A nice Stonechat surprise

A dry day but clouding over by evening, light rain began 20:00.

Heysham skear (Malcolm) 11:30 - 13:00

Eider 13

Red-breasted Merganser 1 male

Little Egret 1

Swallow 2 in/off

The only waders were 300 Oystercatcher 

Gulls at least 600 on and around the skear with more further out to sea. One new ringed Lesser Black-Backed was seen

Just read it before it was moved on from its perch.
Ringed as a nestling at Bowland 05/07/23. This is its first sighting 

I started a little earlier in the tide today and many gulls were still arriving from inland. Presumably from along the river Lune, as they will need to know the stage of the tide.

A Grey Seal has caught quite a large Flounder. Its messy feeding technique attracting many gulls.

Middleton Nature Reserve (Janet)

Five Greylag geese flying over the southern section of the reserve

Heron and Mute Swans, the cygnets hidden by the foliage 

Coot taking time out to preen

Robin below the feeders

Common Blue

Imperial Rd (Malcolm)

A very pleasant 30 minutes look around this evening. The wooden gate at the roundabout end has been removed, in just 25m from where the gate had been:

Cetti's warbler 1

Chiffchaff 1

Sedge Warbler 1

The above three singing.

Common Whitethroat taking large items of food to the nest.

Cranefly 

Caterpillar 

Stonechat 1 male feeding. They have bred previously in the recoding area, but not known for many years. I didn't see this one carrying food, but I will check again.

Stonechat

Ready for a change in the weather!

Overcast for much of the morning, but the sun broke through this afternoon. A light variable breeze.

Heysham skear (Malcolm). 10:30 - 12:00

Eider 6 including a pair with 3 chicks.

Eider with chicks, once again swimming in against the ebbing tide.
There is no way of knowing if this is the remains of the family seen
on Monday, or a different family.

Red-breasted Merganser pair

Little Egret 1

Great White Egret 3 heading high to the north.

Great White Egret

Swallow 1 in/off

Oystercatcher 300 and Turnstone 5 were the only waders.

The five Turnstone were together, but you can only see two here

Gulls c600 mainly Herring. No ringed birds seen. This seemed strange, a young Herring gull has a mussel that is too large to swallow whole and a bit small to easily break by dropping. Turns out that there were seed mussels attached to it. The clip pans out to show just a fraction of today's feeding gulls.

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Janet checked this morning 

The main pond Mallard has managed to keep hold of her two remaining 
chicks. They are growing quickly.

Great Tit

Blue Tit, both on the bottom car park feeder

Burnet Companion 

Marsh Orchid sp

I checked this evening (Malcolm)

Mute Swan pair plus 8 cygnet 

Shelduck 1 over to the west

Mallard 9 on the main pond, the female with the 2 chicks not seen. 3 on the fence pond one with eight chicks (more on this later)

Gadwall 1 female dabbling on the fence pond.

Coot 5

Moorhen 2

Little Grebe 2 feeding together on the main pond.

Grey heron 1 

Pheasant 1 calling

The only warblers singing were

Cetti's warbler 4

Chiffchaff 2

Reed warbler 1 (albeit half hearted)

This clip of a Kestrel hovering has a Reed warbler chugging away in the background.

Insects

Four-spotted Chaser several 

Black-Tailed Skimmer 1 female and 3 males

Female Black-Tailed Skimmer

Male Black-Tailed Skimmer 

The only butterflies seen were a Red Admiral and a Small Tortoiseshell 

These are the three Mallard on the fence pond. You may choose not to watch this clip. The politest description would be "tough love". The male involved is not even the female's partner, he is the one quacking pathetically in protest. Or perhaps he is just a hopeful (not just hopeless!) partner 

Another dry day forecast for tomorrow then well needed rain and strong south westerlies forecast for a while.

Puffin in

Another dry sunny day. Calm at times when the breeze blew it was a westerly.

Seawatch report - Pete

Early am Seawatch cut short but 2 Puffin the reward - both inbound.  

4 guillemot

46 common scoter

1 sandwich tern

5 sanderling

Heysham skear (Malcolm) 09:15 - 11:00

Some days on the skear it feels like you could be there all day and not see anything. Today was one of those days.

Eider 8

Little Egret 3

Grey Heron 1

Swallow 2 north

Oystercatcher 500

Curlew 1

Curlew

Whimbrel 1

Bar-Tailed Godwit 4 north

Gulls c600 but no ringed birds seen

A small Hermit crab was looking for deeper water as the tide ebbed.

This Hermit crab is just the right size for this periwinkle shell, the larger
of its two claws acts as a door. The growths on the shell are barnacles.
The crab is in little risk of predation, but it doesn't want to be left high and dry
in the hot sun. I returned it to a pool that would keep it safe until the tide returns.

Middleton Nature Reserve (Janet)

Two Greylag geese were on the main pond, but so were the Mute Swan family. The male Swan wasn't going to tolerate the geese.

Enough was enough!

Broad-bodied Chasers ovipositoring 

Four-spotted Chaser

More Kittiwakes through

Another warm sunny day. The light breeze was from SE early on switching to NW later.

Heysham skear (Malcolm) 08:30 - 10:00

Timed to coincide with the skear becoming exposed by the ebbing tide.

Eider 11

Little Egret 5

Grey Heron 1

Grey Heron

Oystercatcher 500, but more were arriving all the time.

Curlew 2

Curlew

Bar-Tailed Godwit 3

Bar-Tailed Godwit

And that was it for waders. There was hardly any breeze and the tide was ebbing very slowly (we're back to neap tides now). The water around the skear was gin clear. But the absence of Redshank and Knot has emboldened the shrimps and other invertebrates, you can see several milling around in this clip. It is these easy pickings that hold the late moving small waders. Sanderlings in particular sometimes feed here in large numbers over the next few weeks. This water is only 2cm deep. 

Gulls - c600 feeding on the seed mussels, mainly Herring Gulls with a few Lesser Black-Backed.

Kittiwake 25 heading north, again they were only c300m from the promenade.

24 adult and 1 2nd calendar year

You can just about hear them in this clip.

South shore (Kevin)

several newly emerged Six-spot Burnet moths on the wall near the lighthouse scrub.

A long first trek!

It looked like rain several times today, but it stayed dry. Sunny spells. A light variable breeze.

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

Eider 23 including a pair with 18-19 very young chicks. Possibly their first outing. 

They arrived from the south swimming against the still ebbing tide.
Nesting has been suspected somewhere around the north harbour wall.

Mum took them to a shallow island to the north of the skear, this would
be an ideal place for the chicks to find food. The presence of chicks attracted 
other females, which wasn't unwelcome.

But the females attracted the males who were definitely not welcomed 

So Mum moved them on again.

But now they were being followed

They headed for the mud bank, the other females helping shepherd the flock.

This area of shore is relatively sterile and would not provide feeding opportunities for adult and chicks alike, and most of the Eider decided not to follow.

They eventually saw of the last persistent male

Alone again, but they will have to find somewhere quiet to feed.
Hopefully not spotted by a Great Black-Backed gull......good luck!

Little Egret 3

Oystercatcher less than 500 seen

Curlew 2

Whimbrel at least 1 calling

Ringed Plover 5 (3 + 2)

3 Ringed Plover

Gulls - again only c500 seen and most were on the sea beyond the skear. This clip begins on a pair of Eider, watch the gulls on the right towards the end of the clip. One arrives with a newly broken open mussel, meanwhile others tug at gutweed to expose the seed mussels on it.

I couldn't resist another look this evening 19:15 - 21:00 (Malcolm)

About 500 gulls, I just managed to glimpse 1 ring but was unable to read it.

Not unusual to see Eider amongst the gulls

It is unusual to see Mallard amongst the gulls!

Turnstone 3

Turnstone

Sanderling 3 zipped past to the north

Sanderling 

It was a very pleasant evening