Plenty of Gannets and Terns

Another early morning shower followed by a dry and largely sunny day. A cold NE wind in the morning switched to a warmer NW after lunch.

Seawatch report - Pete 0620-0820 hampered by heat haze.  

Sandwich Tern 76 in

Gannet 7 in

Kittiwake 4 in

Guillemot 5 on

Common scoter just one flock of 5,

Arctic Skua two dark morph in together highish then climbed seemingly heading NE

2cy Shag flew across harbour mouth towards wooden jetty 0704.

David Kaye had 9 more gannet 0820-0900 - so 16 in total
a marsh harrier north over the head and skeer just before 1030

Heysham skear - Malcolm

Two checks, 09:15 - 11:00 and 16:30 - 17:00. The following records all this morning unless stated

Eider 2 males and a female

Little Egret 3

Sandwich Tern 70+ this morning, still 20+ this afternoon 

Common Tern 5

The terns along with many large gulls were catching whitebait out in the channels. This is just a fraction of the feeding birds

Seed mussels are just beginning to arrive. Prior to settling into life as a static mussel they are a swimming zooplankton, and at this stage they will be quite large zooplankton. Presumably this is what is attracting the shoals of Whitebait, which in turn attracts the gulls and Terns. Whatever the cause, the effect is plenty of Whitebait to go around. There were typically 50 Sandwich Terns settled on the shore and skear, many awaiting their mate to return and feed them. Interestingly I didn't see any ringed birds today, so clearly a different lot to those around yesterday.

A nice shot of St Peter's church with Sandwich Terns on the mud in the foreground 

Sandwich Tern returning with a "love offering"

But not all offerings were gratefully received, this one tried several potential mates and none were impressed. A measure of the glut of food, or was his technique just not good enough?

The Common Terns were resting on the skear rocks. Five was the most I saw at one time, it is likely there were others.

Common Terns

At 10:30 all the Terns that had been on the mud out from St Peter's shot past me.

I checked out to sea and there was a large raptor with a white head hovering high as it scanned the sea below. It even made an aborted dive, so I assumed it was another Osprey - a mistake, but it just goes to show how relatively common Osprey visits are now.

I was more interested in what had been lifted, but I took a couple of shots of the raptor before checking the skies for anything different. The shots clearly show it to be a Marsh Harrier. 

Marsh Harrier - it must have been eyeing the feeding gulls and Terns, not
fish as I had assumed

When everything settled down, many of the large gulls had moved to the skear.

Most of them were Herring gulls, but not all.

Common Gull

I managed a glimpse of a green ringed adult Herring gull this morning, but didn't 
manage to read it. But I did read this one this afternoon. N:34E Ringed at Bowland
in 2020, its only other sightings were here last spring and again in autumn 

Curlew 1 this morning 2 this afternoon 

Whimbrel 2 this morning 5 this afternoon

Curlew (left) and Whimbrel 

Bar-Tailed Godwit 14 this morning 

Ringed Plover 3 and Dunlin 9 this afternoon - they are a bit easier to see when they move.

Middleton Nature Reserve - Janet

Greenfinch

Common Whitethroat 

Robin taking food to the nest

Azure Blue Damselfly 

Large Red Damselfly 

Green-Veined White

Orange Tip

Plenty going on still

A dry mainly sunny day with a light but cool NE wind

Seawatch 

Pete Crooks:

Heysham South Harbour Wall (6.30 – 8.45 am)
Osprey – 1 stood on the large post at the end of Heysham Stage 2 outfall from 6.30 to c.8.00 am. Blue darvic ring on right leg, but too distant to read the code.
Shag – regular 2nd CY roosting on the wooden pier
Sandwich Tern – 128 flying purposefully into the Bay (not ‘blogging’), in groups of up to 15
Arctic Tern – 13 flew into the Bay in a single group at 7.30 am
Red-throated Diver – 9 mostly distant flying south to north across the mouth of the Bay towards Barrow
Kittiwake – a group of 4 adults flew into the Bay
Sanderling – a group of 10 flew out of the Bay
Also offshore: 9 Common Scoter, 6 Gannet, 1 Guillemot, 1 female Red-breasted Merganser, 1 Whimbrel

Pete's full list of today's sightings can be seen on LDBWS website 

https://lancasterbirdwatching.org.uk/forums/topic/heysham-south-harbour-wall-leighton-moss/

Jean and Pete(M):

To the above we can add (0620-0820) from the back of the harbour: 

distant Osprey in 0718

three singleton high flying kittiwake in

c40 Common Scoter

additional 17 Arctic tern which came in on a flightline across the Bay from Walney direction as did some of the earlier Sandwich Terns

three more guillemot, 

Drake Goosander

15 Swallow,

3 Sand Martin together,

2 whimbrel

1-2 Red-breasted Merganser

Not a single ST blogging or flying out so no duplication

A distant flock of 6 terns. One definitely Common, the rest likely were.

Heysham skear - Malcolm 08:45 - 10:30

Eider 1 male

Little Egret 3

Sandwich Tern 42 minimum

Arctic Tern 6

Common Tern 1

These terns, mainly Sandwich, came in and settled on the mud out from the play area

When I got closer there were four smaller terns with them, that turned out to
be Arctic. Later they were joined by 2 more Arctic. The Sandwich Tern top 
right has a small Whitebait.

4 of the 30 Sandwich Terns that ended up on the mud had metal rings

This Sandwich Tern decided to freshen up, the water here is brackish due to the freshwater runoffs from the skear corner and the play area. rocks

These two had time to practice their "balancing act" - quite a noisy affair!

The Arctic Terns had their heads tucked in for most of the time - three here

Only occasionally showing their diagnostic features 

A Common Tern also settled on the mud

At 10:00 an Osprey passed over, north to south. It caused mayhem as everything lifted

Oystercatcher lots!

Curlew 2

Whimbrel 3

Whimbrel

Bar-Tailed Godwit 34, initially they fed on the skear amongst the lush gutweed

Bar-Tailed Godwit probing the gutweed

Later they flew to the waterline on the south side

Turnstone 3

Summer Plumage Turnstone

Ringed Plover 6 with 3 Dunlin

The large gull numbers are increasing c250 today, mainly Herring gulls

Some of the gulls

Swallow, just 1 seen coming in/off

Middleton Nature Reserve  - Janet

These from the southern section of the reserve

Grasshopper Warbler 

A red coloured, Darter sized Dragonfly was accidentally flushed, unfortunately not a good enough view to confirm the species.

Broad-bodied Chaser

Peacock 

First Marsh Orchid this year

Main pond

Mallard ducklings catching flies

Swallow having a quick bath

A good seawatch, but a narrow window

A dry day after early morning showers. A light NE wind

Seawatch report Pete:

One to check the met situation today - after expecting absolutely nothing in the rain, the best concentrated seawatching of the spring so far 0640-0730 then the tap seemingly turned off 
Sea Heysham from 0625 (nothing of note until 0640):
Arctic tern: 122 inc flocks of 23,75
Arctic skua: 1 dark morph, 2 dark morph, 1 light morph, 1 light morph - the last very close 
Kittiwake: 37 in 5 high flying inbound small flocks - may have missed some 
Gannet: 5
Black Tern - flock of 4 with two Arctic
Common Tern 1,1 in
Sandwich Tern: at least 61 in 
Common Scoter: 60-70 distantly backwards and forwards 
Red throated diver: 1
Guillemot: 3 floating out

Heysham to 0835: died off with the only additions: 

2 inbound Common Tern,

13 inbound Sandwich Tern

1 guillemot floating out 

a brief appearance by the 2Cy Shag.  

Swallow about 150/hr till 0815

A more detailed description of today's seawatch can be seen on Pete's Facebook page 

https://www.facebook.com/100043676024219/posts/1675255147273670/?mibextid=wwXIfr&rdid=cnky7uPU73yw10HP

Heysham skear - Malcolm 08:45 - 10:00

Eider - just one male seen

Arctic Tern 2 in at 09:10

Arctic Tern

Sandwich Tern, at least 4 fishing/resting

Sandwich Tern

Little Egret 3
Curlew 1

Whimbrel 2

Bar-Tailed Godwit 12

Some of the Godwit coming in to land on the waterline
That's the "wooden jetty" behind

Bar-Tailed Godwit 

Turnstone 21 together

Turnstone in varying degrees of moult to summer plumage 

They flew off to the north

Dunlin 3 north

Ringed Plover 5 high up the shore 

Ringed Plover, a little easier to spot than yesterday's birds

Swallows were still coming in, but not as frequent as earlier, c 15/hr

Middleton Nature Reserve 

This from Janet:

Jo Bailey went to check the nest as the female hadn't been near for days (Jo's picture below). I wonder if the eggs were broke after the Cygnet had that fight with the female a few weeks back, where they fought on the nest.

South shore

Kevin Eaves had a walk along the sea wall

Painted Lady, Red Admiral also seen

A couple of impressive spiders on the wall today.

A Zebra Spider with prey much larger than itself.
Despite being arachnophobic these spiders don't bother me at all
and I could easily pick them up. 

The same can't be said of the Noble False Widow which really spooked me. It took all my courage
to place my finger so close. They have a painful bite though it's not generally harmful to humans.
I wasn't going to test it though! 

A developing oil crisis?

A dry day with light variable breezes. Some sunny spells 

Heysham skear - Malcolm 09:45 - 11:00

Eider pair plus 1 female

Red-breasted Merganser 3 - 1 female plus 2 males

Little Egret 4

Sandwich Tern c30 - 8 resting around the skear, the rest on a sandbar till moved on by the incoming tide

Sandwich Tern on a sandbar

Whimbrel 1

Curlew 1

Dunlin 14 - a group of 10 plus 2 each with 2 lots of Ringed Plover

Ringed Plover 18 - a flock of 12 flew south plus another 6 amongst the inshore rocks

3 Ringed Plover plus a Dunlin (honest!)

South shore

Saltmarsh to Red Nab - Malcolm 14:30 - 15:00

Linnet 2 on the saltmarsh 

Wheatear 3 on Ocean Edge grass and foreshore 

There were plenty of flies around to catch

Rock Pipit 1 flew to Red Nab

Curlew 6 just beyond Red Nab

Peregrine Falcon 1 came in/off then into the Power Station grounds.

Kevin Eaves checked along the sea wall, no sign of the Shag or Osprey today

First Cinnabar moth on the sea wall

Warblers heard in the Nature Park 

Lesser Whitethroat 

Blackcap

Willow Warbler

Chiffchaff 

Middleton Nature Reserve - Janet

There was a badly oil stained duck on the spit on the main pond. 

This severely oiled duck turned out to be a Mallard,  apparently there were other 
oiled ducks earlier in the week. There is no obvious source for such a quantity of oil.
The Reserve Manager has been informed.

Silver Y