Rain and raptor(?) stops play

Intermittent showers (I suppose that's what showers are by definition!). A fresh west wind shifting to NW.

Middleton Nature Reserve

I had a look this morning - Malcolm

Main pond:

Mute Swan pair plus four remaining immature, although they weren't welcome!

The adult male Swan chasing an immature 

Shoveler 3 pairs, all oblivious to the Swan commotion and resting around the peninsula 

Let's hope they remain undisturbed 

Tufted Duck 3

Tufted Duck and Shovelers

Mallard 15

Coot 6

Little Grebe 1 trilling

"No swimming" pond

Just 3 Teal

Bullfinch 4

Greenfinch 4

Janet also checked the feeding area and managed to photograph another ringed Reed Bunting with enough ring detail for it to be identified.

Male Reed Bunting ringed on the Reserve 20/09/24

Roe Deer two of last year's youngsters 

Female on the right, the male on the left looks a bit "Bambi" legged!

Heysham skear - Malcolm 13:45 - 15:00

Pale-Bellied Brent goose 18 minimum scattered around the skear. There aren't great amounts of gutweed here, but there seems to be enough for small groups to nibble at without being disturbed.

It seems that the longer days are now allowing the patches of gutweed
to grow long enough to be harvested

Eider 33

Eider pair

Nothing else seen on the sea

Oystercatcher, Turnstone and Ringed Plover similar numbers to recent 

Redshank 250 many searching the shallows for shrimps

Redshank feeding in the shallow water coloured by the onshore wind

700 Knot arrived from the south and began feeding along the mud to the south of the skear, unfortunately a shower began at the same time making it awkward checking for flagged birds. I saw 3 but only managed to read 2

This orange flagged Knot stood in water......

.......until they moved over to the skear itself. One that got away!

As I worked my way across the skear the rain stopped. Then suddenly something lifted everything! It must have been something large passing over but I couldn't see anything other than the response of the birds. None seemed to be under attack, so unlikely to be a Peregrine. Presumably something had waited out the shower before moving off again. Wonder what? Another one that got away.

At least it allows a better understanding of what is around 

Gulls, mainly Herring, far more than what had been on the skear, many must
have been spooked from the north, possibly what triggered the reaction of the 
rest of the skear birds

All the Knot headed north, these are some of 45 Curlew that lifted, probably 
a typical number, but you don't often see them all in flight at once

This is the first Whelk egg cluster I have seen this year

The forecasted "light" rain surpassed itself!

The early morning light rain had become torrential by late morning. It cleared in the afternoon and the sun shone briefly. The initial SE wind shifted to a SW breeze by late afternoon 

Heysham skear - Malcolm 14:45 - 16:00

Pale-bellied Brent goose 48 minimum 

Some of the Brent geese flying to the skear, possibly spooked from the 
play area rocks

Others chose to walk

There was no rush, they all just rested along the skear edge

Eider pair

Red-breasted Merganser 2 pair

A slightly different mix of wader numbers

Oystercatcher 1000

Curlew 15

Redshank 150 

Turnstone 40

Dunlin 20

Ringed Plover 12

Knot 150 initially scattered around in small groups, but many ended up resting together along the northern edge. Three flagged birds were seen, unfortunately one was totally unreadable, a yellow and an orange flagged bird, both seen earlier this winter in the recording area, although the orange flag was its first winter sighting on the skear.

Ringed in Iceland last year

Ringed at Merseyside in 2024 - so much easier seeing flags when the sun shines!

Curlew, Oystercatcher and Knot

Four of the Ringed Plover

Plenty of waders

Freezing overnight followed by a bright sunny day with a variable breeze.

South shore - Malcolm 09:00 - 11:00

There were a lot of waders, but the mud was frozen so they couldn't feed on the flood tide. Even on the ebb they were very flighty and every passing light aircraft lifted them. These are minimum numbers.

Curlew 40

Bar-Tailed Godwit 300

Oystercatcher 80

Grey Plover 60

Knot 2000

Dunlin 1000

Ringed Plover 8

Godwits dropping to the shore with the snow dusted hills behind 

Bar-Tailed Godwit and Knot

Dunlin, Knot, Grey Plover and Bar-Tailed Godwit 

Dunlin and Grey Plover

Grey Plover

Dunlin, Knot and Grey Plover

A bit of everything!

North shore 

Pale-Bellied Brent goose 63 out from the play area early on - David Kaye

I checked the skear - Malcolm 13:00 - 15:00

Pale-Bellied Brent goose 24 minimum - these will have been some of David's. These are arguing over the scant supply of gutweed. It hardly seems enough to justify the effort of collecting it!

Cormorant with Brent Geese in the background 

Eider 20

Red-breasted Merganser 3

Great Crested Grebe 2

Knot 1750 although 750 of them flew south as I was walking out.

The crab population is taking a hit!

Rose Maciewicz has suggested that these small bivalves they are feeding 

on are likely to be Baltic Tallin (often referred to as macoma)

It's getting colder!

Light rain for most of the morning, but a dry afternoon ending in sunshine. Quite a fresh NE wind.

Pete had a look around this morning:

3 pair shoveler Middleton main pond and 3 Reed bunting on feeder.  

No pink footed or greylag geese in any of fields or saltmarsh oxcliffe/heaton/heysham moss and therefore no whitefront 

Heysham skear - Malcolm 13:00 - 14:30

The NE wind was bitter, there was fresh snow on the Lakeland hills

It looked to be quite deep snow to the north

Less deep closer to home

Pale-bellied Brent goose 24 - 2 to the west of the skear and 22 in the middle of the skear, but I suspect these had been flushed from the play area rocks.

Some of the Brent in the middle of the skear, there is precious little
for them to eat here

Brent out from the skear

Eider 1 pair

The Knot were quite interesting, their feeding habits are becoming more diverse. Initially there were just 50 feeding on the mud shore to the south of the skear. Fortunately these included one flagged bird, although it has been a "regular" here this winter.

It has one of the small bivalves that they were probing the mud for

Then another 250 arrived and also began feeding on the mud. Unfortunately none of these were flagged.

Some of the Knot electing to feed on the mud. At least it is easy to check
them for flags when the mud is flat like this

Although they were primarily searching for bivalves, there were other items on the menu. This one finds a tiny crab, bivalves can't be shared, but a crab can, potentially eight ways! It dashes off to eat it in isolation, but it was a vain hope!

This one managed to have its crab and eat it!

I also saw several Knot swallowing filaments of gutweed. This is always available in the quantities that they eat, but they don't always eat it. Presumably, it is required as a supplement for some diets.

Knot eating gutweed

Not all the Knot were feeding on the mud, there were another 200 scattered around the skear. Not so easy to check for flags there, but I did manage to spot two new ones for this winter. 

Dunlin 60

Dunlin

This Bar-Tailed Godwit was on the south shore on Wednesday, we have just received 
its updated History, it's a veteran! Ringed on Schiermonnikoog Island north Netherlands
In 2001. The last report for one of the others ringed at the same time was  in 2009!
It was also seen at Heysham last January.

Goose, goosed?

Some sunny periods this morning, a light NE to E wind

South shore - Malcolm 09:00 - 09:30

It was ideal conditions compared to the last couple of days, for me at least. Apparently not ideal for the waders, there were none on the shore apart from a scattering of Oystercatcher and Curlew.

Pink-Footed goose 1 resting on the saltmarsh 

Pink-Footed goose

Often when just one is close in like this it has been shot and unable to fly.
But this one's feathers were intact, presumably it was just exhausted 

Shelduck 24 on Red Nab

Rock Pipit 1 along foreshore 

These were also along the foreshore, I've not seen them here before. I had to
look the leaves up. It is Italian Lords-and-Ladies. I am familiar with our common
Lords-and-Ladies (Cuckoo-pint). Apparently there is a sub species of the "Italian"
version that is found in the UK, but more probably it originated as a cultivated
plant. Garden waste from the caravans is often spread here.

Heysham skear - Malcolm 09:50 - 11:00

The skear was just uncovering. This shot is actually from the promenade at Rydal Rd. 

Some of the 55 Eider

Just a single Wigeon again

Just one Little Egret too

There were 500 Knot, the terrain high up the shore is difficult for spotting flagged birds, but eventually I was satisfied that I had seen all there was to see, just one! An orange flag over a pale blue ring again, possibly the same one that I saw on the south side yesterday.

This one definitely ringed in Wales, at Ynyslas Point, Dyfi Estuary in 2024

Just out of the recording area - Heysham Moss Nature Reserve - Janet

Buzzard, possibly one of those regularly seen at Imperial Rd

Woodcock flew east from the central area of the Moss