unless stated: 

1433 Common Scoter. I’m sure 30 mins earlier start would have added a lot more scoter as over 1000 were 0535-0555!

2 light morph Pomarine Skua

6 Arctic Skua (one out very close; 4 light morph,  2 dark morph)

70 Sandwich tern

8 Arctic tern

1  Little Tern

9 Gannet

1 summer plumage Red-throated diver

27 Kittiwake (3 flocks out)

26 Guillemot

14 razorbill/guillemot

flock of 3 drake Goosander

29 swallow

3 house Martin 

2 Mute swan in

Spotted flycatcher came in off and landed on railing before quickly heading in over the road. 

Most of the scoter before 0600 and only two distant flocks seen coming out.  

In addition three very distant outbound probable skuas together with the rear one looking smaller but too far for any id

Heysham Head

I just did a quick check of the wooded area to see if there were any more Spotted Flycatcher (Malcolm).

Plenty of flies but the only things seen catching them were....

Swift 15 minimum, two constantly feeding over the wood kept chasing any newcomers away.

Jay 1

Some shots of the regulars from Janet:

Dunnock

Goldfinch 

Male Linnet

Fox - taking it easy

Heysham skear - low water 12:20 (Malcolm)

Eider 84

Red-breasted Merganser 3

Great Crested Grebe 5

Little Egret 3

Peregrine Falcon 1

Oystercatcher 300

Curlew 1

Knot 1500

Turnstone 6

Bar-Tailed Godwit 42 - there were 41 resting on the skear, none showing signs of breeding plumage.

A solitary bird in at least partial breeding plumage was feeding with the Oystercatchers. Here an Oystercatcher finds a small crab, but can't find a suitable spot to eat it. It was still carrying it around over a minute later.

Short, but reasonably sweet.

It rained all day till mid afternoon. A light SE breeze.

It wasn't the weather but other commitments today that prevented me getting out till 19:30 (Malcolm). The ebbing tide was just beginning to expose the rocks of the inner skear so I'd planned to check there, and it proved worthwhile.

Eider 51

Common Scoter 3

This clip shows some of the Eider, the 3 smaller ducks at the end of the clip are Common Scoter.

Great Crested Grebe 6 - these two are reaffirming their bond.

Sandwich Tern 3 north together.

Sandwich Terns against the low evening light

Little Egret 3

Little Egret, similarly silhouetted 

Swift 1 north

Oystercatcher 150

Knot 280

Turnstone 9

Sanderling 88 - there was a flock of 77 already on the rocks as I arrived. Most making no attempt to feed, just preening and resting. This is only c200m from the sea wall, you can hear laughter from the promenade.

After a while they started grouping together and were clearly getting ready to move on.

Sanderling

I had expected them to land on some of the newly exposed skear, but they just continued north. A little later another flock of 11 flew past me and also continued north.

Plenty of.........Mallard!

A fresher SE wind. Some weak sunshine in the morning then showers from early evening.

Heysham skear, low water 10:20 (Malcolm)

Eider 67

Red-breasted Merganser 4

Great Crested Grebe 6

Little Egret 2

We have quickly moved back to neap tides and it didn't fully expose the middle skear today. It should have produced a higher concentration of waders, if there had been a higher number of waders to concentrate. There wasn't!

Oystercatcher 350

Knot 220

Dunlin 1

Middleton Nature Reserve (Janet)

Mallard

Moorhen in the bushes 

Silver Y

South shore (Malcolm)

Just a quick look from saltmarsh to Red Nab towards high water,  just as the rain was starting.

Knot 13 - 6 on saltmarsh, 7 on Red Nab

Bar-Tailed Godwit 92 - 77 on saltmarsh, 15 on Red Nab.

Bar-Tailed Godwit and Knot coming in to the saltmarsh 

Godwits and Knot resting by the saltmarsh 

Some of the Knot and Godwits with Oystercatchers on Red Nab

And finally, another Mallard! Slightly unusually on Red Nab. It was raining quite hard now, and he had just climbed out of the freshwater runoff. But he quickly slewed off the excess water.

First day of the Poms

The light SE breeze freshened during the day. Not as much sunshine, but still warm. The predicted thunderstorms began at 18:00, but didn't last long.

Seawatch report by Pete:

1 light morph Pomarine Skua

2 dark morph Arctic Skua on sea 0535hr. The skuas were floating out of the bay when picked up - the two Arctic together and the Pom about 100-150m further in.  Whilst watching the Pom, the two Arctic’s flew over it causing it also to lift off whence it took the lead climbing quite steeply into the sky with all three lost at height when I had to shift the car to try and see.

Also: 

inbound flock of 14 Sandwich Tern - a single purposeful flock of 14 flying in -  no bloggers at all 

1 Canada goose

22 C Scoter

2 Guillemot

19 swallow 

8 Whimbrel

Heysham skear - low water 09:30 (Malcolm)

Eider 63

Common Scoter 1 male initially just drifting on the sea, but began feeding when the tide started making.

Male Common Scoter

Red-breasted Merganser 2

Great Crested Grebe 2

Little Egret 6

Number wise there were very few waders on the middle skear, but more variety than of late.

Oystercatcher 300 (more on the outer skear)

Knot just 1 initially on the skear (more on this later).

The solitary middle skear Knot

Dunlin 2, with....

Ringed Plover 12. 

Turnstone 9 - Their behaviour was different today. They normally freeze in silence when you get close, or fly off calling. But today they froze and made contact calls, clearly unhappy that I was there.

Sanderling 3 - there were two feeding near a Turnstone. This clip begins with the leading Sanderling then a larger wader appears, I knew the original two were of a similar size so, I panned back and the second bird was still there. By size, my first thought was that the third bird was a Knot, but it was another Sanderling, just larger.

They clearly weren't in association and the larger bird disappeared just as quickly as it appeared.

Sanderling 

Knot (continued). I only saw the single Knot on the skear until the tide was moving me off. Then a flock of c2000 was flying above me. I assumed (and still do) that they had been moved off the outer skear. As I watched them two more flocks totalling c700 were very high above them. These dropped down and they all milled around a while before c700 landed on the skear and the rest headed off to the south. It looks as though those that landed were newly arriving birds, as all they did was rest and preen.

Heysham Nature Reserve 

Ringing report by Alan.

Four mist nets set at Heysham NR this morning from 05.45 onwards produced a particularly unremarkable catch.  There was plenty of song from birds presumably on, or setting up, territories but few birds moving around.  

Robin  1 + 1 retrap

Song Thrush  1

Whitethroat  1

Chiffchaff  1

Willow Warbler  1

Long-tailed Tit   1 + 1 retrap

Blue Tit  1 + 1 retrap

Bullfinch  1

Middleton Nature Reserve 

This nice shot by Janet

Common Blue Damselflies 

These nice mobile phone shots of the northern lights (aurora borealis) on Friday, taken by Garry Byrne, from within the recording area at 23:30.