Plenty of Brent in plenty of places

A dry and mainly sunny day. A light north wind veering to east by evening 

Female Siskin on Kevin Eaves' garden feeder this morning 

South shore

I checked this morning towards high water - Malcolm

Goldcrest 1 in the Nature Park 

Pale-bellied Brent goose at least 18 on Red Nab (more later)

Wigeon 120 on Red Nab

Eider 1 male

Little Egret 2

Curlew 40+ on Red Nab

Brent Geese, Wigeon and Curlew

Brent Geese on the edge of Red Nab and the new StenaLine freight ship behind.

You can tell when it is in dock, its towers literally tower over the rest of the dock. I noticed today that the red tops of the tower were rotating whilst it was docked, but as it left the harbour I could see that it was the whole of the tower rotating. I took this clip to demonstrate, you can see the writing at the base of the tower rotate as well as the red tops. Obviously part of the wind assisted propulsion system, I'm not exactly sure how it works, but it is a nice quiet ship.

Rock Pipit 1 along the foreshore 

Rock Pipit

Kevin Eaves saw the adult Shag in the harbour 

Janet checked this afternoon as the Pale-bellied Brent geese were returning to Red Nab, but with new recruits at least 50 total.

North shore

David Kaye reported Knot roosting on the rocks around Heysham Head

This is a Scottish flagged Knot, unfortunately the orange flag not showing 

Heysham skear - Malcolm 13:45 - 15:00

There were 300 Knot feeding along the waterline to the south of the skear. As I checked them for flags several medium sized flock flew towards the skear. At least 2000 total, but many must have continued further north as I could only find 800 on the skear and they too soon left for the north.

Pale-bellied Brent geese at least 48 flew north, many heading for the rocks out from the fishing platform.

Brent Geese and Knot heading north

Some of the Brent on the rocks out from the fishing platform, the rocks
here look quite green with gutweed

Eider 140 

I'd waded out a little to get a better angle to check the Knot when this fine
drake swam right past me, almost within touching range.

Red-breasted Merganser 1

Female Merganser with Eider

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.