Nice Goosander surprise

Early morning and evening showers, but dry in between. A light east breeze early on freshening throughout the day.

Heysham Nature Reserve 

Report by Pete:

Not much migration wise with just three blackcap of note in the nets operated by Jean  

plus the Marsh Tit recaptured again and long eared owl disturbed just before dawn.  

New birds in the nets:

Blackcap 3

Goldcrest 2

Blackbird 1

Blue tit  2

Dunnock 1

Greenfinch 8

Chaffinch 6

Goldfinch 5

Wren 3

Brambling heard flying over, about 20 woodpigeon south but only 6 redwing seen and single figures of grounded blackbird 

No little gull or kittiwake on long range check from OE in good light eg shag identifiable on jetty 

At the same time there were Juvenile Shags on wooden jetty and north of the area feeding off the Morecambe town hall. 

Middleton Nature Reserve 

I had a quick look at the main pond mid morning (Malcolm)

Tufted Duck 6

Gadwall 6

Little Grebe 1

Tufted Duck

Little Grebe

Later Janet took this clip of a Roe Deer on the southern section 

Imperial Rd (Malcolm)

A quick passing check

Water Rail one making contact calls

Cetti's warbler 1 singing

Common Snipe 1

Kestrel 1

Heysham skear (Malcolm 11:00 - 13:15)

Very low neap tides at the moment and very little of the skear was exposed.

Shag at least 2 juveniles fishing

Juvenile Shag

Goosander 10 in one raft as I was leaving, I didn't see where they came from

Ten Goosander, one here is unusual enough!

Jackdaw, also unusual here, I can't recall seeing one before

Oystercatcher, Curlew and Turnstone in similar numbers to recent.

A partially leucistic  and a typical Oystercatcher 

Knot 1750 - 2000 they were lifted twice by raptor attacks, probably a Peregrine, but it did look small, possibly a Merlin. Either way it left the Knot nervous and flighty. Not so many flagged birds seen today.

Some of today's Knot

Little Gull lingers

Short and relatively infrequent showers throughout the day. A SW wind.

South shore (Kevin Eaves)

1st calendar year Little Gull

Adult Kittiwake, both on No.2 outfall

Ist calendar year Shag near the wooden jetty

Heysham skear (Malcolm) 09:00 - 11:30

Nothing on the sea except for at least one juvenile Shag

Juvenile Shag, possibly the same as Kevin's bird

Little Egret 3

Waders pretty much as recent except 

Sanderling 1

Knot 1200

Sanderling amongst the Knot. It must have quickly moved on. I was distracted by
the orange flagged Knot, and when I looked for the Sanderling again there was
no sign of it

There were a decent number of flagged Knot seen, but they weren't all so easy to read.

Sometimes you have to wait for a wave trough to reveal the flag

I also had to wait out a couple of showers, but it was well worth the wait.
Over ten new flagged birds were seen, many seen here in previous years
showing site fidelity.

Little Gull blown in

Overnight rain then a surprisingly dry day with a fresh west - SW wind.

Heysham skear (Malcolm) 09:00 - 10:00

Shelduck 5 heading south against the wind.

Shelduck 

No Eider, Mergansers or grebes seen

Little Egret 4

Shag at least 1 juvenile 

First calendar year Shag

Oystercatcher 800 (probably not really any more than of late but there was very little of the skear exposed today and they were more concentrated.

Curlew 30

Redshank 50

Knot just 100 scattered around today, but there was one new flagged bird.

Turnstone 30

Sanderling 1 flew south across the skear

South shore

I walked along the sea wall this afternoon towards high water (Malcolm)

Little Gull 1 first calendar year on No.2 outfall. It wasn't there when I walked out, but was on my return.

Very awkward looking into the afternoon sun

But I ended up with some reasonable shots. It was still there 30 minutes
later when Pete and Jean were scanning for wind blown stuff.

Shag 1 juvenile on the wooden jetty.

First calendar year Shag

Cormorant flying to the wooden jetty

Shelduck 1 south 25 around Red Nab

Wigeon 80 at Red Nab

Good day for ringed waders

An opposite day to yesterday. The rain stopped over night and the west wind eased. Leaving a fine, largely sunny day.

Heysham skear (Malcolm) 08:45 - 11:15

Pink Footed goose 320 south in one skein

Pink-Footed geese

Eider just 1 male. No Mergansers seen.

Great Crested Grebe 1

Little Egret 6

Jackdaw 1 east - it makes you wonder how many of the Crows that pass over are on the move.

Oystercatcher 300 including one ringed bird

Ringed as a chick in 2016 at Glen Clova, Angus, Scotland 
Thanks to Richard for sorting this one out

Curlew 30

Bar-Tailed Godwit 1

Redshank 80

Turnstone 40

Knot 2,000+ eventually. Initially there were only 250 resting, mainly in the water

Some of the early Knot

But more kept arriving throughout the morning, each only a smallish flock, but eventually there were over 2000. They were still favouring the water, but viewing conditions today were ideal with the sun behind me and I managed to read a good number of coded birds from three different schemes.

Ringed at the Wadden sea Holland

A UK scheme, this one ringed at Merseyside 

Same UK scheme, but the yellow ring denotes ringed in Scotland 

Ringed in Iceland

The incoming tide eventually flushed them all.

Middleton Nature Reserve (Janet)

Water Rail 1 squealing

Robin

Tufted Ducks and Mallard

The female Mute Swan giving the cygnets high level flying experience.
Definitely a hint!

Common Darter

Thwarted by the weather!

Unfortunately the rain forecast to start at 10:00 began at 08:30, and continued all day. A freshening west wind ended up strong by evening.

Heysham skear (Malcolm) 08:15 - 09:30

Pale-Bellied Brent goose 4 - they were feeding on sea lettuce and gutweed that the overnight tide had deposited on the shore above the SE skear corner

That's the children's play area in the background. You can see that some of
the rocks in front of it are green with the gutweed growing on them.

Eider 2 males

Little Egret 6

Oystercatcher 500

Curlew 10

Redshank 30

Turnstone 20

Knot 1400

The larger of two Knot flocks

Unfortunately by that time the rain had already started so checking for colour coded birds with limited optics was very difficult. I did manage to spot one.

One of a Dutch ringing scheme, we have seen it before. Ringed at the Wadden Sea
Holland in 2019. It was last seen at Heysham in January this year. Hopefully,
it has been seen somewhere else since then.

And that was it! A quick check of Imperial Rd on the way home saw nothing of note. 

Another stop off at the main pond on Middleton Nature Reserve also saw nothing new.

Tufted Duck 6

Gadwall 6

Mallard not counted

Gadwall and Tufted Duck

Tufted Duck and a bathing gull

The Mallard thought I was going to feed them and headed towards me.

Coot and a Cormorant