The forecasted "light" rain surpassed itself!

The early morning light rain had become torrential by late morning. It cleared in the afternoon and the sun shone briefly. The initial SE wind shifted to a SW breeze by late afternoon 

Heysham skear - Malcolm 14:45 - 16:00

Pale-bellied Brent goose 48 minimum 

Some of the Brent geese flying to the skear, possibly spooked from the 
play area rocks

Others chose to walk

There was no rush, they all just rested along the skear edge

Eider pair

Red-breasted Merganser 2 pair

A slightly different mix of wader numbers

Oystercatcher 1000

Curlew 15

Redshank 150 

Turnstone 40

Dunlin 20

Ringed Plover 12

Knot 150 initially scattered around in small groups, but many ended up resting together along the northern edge. Three flagged birds were seen, unfortunately one was totally unreadable, a yellow and an orange flagged bird, both seen earlier this winter in the recording area, although the orange flag was its first winter sighting on the skear.

Ringed in Iceland last year

Ringed at Merseyside in 2024 - so much easier seeing flags when the sun shines!

Curlew, Oystercatcher and Knot

Four of the Ringed Plover

Plenty of waders

Freezing overnight followed by a bright sunny day with a variable breeze.

South shore - Malcolm 09:00 - 11:00

There were a lot of waders, but the mud was frozen so they couldn't feed on the flood tide. Even on the ebb they were very flighty and every passing light aircraft lifted them. These are minimum numbers.

Curlew 40

Bar-Tailed Godwit 300

Oystercatcher 80

Grey Plover 60

Knot 2000

Dunlin 1000

Ringed Plover 8

Godwits dropping to the shore with the snow dusted hills behind 

Bar-Tailed Godwit and Knot

Dunlin, Knot, Grey Plover and Bar-Tailed Godwit 

Dunlin and Grey Plover

Grey Plover

Dunlin, Knot and Grey Plover

A bit of everything!

North shore 

Pale-Bellied Brent goose 63 out from the play area early on - David Kaye

I checked the skear - Malcolm 13:00 - 15:00

Pale-Bellied Brent goose 24 minimum - these will have been some of David's. These are arguing over the scant supply of gutweed. It hardly seems enough to justify the effort of collecting it!

Cormorant with Brent Geese in the background 

Eider 20

Red-breasted Merganser 3

Great Crested Grebe 2

Knot 1750 although 750 of them flew south as I was walking out.

The crab population is taking a hit!

Rose Maciewicz has suggested that these small bivalves they are feeding 

on are likely to be Baltic Tallin (often referred to as macoma)

It's getting colder!

Light rain for most of the morning, but a dry afternoon ending in sunshine. Quite a fresh NE wind.

Pete had a look around this morning:

3 pair shoveler Middleton main pond and 3 Reed bunting on feeder.  

No pink footed or greylag geese in any of fields or saltmarsh oxcliffe/heaton/heysham moss and therefore no whitefront 

Heysham skear - Malcolm 13:00 - 14:30

The NE wind was bitter, there was fresh snow on the Lakeland hills

It looked to be quite deep snow to the north

Less deep closer to home

Pale-bellied Brent goose 24 - 2 to the west of the skear and 22 in the middle of the skear, but I suspect these had been flushed from the play area rocks.

Some of the Brent in the middle of the skear, there is precious little
for them to eat here

Brent out from the skear

Eider 1 pair

The Knot were quite interesting, their feeding habits are becoming more diverse. Initially there were just 50 feeding on the mud shore to the south of the skear. Fortunately these included one flagged bird, although it has been a "regular" here this winter.

It has one of the small bivalves that they were probing the mud for

Then another 250 arrived and also began feeding on the mud. Unfortunately none of these were flagged.

Some of the Knot electing to feed on the mud. At least it is easy to check
them for flags when the mud is flat like this

Although they were primarily searching for bivalves, there were other items on the menu. This one finds a tiny crab, bivalves can't be shared, but a crab can, potentially eight ways! It dashes off to eat it in isolation, but it was a vain hope!

This one managed to have its crab and eat it!

I also saw several Knot swallowing filaments of gutweed. This is always available in the quantities that they eat, but they don't always eat it. Presumably, it is required as a supplement for some diets.

Knot eating gutweed

Not all the Knot were feeding on the mud, there were another 200 scattered around the skear. Not so easy to check for flags there, but I did manage to spot two new ones for this winter. 

Dunlin 60

Dunlin

This Bar-Tailed Godwit was on the south shore on Wednesday, we have just received 
its updated History, it's a veteran! Ringed on Schiermonnikoog Island north Netherlands
In 2001. The last report for one of the others ringed at the same time was  in 2009!
It was also seen at Heysham last January.

Goose, goosed?

Some sunny periods this morning, a light NE to E wind

South shore - Malcolm 09:00 - 09:30

It was ideal conditions compared to the last couple of days, for me at least. Apparently not ideal for the waders, there were none on the shore apart from a scattering of Oystercatcher and Curlew.

Pink-Footed goose 1 resting on the saltmarsh 

Pink-Footed goose

Often when just one is close in like this it has been shot and unable to fly.
But this one's feathers were intact, presumably it was just exhausted 

Shelduck 24 on Red Nab

Rock Pipit 1 along foreshore 

These were also along the foreshore, I've not seen them here before. I had to
look the leaves up. It is Italian Lords-and-Ladies. I am familiar with our common
Lords-and-Ladies (Cuckoo-pint). Apparently there is a sub species of the "Italian"
version that is found in the UK, but more probably it originated as a cultivated
plant. Garden waste from the caravans is often spread here.

Heysham skear - Malcolm 09:50 - 11:00

The skear was just uncovering. This shot is actually from the promenade at Rydal Rd. 

Some of the 55 Eider

Just a single Wigeon again

Just one Little Egret too

There were 500 Knot, the terrain high up the shore is difficult for spotting flagged birds, but eventually I was satisfied that I had seen all there was to see, just one! An orange flag over a pale blue ring again, possibly the same one that I saw on the south side yesterday.

This one definitely ringed in Wales, at Ynyslas Point, Dyfi Estuary in 2024

Just out of the recording area - Heysham Moss Nature Reserve - Janet

Buzzard, possibly one of those regularly seen at Imperial Rd

Woodcock flew east from the central area of the Moss

More Shoveler, plus time for reflection

Heavy rain in the morning eased slightly in the afternoon. A light east to NE breeze

155 species were seen in the Heysham recording area last year, this is a relatively low total historically, but at least it included two new species for the recording area:

Caspian gull

Foster’s tern 

No Pomarine Skua or Twite 

No Black Redstart or Snow Bunting actually in the area 

We are up to 72 species this year - slightly more than at this stage last year.

Middleton Nature Reserve main pond - Kevin Eaves

4 male, 3 female Shoveler on the main pond, so an additional female

Little Grebe 1

South shore - Malcolm 14:15 - 15:45

I was hoping to check the shore out from the saltmarsh this morning, but it was raining too heavily. I had a look this afternoon, there were plenty of waders, but the tide was out and they were spread over a huge expanse of shore.

Bar-Tailed Godwit 150

Knot 2000 within the recording area at least another 2000 further south

Dunlin 250

Oystercatcher 100

Curlew 8

Shelduck 65

Bar-Tailed Godwit, Knot and Dunlin

Watch this Godwit go well out of its way to move another on!

I don't take loads of videos, and select the ones of interest. Wildlife is just interesting!

Some of the Godwits already moving to summer plumage 

With the birds being so spread out it was difficult getting close to more than a few at a time, even so I did spot a couple of flagged birds, but the dark skies and rain made it almost impossible to read any. This central bird has an orange flag over a pale blue ring, which means that it is likely to have been ringed in Wales, but no chance of reading the code. There is also a yellow flagged Knot in the background.

This is the yellow flagged Knot. Part of an Icelandic scheme

A Peregrine Falcon eventually cleared the shore and all the waders headed south.

Bar-Tailed Godwit

Grey Wagtail to the south of the saltmarsh