Canada Goose moult migration continues

A slightly warmer south wind freshened throughout the day. Dry till mid afternoon then showers.

Half-Moon Bay (Malcolm)

I escorted a school outing from the Cafe to the high cliffs at Heysham Head along the shoreline. The pile of wrack below the cafe was still providing easy pickings of Kelp fly maggots, but today it was mainly "feed yourself". These are male and female/immature House Sparrows.

Also seen feeding here

Rock Pipits 2 

Pied Wagtail 1 juvenile 

Juvenile Pied Wagtail 

Rock Pipit there were at least 5 along the foreshore below Heysham Head, possibly including the 2 feeding near the Cafe. This one looks fluffy, but they are difficult to age.

Canada Goose 73. First a flock of 59 flew north at 09:40.

At 10:30 this flock of 14 came in on the sea. They are not drifting in with the tide, the tide is going out. They are swimming in against the tide.

For information regarding these geese likely destinations see post 09/06/24

Heysham skear - low water 11:40 (Malcolm)

Just a vey brief check.

A flock of 14 Canada geese flew north from the skear as I was walking out, almost certainly the same 14 seen earlier on the sea.

Eider 3

Red-breasted Merganser 1

Great Crested Grebe 1

No egrets today, but I was there before the tide started making.

Oystercatcher 500

Curlew 6 were the only waders.

Curlew flying over the lush green centre of the middle skear (gutweed)

Herring Gulls 450 mainly immature, feeding on the seed mussels towards the western edge of the middle skear, although there are now seed mussels forming closer in, but not where the gutweed has a foothold. Interestingly, a few Lesser Black-Backed were feeding with them today. There is no reason why this source of food is not as beneficial to them as it is to the Herring gulls, but swallowing a small mussel whole won't be much different to swallowing a small pebble. Presumably tasteless, and requiring a leap of faith that they will sustain you. There are two Lesser Black-Backed with this feeding group.

Middleton Nature Reserve (Janet)

Grass Vaneer - Thanks to Jean for the Identification 

No Burnet seen on the wing here yet, but their cocoons are showing 

Pheasant, with just about enough feathers to fly away

Sanderlings still moving through

Another cool dry day with a lighter west wind.

These shots from Janet from the grassland walks to the west of the railway line that marks the eastern boundary of the recording area.

The Narrow-bordered five-spot Burnet are now emerging 

Large Skipper

Middleton Nature Reserve (Janet)

The Tufted Ducks were on the main pond

Male Gadwall

Moorhen

Grey Heron

Kestrel 

Young buck and a doe Roe Deer

The buck's spindly antlers with no forks show him to be a yearling
(One of last years fawns)

They quickly disappeared 

This Lesser Black-Backed gull "saw Janet off" as she passed Surefreight
on Middleton Rd. One of the 78 nesting pairs in the recording area (see post 10/06/24)

Heysham skear - low water 10:50 (Malcolm)

Eider 3

Red-breasted Merganser 3

Great Crested Grebe 1

Little Egret 8

Little Egret

Oystercatcher c800

Curlew 11

One of the distant Curlews, but this shot is really to show the extent of
gutweed on the middle skear now.

Knot 11

Knot

Sanderling 4 - two lots of two. This is the first pair, note the completely rufous face of the second bird.

Sanderling in full summer plumage

This is the second pair, neither quite so rufous.

This one catches three small shrimps in this clip. It swallows them so quickly you can hardly see it.

Sanderling with a shrimp

The tide brought them right up to me.

Swallow 1 north

It's all about feeding, and being fed.

Another dry day, the cool NW wind continues.

I popped down to Half Moon Bay at 09:30 to take some lugworms for a school trip to release (Malcolm). This pile of flotsam, mainly wrack, was in the corner just below the cafe. 

I noticed that several birds were feeding on it and easily finding Kelp Fly maggots. Unfortunately, I only had an old pocket camera with me, but it proved good enough. This first clip shows a female House Sparrow collecting maggots for her chicks. She collects six in less than 30 seconds before flying off. You can hear the school children in the background plus the groundwater waterfall that discharges onto the shore here.

In contrast, this Rock Pipit was just feeding itself. It eats five in this clip.

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Janet checked in the morning.

Grasshopper warbler 1 reeling from the western marsh

Common Whitethroat feeding newly fledged young

Adult Chiffchaff with food for a chick

The Coot are still not tolerating the Mallard

Watched over by the regular Grey Heron

Male Common Blue

I checked in the afternoon (Malcolm)

Wildfowl as yesterday.

Warblers: Cetti's, Willow, Common and Lesser Whitethroat, Chiffchaff and Reed. This adult Reed warbler was unhappy with me, I must have wandered too close to its nest/family.

These Hoverflies are Helophilius pendulus
 which, apparently translates to "dangling marsh lover" 

I thought (hoped) this Moorhen was going to cross the road, so I could ask "why did the hen cross the road.....". 

But it didn't, it clearly didn't want to get to the other side.

Lots of gulls, nesting and feeding

Just a few spots of rain during the day after heavy overnight showers. The NW wind freshened considerably in the afternoon. Despite sunny spells, it was cool for this time of year, it didn't make 15°C

This is part of Jean and Pete's nesting gull survey for this year.

On the rooves of the industrial units at Middleton Business Park there were 78 LBB nests, 16 HG nests and 1 GBB nest. 

Around the Heysham port area: 38 LBB nests, 32 HG nests, 2 GBB nests. 

On Ocean Edge reception building roof: 10 LBB nests, 3 HG nests and 1 GBB nest. 

So the overall totals were 126 Lesser Black-Backed gull nests, 51 Herring gull nests and 4 Great Black-Backed gull nests.

Heysham skear low water 09:20 (Malcolm)

Eider just 5

Red-breasted Merganser 3

Great Crested Grebe 2

Little Egret 3

Pete and Jean counted 1150 Oystercatcher roosting on the Heliport wall as part of their webs survey this weekend. Today something spooked the Oystercatcher on the north side of the skear, and they in turn lifted all the other Oystercatcher. I never saw what spooked them, but at least it allowed me to see all the waders at once allowing a better estimate of numbers than usual.

Oystercatcher c1,000

Curlew 8

Knot 1

The white line across this shot are Herring Gulls feeding on the narrow strip of seed mussels
near the western limit of the middle skear. It just shows how localised the seed mussels are this year.

This clip shows some of the gulls feeding. The dark surface in the foreground contains the seed mussels, the brown strip beyond is just broken shells and stones, then the first channel. The gulls beyond the channel are feeding on the outer skear, and judging by colour there are plenty of seed mussels there.

Herring gull 750 mainly immature (250 each feeding on middle and outer skear plus 250 resting on a sand bar.

Lesser Black-Backed gull 50 feeding mainly along the northern edge of the skear

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Yellow Shell moth seen by Janet this morning 

I just did a quick check of the main ponds this evening (Malcolm)

Mute Swan 1 - only the female still sitting on the nest. No sign of the male.

Shelduck 2 - a female was on the main pond then later two birds flew off to the east.

Shelduck 

Gadwall 1 male

Mallard 15 on the main pond, some looking like well grown chicks.

Coot 6 adult seen, the main pond birds were not happy with the influx of Mallard!

Moorhen 2 adult

Little Grebe 1 adult seen on the main and the "no swimming" ponds.

Warblers heard: Cetti's, Willow, Chiffchaff, Lesser and Common Whitethroat 

Kestrel 1 male hunting (we both managed to hold our heads perfectly still).

Male Large Skipper - first of the year

Interesting Canada goose migration data

A fresh NW wind, showers in the morning remaining overcast in the afternoon.

South shore (Malcolm)

Just a check from Red Nab to Saltmarsh at afternoon high water.

Wheatear 1 adult male along foreshore, not clear if is was late arriving or returning early.

Wheatear

Redshank 1 on saltmarsh, first seen for a few weeks.

Returning? Redshank

Middleton Nature Reserve (Malcolm)

Just a quick check of the two main ponds, mid afternoon 

Mute Swan female still sitting on nest. The male had moved to the main pond where he normally rests with his family at this time of year.

Male Mute Swan resting on the main pond

The Tufted Ducks were feeding.

Then time for a preen and a wing flap

In contrast the male Gadwall was a few feathers short of a good flap.

Mallard 8

Coot 2 on "no swimming" pond with 1 chick, these 2 on main pond with 4 chicks.

Moorhen 4 no chicks seen today

The "resident" Grey Heron was skulking about.

Jean provided this interesting map of the known Canada goose moult migration routes and destination.

Map showing the moult migration routes of Canada Geese in the UK. The ones seen at
Heysham appear to head mostly for Windermere but some go all the way to Beauly Firth. 

Chick feeding time

A freshening NW wind. Mainly sunny but still quite cool, it never reached 15°C.

Middleton Nature Reserve

Both myself (Malcolm) and Janet checked around lunchtime. There were only a few insects on the wing, and most of those were disturbed. Between us we managed.

Dragonflies:

Emperor 1

Broad-Bodied Chaser several

Four-Spotted chaser several

Black-Tailed Skimmer 3

Common Darter 1

Black-Tailed Skimmer

Butterflies:

Peacock 1

Speckled Wood 4

Orange Tip 1 female

Common Blue 1 female

Small Heath 1

Moths:

Silver Y several

Burnet Companion 3

Mute Swan female still sitting on nest, male seemingly becoming more detached

Shelduck on main pond

Tufted Ducks on "no swimming" pond

Mallard 13

Gadwall 1 male 

Coot 4 plus 1 chick.

Moorhen 3 plus 1 chick

Little Grebe 1 plus 2 chicks. First it was feeding.

Whatever it caught, it must have been tiny as it wasn't visible in its bill as it dashed over to feed a chick. Or, perhaps it had just been feeding itself and was keen to get back to its chicks.

Warblers, not many were singing, but eventually the following were heard.

Cetti's warbler, Reed warbler, Common Whitethroat, Lesser Whitethroat, Chiffchaff and Willow Warbler.

This Chiffchaff was singing both the regular notes plus a variation at a different pitch, sounding like an echo of itself. Its bill looks "pursed" when it was making the softer notes, a bit like a bad ventriloquist!

Young Blue Tit being fed
Other youngsters seen today included Common Whitethroat and Bullfinch 

An unusually plump, likely pregnant, Grey Squirrel