Evening update

No heron returning at or after dusk this evening. Suitable compensation however in the form if two garganey whizzing about between the central marsh ponds and even responding to iPhone playback by circling over our heads!

More indeterminate birding!

Heysham Obs
A visit to Middleton this morning saw a silent compact medium-sized heron spp with "no" foot projection fly out of the willow/reedbed area and head low to the south over the sewage works.  This happened about 0615hrs so there was no chance of any plumage details, but it was light enough to see the structure of the bird except for the head and bill end.  I'll be back there this evening to see what happens at dusk...................    Not a good two days for clinching potentially decent records!


Middleton pre-dawn-1000hrs
Not quite what was expected with no Grey Wagtail movement at all until the sun and breeze started to affect the nets, but there was a very early pronounced Meadow Pipit (and to a lesser extent alba Wagtail) passage.   Autumn moves on a notch and this feeling was enhanced by Skylarks and Pink-footed Geese on the move.  If this is a sign the Grey Wagtail passage is finally tailing off, it has been an excellent autumn with 126 ringed and the chance of a handful more.   There was a small arrival of night migrants, notably Phylloscs, but also including some Goldcrests which managed to avoid the nets.


Vis mig
Meadow Pipit - 463 SE
Grey Wagtail - just 10 SE, all after 0745hrs (the first two were ringed)
alba Wagtail - 45 SE
Reed Bunting - 11 SE
Goldfinch - 23 S
Chaffinch - 7 S
Skylark - 5 E
Pink-footed Goose - 9+59 SE
Jay - 2 together high to south
Jackdaw - flock of 6 south
Tree Sparrow - singleton south
Swallow - about 5 ex-roost and then the first sighting was two south at about 1000hrs!!

North Harbour wall vis 1020-1050
Swallow 11
Meadow Pipit 44
Grey Wagtail 1

Grounded at Middleton NR
Goldcrest - c5
Song Thrush - two together flew high inland at dawn
Willow Warbler - 2 ringed
Chiffchaff - 6 ringed and one off-passage retrap
Robin - 3 ringed
Dunnock - 3 ringed, presumed migrants
Blackcap - just the one ringed
No obvious presence of any other warbler spp in what were quiet and calm conditions

Grounded at North Harbour wall
Robin 4
Linnet 4

Miscellany
See above re-heron
Water Rail - at least one
Gadwall - at least 4
Tufted Duck - male model boat pond

Insects
Painted Lady at North Harbour wall

An unsatisfactory day

Heysham Obs
None more so than the Redstart/Black Redstart which was seen disappearing into the storage area next to the Twite feeding area,  Thanks to Andrew for a diligent search

Middleton NR
No ringing possible this morning with a Common Whitethroat the only notable record during unsuccessful Clouded Yellow searching

Heysham NR
Grey Wagtail - at least 14 SE (9 ringed, including flock of 6, but effort disrupted by human activity)
Treecreeper - 1
No vis mig coverage & no grounded migrants with most of yesterdays Chiffchaff departed

North Harbour Wall
Wheatear - 2
Shag - juv on sea. then wooden jetty
see above
Sample vis mig 0915-1015
Meadow Pipit - 76 SE
alba Wagtail - 21 SE
Grey Wagtail - 4 SE, including flock of 3
No hirundines!

Moths & butterflies
Nothing of interest in moth trap
High single figures of Red Admiral sooth in pm

Weather disrupted morning

Heysham Obs

An unexpected wind gusting to 15mph followed by some rain soon put paid to any mist-netting attempts but not until after a flock of 4 Grey Wagtails was ringed.

Middleton vismig   Dawn to 0800hrs
Rock Pipit 1 south
Meadow Pipit 90 SE
Reed Bunting 3
Swallow 2
alba wagtail 6

Heysham Nature Reserve
Blackcap 3
Chiffchaff 15
No Goldcrest
Green Woodpecker - 1 below the classroom.

North Harbour Wall 0915-0945
Grounded:
Wheatear - 1
Meadow Pipit - 1
alba wagtail - 1
Linnet - 2
Robin - 3
Dunnock - 2
Vis:
Grey Wagtail - 1
Meadow Pipit - 3
alba wagtail - 4
Swallow - 1

More Grey Wagtail, a good variety of late common warblers, but dearth of Meadow Pipit

Heysham Obs
100 up for Grey Wagtail colour ringing this autumn (111 to date) - courtesy of an unbelievable run of suitable ringing weather - 15 more ringed this morning, covering two sites.  Do please check any Grey Wagtail you see.  Incidentally, we have ringed about 800 birds this month so far with only a handful being Swallows as the roost broke up very early this year.  A major feature has been the lack of re-captures as birds quickly moved through.  Perhaps most surprising, given the off-passage blackberry offerings, has been the complete lack of Blackcap re-captures out of record numbers ringed


Heysham & Middleton dawn to mid morning
Night migrants
Chiffchaff - 8 ringed
Willow Warbler - one ringed
Sedge Warbler - one ringed, the first seen for a few days
Reed Warbler - three ringed 'out of habitat'
Whitethroat - one ringed - the first for a bit
Goldcrest - just one ringed
Blackcap - 5 ringed
Robin - 6 ringed
Lesser Whitethroat - one seen Middleton


Vis mig
Meadow Pipit - very poor, despite fairly clear conditions, with just 76 SE
Grey Wagtail - c22 SE (15 ringed)
Swallow - just 11 seen heading SE
Alba Wagtail - 27 SE
Flava Wagtail - one, sounding like flavissima, SE
Reed Bunting - 10 SE
Linnet - 2 SE
Rook - adult SE (unusual)
Collared Dove - two together heading south (presumed to be on the move!)

Red Nab incoming tide
A huge dread revealed nothing untoward flying over
Med Gull - 5 adults (couldn't see any 1CY)
Little Gull - ad
Sandwich Tern - 6 at least
Little Egret - 2

Varied vis compensates for lack of night migrants

Heysham Obs
Never found high uniform cloud at dawn up to much for 'dropping' night migrants here and ringing at Middleton combined with a bit of more coastal bush searching confirmed this.  The vis mig, however, was a bit better with the first Pinks for here and two nice corvid records.


Middleton NR dawn to 11ish
Vis
Pink-footed Goose - 15+71 S
Meadow Pipit - 415 SE
Grey Wagtail - 22 SE (only 9 ringed due to unhelpful light breeze on net)
alba Wagtail - a bit better with 40SE
Tree Pipit - 2 SE
Chaffinch - 5 SE
Jay - flock of three high and purposeful to the south
Raven - flock of 5 very high and purposeful to the north
Kestrel - two together south
Swallow - c50 SE
House Martin - heard once
Reed Bunting - 6 SE


Grounded
Lesser Whitethroat - one ringed
Blackcap - 5 ringed
Chiffchaff - two ringed, the only ones seen/heard
Goldcrest - c5


Red Nab/Nature park area
WillowWarbler - 2
Goldcrest - 5
Chiffchaff - 2


Outfalls at low tide
Little Gull - adult
Med Gull - 3 adult
Red Nab high tide
Sandwich Tern - 9

Similar weather, different species to the fore

Heysham Obs
This weather is great - just missing a scarce or two.  This morning saw another still slightly hazy session with the sun covered up the majority of the time by low cloud to the east.  A much better cross-bay corridor today with Grey Wagtail and Meadow Pipit soon on the move, but the big difference vis-wise this morning was the number of Swallows.  Had to cut the session short today and missed some Grey Wagtail!


Middleton dawn to 1000hrs
Grey Wagtail - 20 SE (7 ringed - the last four birds flew over after the net taken down and three missed due to extracting retrap Blue Tits!)
Meadow Pipit - at least 268 SE - some missed whilst at on mist net rounds
Swallow -  180 SE (as above)
House Martin - 6 SE
Jay - one high and purposefully SE
Reed Bunting - 3 unringed birds caught perhaps the sum total this morning
Tree Pipit - just one SE
alba Wagtail - just 11 SE - not got going here yet
Dunnock - see below - appeared from NW with heavy Meadow Pipit passage - not the first time this has been recorded here


Grounded
Willow Warbler - surprising and a sign of north European origin? - 5 ringed and at least another three seen/heard.  Only seen odd ones/day recently
Chiffchaff - 4 ringed
Robin - a lot of ticking early on and 4 ringed
Reed Warbler - single juv ringed
Blackcap - 4 ringed
Dunnock - its that time of year - three presumed migrants landed and were caught and ringed
Lesser Whitethroat - one ringed at nearby Heysham NR on 2/9 was caught and showed a weight loss (10.3g as opposed to 11.3g).  Seemed healthy enough


Heysham NR
Whitethroat - one retrap - first caught as moulting adult on 7/8.  Odd it is still hanging about.
Grey Wagtail - 2 out of just three recorded ringed
Two each of unringed Dunnock and Robin plus single unringed Chiffchaff
Ocean Edge foreshore area
Whinchat - 1
Stonechat - one male


Red Nab
Rock Pipit - 1 (IOA)

Another hour in bed?

Heysham Obs
GREY WAGTAILS. 
We have colour-ringed 78 Grey Wagtail so far this autumn, mostly in the last fortnight.  Please do keep an eye out for these.  The left leg is a single colour and metal and it is important to note in which order these two rings are.  The right leg has a unique combination of two colours and again it is important to note which order these are in.  Part-reads will be very useful, especially right leg, and you may be fortunate enough to find a combination which only applies (as yet) to one bird!  If any ringers want to know how to catch these, please get in touch.  We usually catch around 50% of the vis mig birds passing over, more on cloudy still mornings, less on sunny ones with a very slight breeze.  Meadow Pipit 'triangles' don't work - just provide more perches for the birds!


Middleton NR
The routine this week has been to set a net for Grey Wagtail passage by 0600hrs, along with various other mist nets to hopefully ring night migrants, Reed Buntings and Meadow Pipits.  By 0630 hours, not a lot going on!   Then looked out west and there was a wall of murk which undoubtedly nullified the power station's greatest environmental asset - a landmark providing a concentrated flight-line of cross-bay vis mig (go over to e.g. Foulney/Walney too see why this happens).  These conditions also seem to slow down the inland trickle of coastal landfall by night migrants.  Things started to liven up around 0730 with quite a pulse of Meadow Pipit, but Grey Wagtails remained thin on the ground with just 4/10 ringed in (by then) sunny conditions.  More Reed Bunting on the move this morning than so far this autumn but the main 'feature' was the complete dearth of any hirundine passage with TWO Swallows in 3.5hrs!!


Vis mig 0600-0930
Meadow Pipit - 322
Grey Wagtail - 10
Linnet - 3 SE
Cormorant - high flock of 4 SE
Tree Pipit - 1 SE
Reed Bunting - 11 SE
Grey Heron - one high to south
alba Wagtail - just 7 SE
Swallow - TWO SE - unbelievably low numbers over here this last couple of days
Sparrowhawk - male high to south
Raven - one north
Common Buzzard - one circling SE (not very common here & usually migrants)


Grounded
Night migrants ringed comprised:  2 Lesser Whitethroat, 5 Blackcap, 3 Chiffchaff (& at least three others), one Willow Warbler, 3 Robin, 2 Goldcrest i.e. not particularly dramatic.  In addition, a Reed Warbler was seen/heard

Middleton Nature reserve this afternoon

Raven just outside our area near the Lune estuary and Overton.

Full moon fall!

Heysham Obs
Another session at Middleton this morning and it was very good, if a little puzzling.  It was as clear as a bell first thing yet, for example, there were five un-ringed Blackcap in a mist net well before dawn.  We have caught nearly 50 Blackcap at Middleton this week without a single re-trap.  Indeed, despite ringing for the last four mornings, the number of re-traps has been really low with, for example, just a Wren (and local nestbox Great Tit bearing a B ring) out of 60 odd birds this morning!  


Sorry about the lack of proper migration postings the last two days - home computer playing up.


Middleton dawn to mid morning  
Vis mig (couldn't concentrate on this the whole time)
Meadow Pipit - c270 SE
Grey Wagtail - 13 SE (8 ringed, a high ratio on a sunny morning)
Tree Pipit - 1 SE
Grey Heron - one high to east
Jackdaw - flock of 4 S
alba Wagtail - 14 SE
Chaffinch - 3 S
Jay - 2+1 west
Swallow- only 2+1+14 SE!!!   No perceived ex-roost birds, implying there wasn't one!
Reed Bunting - just one, passage seems to have 'dried up'
Common Buzzard - one soaring around might just have been a local wanderer


Grounded migrants Middleton
Blackcap - 8 ringed
Chiffchaff - 5 ringed, plus at least 4 others
Lesser Whitethroat - single ringed
Robin - fewer than yesterday with just 3 ringed
Goldcrest - good number for here (HNR usually much better) with 8 ringed and at least 5 additional birds
Willow Warbler, Whitethroat, any acros - negative


Butterfly
Clouded Yellow Middleton bottle dump area

8th and 9th September

8th September

Red Nab
At least 82 Sandwich Terns
Little Egret - 1
Mediterranean Gull - 13 x 1CY
Grey Wagtail - 1 south
Robin - 1 grounded

Middleton nr
Good numbers of grounded warblers, especially blackcap  and robin with on the other hand less vis mig than of late. Details tomorrow

9th September
Middleton saw fairly good vis mig including two tree pipit, c120 meadow pipit and 16 grey wagtail  more detail tomorrow