Auks moving through

A light west breeze began at 09:30. Prior to that it was almost still. Just a couple of light afternoon showers with some sunny spells.

Seawatch report by Pete Crooks:

6.55 – 9.45 am (with Mark Prestwood)
3 dark morph Arctic Skua – 1 flew into the Bay at 8.26 am, with presumably the same bird returning back out of the Bay at 8.40 am; 1 flew in and landed on the sea at 9.10 am, then another flew in at 9.15 am and landed alongside the previous bird, before both flew off further into the Bay separately at 9.25 am and 9.30 am.
c.130 Auks – mostly Guillemot, but including 10+ Razorbill drifted in on the incoming tide between 8.20 and 9.30 am. Mostly distant (beyond the two buoys) and in groups of up to 20, with quite a few flying back out as others were still drifting in on the flat, calm sea.
c.65 Common Scoter – groups of 15, c.40 and 9 flew into the Bay, but mostly distant.
3 Red-throated Diver – 1 in at 7.50 am, then 2 in at 8.58 am
2 Great Crested Grebe
8 Sandwich Tern
c.250 Bar-tailed Godwit – flew from Half Moon Bay towards the Wooden Pier
2 Harbour Porpoise
No passerine movement; just 1 Rock Pipit flew from Near Naze towards the harbour

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Ringing report by Alan:

I set three nets again at Middleton and a very modest catch was the result.

Sedge Warbler  2

Reed Warbler  1 retrap

Lesser Whitethroat  1
Blackcap  1

Willow Warbler  1

Lesser Redpoll   7

This brings the total number of Redpolls for this spring to a respectable 68, mostly at Middleton with a few at Heysham also. Surprisingly no birds captured elsewhere have been encountered so far.

I walked out to the waterline on the rising tide out from Ocean Edge (Malcolm)

Cetti's warbler 1 male singing on territory from bushes along shoreline where Pontins used to be. I could hear it from 300m out on the shore.

Not quite as vociferous, but more conspicuous was a male Common Whitethroat in the same general area. Here he is, not happy as a Wren was also singing in his patch.

Carrion Crow 19 on the mud

Some of the Carrion Crows. All 19 flew north towards Ocean edge, when moved off by the tide. 

Shelduck 6

Great Crested Grebe 1

Little Egret 3

Common Gull 45

These spring tides come in very quickly and the waders were very flighty. Best assessment of numbers:

Oystercatcher 30

Bar-Tailed Godwit 130

Knot 450

Dunlin 50

Curlew 7 (3 on saltmarsh)

Whimbrel 4 (1 on saltmarsh)

This is a Whimbrel at the edge of the saltmarsh trying to outpace the incoming tide.

This clip begins on a Whimbrel on the saltmarsh, then pans across to 3 Curlew.

Wheatear 2

North shore just as the ebbing tide was exposing the inner skear rocks (Malcolm).

Going down early has one main advantage, there is less space for the birds to occupy, so they are more concentrated. Unfortunately two disadvantages, not all the birds arrive this early, and a dense concentration of birds attract predators!

Peregrine Falcon 2 at least. Three attacks seen.

Peregrine Falcon - they looked particularly formidable as they were zipping
past  my head at close range! I was pleased not to be a Knot!

Resting places are a premium early on. These two Sandwich Tern were on prime real estate. They had been being buzzed by a group of Oystercatcher and finally gave way.

But the Oystercatchers didn't benefit as this young Herring gull took possession of the rock

Turnstone and Dunlin on another rock

The Turnstone are at various levels of moult to summer plumage.

How many Knot can dance on the head of a pin?

Oystercatcher 350

Curlew 2

Whimbrel 11

Knot c800 till cleared off (and culled) by the peregrines 

Turnstone 45

Dunlin 10

Red-breasted Merganser 1 male

Eider 20 close in.

The RNLI hovercraft was out and about, hopefully just exercises.

Just out of the recording area

Manx Shearwater 11 - would have been within visual range from OE - off plover scar just after high tide almost certainly went past Heysham first 

Decent coverage and a decent day

 

The early south breeze gradually swung round to NW by evening. A dry day with plenty of warm sunshine in the afternoon.

First some overnight news.

23:30 last night - Whimbrel "flock" flew over Angela Gillon's house in the NE of the recording area.

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Ringing report by John:

Warm again with a light wind. Arrived at 6am and three nets set.

Numbers caught were small, but all were new birds apart from one Chiffchaff.

They comprised ;

Lesser Redpoll           5

Sedge Warbler           4

Tree Pipit                  1

Great Tit                    1

Chiffchaff                    1

Lesser Whitethroat      1

North Harbour wall - Mark Prestwood 6.30 - 8.30 am

3 dark morph Arctic Skua 

26 Gannet 

Short seawatch prior to the high water webs survey - Pete

10 gannet 

7 kittiwake 

1 guillemot

3 common scoter

15 sandwich tern, plus 5 on green buoy on the south side.

Whinchat 1 male briefly on Ocean Edge foreshore 

Porpoise 2

Seen from Stone Jetty, by Josh Hedley,  there will be some overlap with Pete's and Mark's records

07:21- 09:30
Red-throated Diver- 1
Gannet- 7
Common Scoter- c.25
Pink-foot- 362
Mute Swan- 3
Eider- 78
Whimbrel- 7
Turnstone- 80
Sandwich Tern- 14
Sand Martin- 5
Swallow- 20

Pete and Jeans webs included:

900 Knot on Heliport

193 Turnstone on heliport at high tide plus 22 on wooden jetty. 

I just checked Red Nab to saltmarsh towards high water (Malcolm)

No sign of the Brent geese today

Shelduck 2

Whimbrel 7

Rock,Pipit 1 on Red Nab

Wheatear 8

Wheatear

Linnet 7 on the saltmarsh 

Swallow 2 in

Lesser Whitethroat still singing from scrub behind Red Nab

Kevin and Alison checked along the sea wall in the warm afternoon sun.

Common Whitethroat 1 in the scrub near the lighthouse 

Lots of invertebrates along the wall again, despite the less than ideal wind.

Heysham skear - low water 16:50 (Malcolm)

Just a very quick check early in the ebbing tide (3 hours before low water)

Eider c70

Red-breasted Merganser 7

3 female Red-breasted Merganser

Oystercatcher c1,000

Knot c1,000

Curlew 5

Curlew

Whimbrel 3

Whimbrel and male Red-breasted Merganser

Whimbrel

Bar-Tailed Godwit 284 feeding along the water line to the south of the skear.

Mainly Godwits along the south waterline

Dunlin 80 (no Sanderling with them today)

Turnstone 30

Not bad, considering the conditions!

A light SW wind all day. Showers till mid morning then just a few spots of rain in the afternoon.

"Seawatch" - Pete 

Sea sampling heysham 0750 -0840: vis fine 0800-0820, otherwise rubbish: 

2 gannet

1 red throated diver

6 common scoter

7 sandwich tern.  

As expected no arctic tern.

I walked along the south sea wall starting 08:30 (Malcolm). Visibility was shocking through the fine rain. The showers were forecast as light, but as I walked out the only way you could describe it as light was that it wasn't dark! Fortunately by the time I had got back to Red Nab it was indeed just light, fine rain. 

The heavier shower had grounded some birds though.

Common Sandpiper 2 - one along the sea wall and one on Red Nab, neither were seen on the way out.

Common Sandpiper

Whimbrel 3 on Red Nab 

Pale-bellied Brent goose 5 (again, not there on the way out, but their arrival more to do with the stage of the tide than the weather I think)

Pale-bellied Brent geese

Wheatear 1 on foreshore 

Linnet 4 on saltmarsh 

Rock Pipit 1 on foreshore 

Heysham skear - low water 15:50 (Malcolm)

Eider c70, Red-breasted Merganser 3 and  Great Crested grebe 1

Eider being watched by Bar-Tailed Godwit

Little Egret 10 - the SW wind bringing the small shrimps close inshore.

Little Egret

Apart from the c1,000 Oystercatcher the waders were very dynamic today and even my normally vague counting proved difficult!

Knot for most of my circuit I could only account for 50, then 1,500 appeared just as I was leaving.

Bar-Tailed Godwit several flocks around at least: 82, 3, 9, 70 and 33 = 197

Just a few of the Bar-Tailed Godwit

Whimbrel 23 at least - they were scattered all around the skear, 13 was the most I could see at any one time, but there were almost certainly more. Then another 10 arrived together from the north.

This is just a short scan around a small section of skear, but it picks up 6 Whimbrel.

10 Whimbrel coming in from the north side as the tide rose.

No Curlew or Redshank seen

Turnstone 20

Dunlin 90 - the dunlin were flying around in small flocks, at lest three of which included....

Sanderling 13 minimum 

Sanderling with Dunnock

Sanderling just beginning to moult to summer plumage

Sanderling, this one's moult more advanced, with Dunlin

This one finds a small invertebrate

This is the largest group of 10 - 11 feeding with Turnstone, Dunlin and Knot. There were at least 2 + 1 with two other groups of Dunlin.

Even better sea passage

A very light NE morning breeze, freshened slightly as it moved to SW from late morning. It threatened to rain all day, but somehow managed to hold off till the evening.

Seawatch report - Pete

Sea from 0638 Heysham from back of harbour.  A bit messy with bits of bad light and poor visibility plus a bit of backtracking challenging accurate tern totals:  

allowing for back trackers going in again 

539 Arctic tern in including straggling flock of 391 and 60 which headed high inland over my head - All arctic tern before 0840.

30-50 Sandwich tern

1 Black tern

2 dark morph Arctic Skua (one in high, the other low and very distant)

Razorbill (on),

1 red throated diver

c73 Common scoter.  

Only wader migration 7 whimbrel in and only 6 swallow seen.  

Distant flock of 6 geese probably pink feet.  

Another 45 mins on sea from 0945 north wall: 

34 Arctic tern in

6 red throated diver on

12 sandwich tern out

I had a walk along the south sea wall (Malcolm). Unfortunately just managed to time it to miss the Arctic Terns!

Sandwich Terns

The only records that I can add to Pete's are:

Shelduck 4 of 6

One of four Whimbrel that remained on the south side

48 Bar-Tailed Godwit flew to the north side with Knot and Dunlin
Later 18 Bar-Tailed Godwit flew back to the south side

Rock Pipit 2 - one over the lighthouse nesting site and another above the waterfall.

Waterfall Rock Pipit

Linnet 11 - 6 between lighthouse and waterfall plus 5 on saltmarsh 

Wheatear 3

Middleton Nature Reserve

Ringing report by Alan:

A rather better session at Middleton this morning with three nets set, although the majority of the catch was from the centre net on the west side.  28 Lesser Redpolls were caught in two flocks of 12 & 15 plus a singleton.

No overhead movement was detected except for two distant Corvids flying NW high and fast -  No Hirundines were seen at all.

Trapped were:

Cetti's Warbler  1 retrap

Sedge Warbler  2  + 3 retraps

Reed Warbler  1

Lesser Whitethroat   1 retrap

Common Whitethroat  1

Willow Warbler  1

Long-tailed Tit  1 retrap

Great Tit   1 retrap

Lesser Redpoll   28

Solidarity male Gadwall on the main pond - Janet

Heysham skear low water 14:40 (Malcolm)

Not a lot different to yesterday really.

Eider 75

Red-breasted Merganser 4

Great Crested grebe 1

Sandwich Tern 4

Sandwich Tern resting on conger rock

Oystercatcher 1,000

Whimbrel 6 - possibly some of this morning's birds. This one makes short work of a small crab.

Bar-Tailed Godwit 8

Knot 600 - no rings or flags seen, and most if not all legs checked. These are just a few.

Dunlin 35

Redshank 9

Turnstone 80

Just out of the recording area

Short-Eared Owl 1 seen flying towards the recording area across Middleton Sands - Ian Hartley

Decent sea passage and huge insect migration

A fresh NE wind, plenty of sunshine, temperatures peaking at 21°C by lunchtime.

First a couple of updates from yesterday 

Sparrowhawk high over Janet's house

Middleton Nature Reserve - ringing report by John

Nets set from 6.30am to 11.00am. Much warmer with light winds.

No significant overhead movement observed and catch comprised;

Lesser Redpoll            x 10

Chiffchaff                    x   3

Willow Warbler            x  2

Sedge Warbler             x  2

Garden Warbler            x  1 (1st of the year, plus a male was singing)

Wren                             x  1

Goldfinch                      x  1

Blackbird                      x  1

Heysham Nature Reserve - ringing report by Alan

three nets but the catch was rather poor:

Wren  1 retrap

Dunnock  1

Blackbird  1

Lesser Whitethroat  1

Whitethroat  2

Blackcap  3

Chiffchaff  1 retrap

Blue Tit  3 retraps

Great Tit  2 retraps

Seawatch today - Pete:

from back of harbour 0650-0850 in unless stated : 

3 ad summer little gull

38 kittiwake

7 gannet

15 sandwich tern

180 common scoter

female scaup

59 arctic tern (7 small flocks)

2 common tern

3 Teal

1 red throated diver (out) 

two pink feet (on)

2 dark morph Arctic skua

295 swallow/swallowish bombing through bottom of scope

flock 30 grey plover

120 Dunlin

8 bar tailed godwit seemingly migrating

3,500 Knot

This male Whinchat was spotted by Martin Jordon on Heysham Head early afternoon, with at least 6 Wheatear.

Male Whinchat

Also from Martin 17:00 fromOcean Edge

Wheatear 10 (so at least 16 today)

Whimbrel 4 

Whimbrel 

Rock Pipit

Heysham skear - low water 13:15 (Malcolm)

Eider 54 - quite a hotchpotch of plumages.

Red-breasted Merganser 1

Oystercatcher 1500

Knot 1500

Redshank only 2 seen

Turnstone 120 - more than of late

Dunlin 35

Curlew none seen or heard

Whimbrel 3

Bar-Tailed Godwit 128 resting till moved on by the tide. Not one showing any sign of breeding plumage.

These are just some of them, you might just be able to pick out one with a yellow flag, barely above the water

(Just a glimpse of the yellow flag 14 seconds into the clip)

Bar-Tailed Godwit

South shore

Kevin had a walk along the sea wall this afternoon. It was classic conditions here for insects coming in off the sea and resting along the wall. NE wind, warm and sunny and the tide out. Not all the insects have been identified yet. These are just a selection of what Kevin saw.

a smart ichneumon fly but it was distant and is heavily cropped.

10-spot Ladybird 

Just a few of several hundred Seven Spot Ladybirds 

"Ladybird" with a Groundhopper 

It was amazing! Quite overwhelming really.

Just out of the recording area - horse paddock behind Middleton Parish Hall. The Glossy Ibis was checked for several time today, starting at 07:30. No sightings.