Coot numbers approaching critical mass

A dry day with some sunshine. A light SE wind

This is a shot taken by Howard earlier this week of waders lifting off the Sunnyslopes 
groyne. Count estimate is 638 Knot excluding Dunlin.
This is interesting on two counts, first it allows an easier estimate of Knot numbers
in a flock. i.e. multiples of this size flock equals multiples of 600+.
 Howard has circled  the marked Knot in this flock. 7, that represents 1%, and that
 tends to be the approximate number of marked Knot in many flocks.
 Although some flocks have barely any.

Middleton Nature Reserve (Malcolm)

Just a passing check of the two main ponds.

Nothing seen on the "no swimming" pond.

Main pond

Mute Swan pair plus 1 immature 

Mallard 18

Gadwall 35

Tufted Duck 5

Moorhen 2

Coot 13 - every one seemed to be either chasing another or being chased!

Imperial Rd (Malcolm)

A quick look this afternoon 

Teal 3

Moorhen 2

Fox

These two Herring gulls were paddling, this normally attracts worms to the surface. They were definitely catching plenty of invertebrates, but it isn't clear exactly what, although you can see one worm being swallowed.

Herring gulls, one with a strand of grass 

It is nice seeing Herring gulls feeding naturally, unlike many of their urban counterparts. This is a familiar scene, very nicely depicted in a new mural in Morecambe.

Eerily calm

The threatened rain never really materialised, but the clouds hung low all day coupled with mist this morning. Almost no air movement.

First, some lovely shots taken by Howard at the Heliport yesterday.

Lapwing 

Curlew 

North shore (Malcolm)

Pale-bellied Brent goose - at least 16 were feeding between the skear and play area this morning. 35 came in from the south side this evening.

Eider none seen in the morning but 103 were close in this evening plus others in the distance 

Some of the Brent landing this morning 

Brent geese, Eider, oystercatcher and Redshank this evening 

Great Crested grebe 3 this evening 

In the morning c3,000 Knot were moved off the skear by the rising tide and worked their way along the shore.

Some of the Knot and Oystercatcher with a flat sea and the beginning of
Heysham Head behind. Behind that is obscured by mist

Viewing conditions were difficult in the murk, but it was surprising that I only managed to locate eight flagged birds. There would have almost certainly have been more, but I doubt I missed many.

It always looks strange with a flat sea and no horizon 

No sign of any Peregrines this morning until most Knot had already left to the south. It did find a flock of 700 Knot that had settled on the Sandylands groyne. These too then headed south.

I hadn't planned to go back this evening as it was almost dark, but I was pleased that I did. It was eerily still and quiet. Bizarrely, I could hear the roars from the football stadium, and even more bizarrely, Morecambe scored! (Twice actually, but I only heard the roars from for the first goal).

I managed lo locate a small feeding group of 250 Knot in the twilight, and contrary to this morning there were three flagged birds amongst them and one was a new bird for this winter.

Just out of the recording area Sandylands (Malcolm)

Stonechat 2 female type. One slightly paler bird was on the southern section south of the groyne.

Stonechat on the Promenade railings, that is the Sunnyslopes groyne behind

Southern section Stonechat 

This one was at the northern end where the houses begin.
It is stood on the sea defences in this shot.

It's always worth a walk along the promenade here, as well as the Stonechats there were 2 Reed Buntings, a Pied Wagtail, Robin and Dunnock. Plus a healthy population of House Sparrows and Starlings, plus of course, the sea and shore beyond.

Not easy, being a Knot!

A dry day with some sunny spells. A fresher, but less cold SE wind.

South shore (Janet)

Pale-bellied Brent goose 35 on Red Nab

Some of the Brent coming in to land

Shelduck

Wigeon, Redshank and a Grey Plover

Grey Plover

Curlew and Oystercatcher on the saltmarsh 

Moorhen by the pond along the dog walk path

Rabbit hiding amongst the foreshore rocks

Rock Pipit by the foreshore slipway - Kevin

Heliport area (Howard)

Knot and Oystercatcher on the Heliport wall

Unfortunately another, over zealous, photographer spooked the Knot by approaching too close. Please respect the roosting birds here. In winter they need to be either feeding or resting to conserve energy. Wasting energy can result in failing to keep warm enough overnight, or failing to avoid the next Peregrine attack, both result in death!

Fortunately, Howard still managed to read some of the flagged birds.

Heysham skear (Malcolm)

A check on the rising tide this morning saw.

Pale-bellied Brent Geese 22 

Pink-Footed goose 33 to SE

Pink-Footed geese in the low morning sun

Eider 124

Red-breasted Merganser 2

2,000 Knot were lifted off the outer skear by the rising tide. As soon as they were up they were attacked by a pair of Peregrines and all disappeared to the south. Another 500 Knot had been on the middle skear, these remained but were understandably flighty. 

A second check this evening again saw the Knot attacked by a Peregrine Falcon. It lifted 2,000 birds that then headed north.

This evening's Peregrine was the one with a dislocated talon

Dunlin 40 seen morning and evening.

Bar-Tailed Godwit 1 this evening.

Other waders as recent

One of three Great Crested grebes this evening 

All 35 Brent geese returned to feed around the skear

Otters still around

Another dry but overcast day. A light east breeze.

Middleton Nature Reserve (Linda Renshaw)

Several Otter spraints were found on the west side of the main pond. The freshest, at the pond edge contained rodent bones, but some further from the bank contained shells, possibly signal Crayfish. There were no record of any spraints last year, this was blamed on the sudden drop in the Crayfish population. The Otters have probably returned at this time to catch the frogs and toads as they turn up to breed.

Barn Owl was seen patrolling on two occasions.

North shore 

Howard checked the heliport wall and Near Naze.

Knot c3,500 mainly on the Heliport sloping wall

they took to the air briefly to move more central on the outerwall

There were a few flagged birds, but the vast majority of legs were not visible.

This ringed Oystercatcher (left) has been with us all winter.
Ringed at Iceland in 2021

Janet checked from the shore later in the ebbing tide. Many of the Knot were now resting on the mud. 

There are two orange flagged birds in this shot. One facing away so just
the shaft visible. The other illegible at this range.

Redshank

Pale-bellied Brent goose 34 flew into the corner of Half Moon Bay, where the Cafe is.

Still no sign of the Canadian ringed birds on this side of the Bay.

They don't eat the wrack, just the fine green gutweed on the rocks.

Heysham skear (Malcolm)

I went down early evening as the tide was uncovering the skear.

Eider 172

Red-breasted Merganser 4

About 1,500 Knot arrived to feed, but spread thinly around the edges. No Peregrine disturbance, presumably they had already eaten. Several flagged birds were seen and at least one new one for this winter.

One or two are already showing hints of their fine red summer plumage.

Oystercatcher, Curlew and Knot

The light was fading quickly, but the sun's rays were still illuminating 
the Lakeland hills

Just out of the recording area, horse paddock behind Middleton Parish Hall.

Green Sandpiper - Pete

Turf wars hotting up!

Another overcast but dry day. The NE wind reduced to a breeze (still cold, but easier to keep out)

South shore (Malcolm)

A walk out to the waterline from Ocean Edge this morning on the rising tide, once again resulted in almost no feeding waders.

Oystercatcher 30 along the waterline 

Curlew 67 on waterline and flying south

And that was it for the waterline, looking further south saw only a small group of Dunlin

Higher up the shore

Ringed Plover 6

Ringed Plover

Grey Plover 3

Redshank 81

Dunlin 4

Redshank and Dunlin

Common Snipe 3 lifted off the saltmarsh and resettled not far away. This was long before the tide reached the marsh. Presumably avoiding a predator (Weasels have been seen here)

Pink Footed goose 320 north in two noisy skeins. This is the largest skein

Pale-bellied Brent goose 34 on Red Nab (40 arrived at the north shore this afternoon)

There was no one along the sea wall today (I didn't disturb them as I kept my distance). As yesterday the Brent took the opportunity to feed close to the sea wall. This large rock is only a few metres from the wall, and the Brent were clearly finding longer strands of gutweed here. Although you would wonder if they were using more energy repelling rivals than they were gaining from the weed.

There were 32 Brent feeding here, 2 more were keeping themselves to themselves on the southern edge of the skear. Eventually the 32 had enough and set off to the south, but they spotted the other 2, did a U turn and landed to see what they were feeding on.

And so the turf wars resumed 

Pale-bellied Brent geese, Oystercatcher, Redshank and Turnstone 

Shelduck 49

Wigeon 180

Rock Pipit 1

Rock Pipit

North shore (Malcolm)

I went down this afternoon as the skear was becoming exposed.

40 Pale-bellied Brent geed arrived from the south in two lots, 32 and 8.

Eider 169

Red-breasted Mergansers 4

Great Crested Grebe 3

Little Egret 1

Oystercatcher, Redshank, Curlew, Dunlin, Turnstone and Ringed Plover all present in similar numbers to yesterday.

Knot 2,000 arrived together as the skear was exposed, and were immediately attacked by a Peregrine Falcon.

Peregrine Falcon and the blur is the disappearing Knot

This attack was unsuccessful, and the Knot disappeared to the west, followed by the Peregrine. Fortunately small groups of Knot returned to the skear, eventually totalling 1,000. At least two new flagged birds were seen.........then another, this time successful Peregrine attack.

Then another Peregrine arrived and seemed to expect the kill to be handed over.

Handing over prey in flight is a regular Peregrine manoeuvre that I have seen many times (between paired birds and parents and juveniles), but that isn't what happens here. The prey was dropped onto the beach after that it isn't clear what's going on, other than one of them picks it up with the apparent blessing of the other.

Needless to say the remaining Knot were long gone by this time.

Impressive Blue Tit

Overcast but dry. A cold NE wind.

Heysham Nature Reserve

Jean did a bit of ringing on Saturday resulting in this interesting report:

On Saturday 8 Feb a short ringing session at Heysham Nature Reserve saw 19 birds of 9 species caught:

5 Blue Tits

4 Goldfinch

2 Chaffinch, 2 Greenfinch, 2 Robins

1 each of Blackbird, Long-tailed Tit, Dunnock and Great Tit

All typical birds using the feeders.

Most (66%) were adults and most (63%) were retraps. as is usual at this time of year. 

The oldest bird was a Blue Tit which was first ringed as a juv in 2018 at Middleton Nature Reserve, so almost 7 years old. Pretty ancient for Blue Tits as most only live for 2-3 years. 

The oldest Blue Tit so far in the UK was 12 years old according to the latest information on the BTO website. An AI generated report on Google said there was a Blue Tit aged 21 years and this was repeated on some websites but the original source of this data couldn't be found so I wonder if the 12 years was mistyped at some point?  It shows you have to check your sources if numbers are involved.

Saturday's aged Blue Tit looking nice and healthy!

Janet took some shots on the reserve today.

Is this the 7 year old? No way of knowing. Only mist netting and checking
any previously ringed birds can hope to keep track of the resident birds.

Robin

South shore

I had a walk along the foreshore and Red Nab towards high water (Malcolm)

Red Nab was almost covered but the ducks and geese were feeding close to the sea wall, when no one was passing. This is the first time for over a week that the tide has reached this far, perhaps the closer in gutweed has had a chance to grow slightly.

Pale-bellied Brent geese 25

Shelduck 42

Wigeon 150

The ducks and geese moving away from the sea wall as someone 
walked along it

But they quickly returned. The Brent geese normally fly south much earlier in the
tide than this. Perhaps their next feeding area is also getting low on suitable food.

Janet checked later, the tide had gone, and so had the birds!

The last two Shelduck waddling off

This was on the saltmarsh. A Sea Potato (Common Heart Urchin)
Not rare, as its name suggests, but quite rarely seen here.

Heysham skear (Malcolm)

I went down as the tide was exposing the skear

Pale-bellied Brent goose 20+

Some of the Brent geese arriving

Eider 117 including a high proportion of 2nd calendar year males.

Mature male Eider trying to attract a couple of females

Immature male Eider with a female

Red-breasted Merganser 4. Seems it was a day for courtship.

Oystercatcher 2,500

Curlew 55

42 Curlew just north of Sunnyslopes groyne 

Redshank 250

Turnstone 59 arrived in two flocks from the south

Dunlin 30

Ringed Plover just 1 seen

Knot 2,000 arrived from the south, but there were two Peregrines waiting for them. They didn't get a chance to settle and were last seen heading off to NW. A Peregrine is high above this flock, but gains more height to stoop. This flock headed off before the Peregrine stooped, it didn't try to follow them but circled above waiting for another flock.

One of the Peregrines is the one with a dislocated talon.

This Black-Headed gull must have found a desirable titbit. All the larger gulls were trying to get it to drop whatever it was. To the gull's credit it evaded all challenges and eventually left to eat its prize elsewhere, although that was over a minute after the end of this clip, I'm sure it could have escaped earlier if it had really wanted too. It appeared to enjoy the chase!