Rain affected play

It was generally fair till about 09:30 (Alan was unlucky getting a shower at Middleton) after that the rain started and never really stopped. Wind from the west.

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Ringing report from Alan:

A ringing session this morning was interrupted by a fairly heavy rain shower between 06.40 and about 07.30, during which time the nets were were closed to avoid catching birds in the wet conditions. After Monday's poor catch of 3 juvenile Robins, one juvenile Willow Warbler, a retrapped Chiffchaff and one unringed Grasshopper Warbler, this morning was only a little better.

Sedge Warbler - 1 juv +1 retrap

Reed Warbler - 2 + 2 retraps

Reed Bunting - 1 adult + 1 juvenile

Dunnock - 1 juvenile

It would seem that either the warbler species have yet to fledge their young in any numbers or it has been a poor breeding season. Hopefully things will improve and dispersing young will be trapped in good numbers in the next few weeks.

I checked Ocean Edge towards high water (MD). I was a bit late and the tide had already covered the mud. The only "records" were:

Pied Wagtail family of 6 on the saltmarsh.

The Sea Slaters, at least, were grateful for the rain, the rocks were covered in them!

Nothing else for today so filling in with a few pictures that didn't make the cut yesterday. These were on Middleton Nature Reserve.

Male Four-spotted Chaser

Male Black-tailed Skimmer

Female Emperor ovipositoring 

Female Common Blue

This Large Skipper was Ocean Edge foreshore 
The hooks on its antennae can be seen.

Kevin took this shot of a Small Skipper on Heysham Nature Reserve 

Hopefully more topical news tomorrow.

Like a kid in a sweet shop - plus a word of caution

Fresh westerly breezes, mainly sunny.

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Grasshopper warbler 1 unringed male was part of yesterday's ringing capture.

Cetti's warbler 1 male singing from "no swimming" pond this morning

Dragonflies around main pond comprised:

Emperor

Broad-bodied Chaser

Four-spotted Chaser

Black-tailed Skimmer.

A nice selection of shots from Janet:

Broad-bodied Chaser

A worn and faded Green-veined White

Small Heath - also worn

Silver Y moth - at least this looks fresh

Male Reed Bunting, also looking fresh....
well, at least he looks like he's just had a bath.

Ocean Edge - high water 09:40 (MD)

Lapwing, the flock of returned birds has now swollen to three

Lapwings with an Oystercatcher 

Black-headed gull c110 resting on the last patch of uncovered mud c300m past the saltmarsh. But this juvenile was having none of it.

Juvenile Black-headed gull

This is where "like a kid in a sweet shop" comes in (do we still have sweet shops?). We are moving to spring tides, it will have been over a week since the tide last reached the rocky outcrop just south of the saltmarsh, and it was flushing out Sea Slaters. Sea Slaters are like wood lice on steroids, not just bigger but much faster. But not fast enough to escape this young gull, it catches three in this clip, the last one actually runs through the gulls legs before meeting its fate!

Nutmeged by a sea slater, but I think this gull has potential!

Heysham skear - low water 16:50

I actually went down early (14:30) to see the birds before they moved on to the outer skear, but the tide was ebbing quickly and the outer skear was exposed before I got to the middle skear. Even so the mix of birds was the same, hundreds of large gulls, mainly Herring, plus Oystercatchers and c30 Curlew.

Great Crested Grebe 6 (2 pair plus 2 individual birds)

Little grebe 4

Eider 1 - quite a striking male in eclipse 

Male Eider in eclipse, with an equally striking backdrop 

This is just a clip of the Eider when it took to the water.

This is the word of caution - it is becoming increasingly difficult walking on the skear, the old honeycomb worm beds, always weak, have now lost their structure under the mussel beds. It's like walking over rhubarb crumble half a metre deep. The top is crunchy but you just sink through it. Plus half a metre is only because I pick my path carefully, there are areas where the crumble is over a metre deep. It's not dangerous as such, but it makes walking slow and hard work and very few places where you can actually stop without sinking down. I wouldn't want to be walking off with the tide coming in quickly.

This is towards the end of the middle skear, where the sea is claiming back the beds.
The top of this bed is the level of the surface beyond, this is over half a metre above 
the pool I'm standing in, the pool is half a metre deep and the skear bottom another
half metre below that. You can see the tide action is peeling back the mussel carpet.
I suspect the next storm is going to change things radically.

If you are going out to the skear, go when the tide is ebbing and stick to the skeer edges which tend to have less sediment build up.

A change of diet

Quite a fresh breeze between NEN and NE. Overcast, but dry all day.

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Just a quick look around the main pond mid morning. 

Cetti's warbler - male singing from "no swimming" pond

House Martin 3 feeding low over the main pond

Heysham skear - low water 15:50

It was unusually quiet today, as the bulk of the gulls and Oystercatchers were on the outer skear, which hasn't been exposed for over a week.

Curlew c20 were the only other waders.

Great Crested Grebe 3

Eider 3 - female/immature 

Little Egret 4 - this is what today's title refers to. They have been catching shrimps and common gobies in the shallows, but today it was young flatfish. This one caught c10 as I watched, the elongated body suggests Dover Sole. Young Dover Sole have always been common in the bay, but adult fish are quite rare, although they seem to be more regular in recent years.

Even so, it is unusual for them to be in such shallow water when the water is clear (it's clear as this was on the south side with the wind coming from the north). Presumably the labyrinth created by the honeycomb worm reefs delayed them leaving to deeper water with the quickly ebbing tide.

Kevin sent me this nice shot of a Bee Orchid a few days ago. I know I posted one from Jeff yesterday, but they are an attractive flower, and won't be in bloom for much longer.

Bee Orchid Heysham Nature Reserve
A walk around the central plateau should locate one.

A bit of a mixed bag

The light wind mainly from NE till late afternoon then started shift towards the west. Some long sunny spells, but cloudy by evening.

First an update from yesterday - (Report and pictures from Jeff Gorse)

Heysham Nature Reserve

Five-spot burnet and Burnet Companion moths. Small and Large skipper and Common blue butterflies on the wing.

Narrow-bordered Five -spot Burnet moth

Burnet companion

Common Blue

Male Small Skipper - (first record this year MD)

Bee and spotted orchids amongst the flower species.

Bee Orchid

A walk to the harbour past the power station - at least one and possibly two grey seal showing at the mouth of the outflow channels

Grey Seal

Rock Pipits three foraging 

Rock Pipit

Back to today - this report from Pete Crooks:

Red Nab – Heysham Harbour (8.10 – 9.30 am)

1 2nd CY Mediterranean Gull roosting with 52 Black-headed Gull (including 1 juvenile) on Red Nab at high tide.

Also 2 female Eider and 112 Curlew on Red Nab

12 Cormorant roosting on the Wooden Pier

2 Rock Pipit (including ringed bird) around Harbour mouth

2 Grey Seal off the outfalls

I went down to the lighthouse area early afternoon hoping that the warm weather and NE breeze was bringing the insects in. The tide was out so conditions were as good as we've had this year, but very little coming in, just Small Tortoiseshell 8, Painted Lady 2. Perhaps I was a bit early for any dragonflies. (MD)

Middleton Nature Reserve 

A couple of checks by myself and Kevin failed to relocate the Beautiful Demoiselle but the central marsh Cetti's warbler was singing.

This Ghost moth was from Kevin's light trap on Thursday 

Ghost Moth and, although fairly common, is a very attractive moth.

Beautiful Demoiselle

The light wind was from the south all day, drifting round to SE by evening. Mainly overcast, but warm.

A morning check by Pete:

Manx Shearwater 2 distant 

Mediterranean gull 2 x 2nd calendar year birds on early tide roost Ocean Edge. Also

Curlew 375

Middleton Nature Reserve (MD)

First visit 09:00 -10:00

Mute status unchanged

Mallard the 10 immature birds on the main pond

Gadwall 1 female with a single chick, but she does look proud of it!

Little grebe 1 adult plus 2 independent immature birds on "no swimming" pond. These are the two immature birds, nothing striking on these clips, except that they both include a burst of song from a Cetti's warbler. This one the Cetti's is right at the end as it dives.

This one is preening, the Cetti's song is at the very beginning of the clip.

Water Rail 1 calling from fence pond

The prime objective of this morning's visit was to see if I could manage 10 warblers. But, "no swimming" pond Cetti's excepting, the warblers were surprisingly quiet. I only managed 7 species and one of those was seen only. Cetti's warbler, Willow warbler, Chiffchaff, Blackcap, Common Whitethroat, Reed warbler and Sedge warbler (seen only).

There were some half hearted partial bursts from where I'd heard yesterday's Garden warbler, but not enough to identify species (by the way I've added an audio clip of yesterday's singing bird to yesterday's post if you want to check it out).

It's not often you see two Robin together 

I went back in the late afternoon, only planning to check the main pond for dragonflies, but despite it being 24C only damselflies were active, apart from:

Beautiful Demoiselle 1 male - SW corner of the main pond 16:07. This is only the second record for the recording area, the previous record was by Pete 04/08/2003, again on the main pond.

I flushed it when I went through the gap in the hedge to the SW corner. It flew towards the higher bushes and disappeared. I managed just one more sighting, again just in flight. Kevin arrived and we searched the whole pond area thoroughly, but no sign. I suspect it ended up resting in the high bushes in the SW corner, might be worth a look when it warms up in the morning (see location shots below).

I tried to get some record shots, and to some extent I managed. Nothing clear, but nothing else, that I know of, that it could be. Plus initially it was only a couple of metres away with clear view of its totally dark wings.

I normally pre compress my images, but they are already vague enough. You will have to open these to see them more clearly.

Zoom shot below is the circled area

Finally, the resident Grey Heron doing its best swan impression 

Now 10 warblers possible

 Very light north breeze till mid afternoon then switched to NW. Sunny spells.

Middleton Nature Reserve 

09:00 - 10:30 MD, 10:30 onwards Janet.

Still no sign of the 10 fledged Mallards, but the Tim Butler female has produced another 10

Mute 2 pair 9 & 2 cygnets

Little grebe 1 adult on Tim Butler 

Water Rail - at least two making contact calls on fence pond

Warblers 9 species seen or heard, including:

Cetti's warbler "no swimming" pond and central marsh males singing

Garden warbler 1 male singing near the yellow barrier. Hopefully it will hang around, meaning with today's silent Grasshopper warblers there should be 10 warbler species possible.

Moths:

Two more Drinker caterpillars, again sitting in the middle of tracks.

Yellow Shell 

Later Janet saw the first Six-Spot Burnet of the year

The only butterflies seen were Speckled Wood, Small Heath and Small Tortoiseshell 

Dragonflies were just starting to be active as I was leaving, Janet saw more later, between us there were at least:

Common Darter 3

Black-Tailed Skimmer 2 male

Brown Hawker 1

Emperor 3+ 

Broad-bodied Chaser 2

Four-spotted Chaser at least 1

The following are some of Janets pictures 

Six-spot Burnet moth

A nice sequence of in flight Emperor 

Large Skipper drinking nectar.

South shore early afternoon 

The light breeze had been from the north all day, possibly with a touch of east in it, so I went down to see if any insects were coming in off the sea (MD)

It looked promising, in the short strip between the end of Ocean Edge foreshore and the start of Red Nab there were

Black-tailed Skimmer 1 male

Small Tortoiseshell 8

Painted Lady 1 - I saw it come in off and it immediately started feeding on the first flowering plant it encountered.

Painted Lady

I took this short clip of it feeding.

But as I walked down the wall the wind was shifting around, there was another Painted Lady come in plus several Ladybirds.

This male Pied Wagtail had a bill full of Ladybirds.
Obviously hasn't read that they taste awful, or perhaps he just doesn't like his kids!

I like this shot, a fly landed on his forehead and he shook it away "irritated"

By the time I reached the end of the wall (15:20), the breeze was firmly in the WNW and had become quite fresh. Nothing was coming in off. There were another 5 Small Tortoiseshell, presumably they had come in before the wind shifted, but nothing else except the resident Common Blue butterflies.

Rock Pipit 1 - the ringed male was collecting food.

This next clip is for audio only, and it is only temporary to allow more experienced ears than mine to confirm, or otherwise, the Garden Warbler singing (MD)

Amphibians and moths and Skippers

Light west breeze and mainly sunny

Middleton Nature Reserve (Janet)

First Large Skipper butterfly of the year

This moth was identified by Kevin as celypha lacunana.
"It's supposed to be very common but I haven't come across it."

The warm dry spell is driving the amphibians under cover.
This toad and newts sp were under a log, which was carefully replaced.

Plenty of Bee Orchids around, but they are easily missed

Kevin had this moth in his trap this morning. A Marbled White Spot

a very local species, which has only recently spread into Northern Lancashire. 

Things, pretty much, the same.

Quite a fresh SW breeze mainly overcast with some very light rain

Heysham Head high cliffs - yesterday 

Alan reported at least two, probably three Rock Pipits on the rocks below the high cliffs

Heysham Skear - low water 10:30

Great White Egret (probably). 10:10. 1 flew south along the line of the Kent channel, flight and flight line both looked right for a Great White. But it was too distant to see detail or get a picture. Last seen passing south past the wooden jetty at the harbour mouth. (MD)

Little Egret 5 feeding

Great Crested Grebe 10, possibly more, they were not as easy to see in the choppy sea today.

Curlew c25

Oystercatchers were the only other wader.

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Janet checked mid morning, it was quite cool and no dragonflies were showing. But there were plenty of other things of interest.

Reed warbler carrying food
 (not marsh as per original caption.....just a senior moment! MD)

Swifts feeding over the main pond

Female Roe deer

I had a look in the afternoon it was a bit warmer then and a few dragonflies were around:

Emperor 3

Four-spotted Chaser 1

Broad-bodied Chaser 1

Common Darter 1

Once again the moths outnumbered the butterflies:

Butterflies 

Speckled Wood 2

Small Tortoiseshell 1

Day flying moths

Burnet Companion 1

Cinnabar 3. Cinnabar look splendid in flight with their bright red lower wing, but when they settle this is normally obscured by the mainly black upper wing. But this individual rested with its wings open.

Cinnabar moth

Birds

Only Grasshopper warbler of the nine resident warblers not heard today, including:

Cetti's warbler - both the "no swimming" pond and central marsh males singing, plus a glimpse of one on the western marsh.

Water Rail 1 calling on central marsh

Mute status unchanged, but no sign of the Mallards.

Little Grebe 1 adult on Tim Butler pond

Reed Bunting - I wanted to check that I've now set my camera video quality to be compatible with this post, so took this short burst of a male calling.