An Irish visitor

A wet start, but it remained dry after mid morning with some pleasant evening sunshine. A light west breeze.

Middleton Nature Reserve - Mike Rhoney

A Mute Swan was sat in the middle of the road near the bottom car park. It wouldn't move, the lorries were having to drive around it. Later it was back on the main pond. Not clear if it moved itself or someone moved it.

This wasn't such an uncommon sight when the aggressive 
male Mute Swan ruled the pond, but there is no obvious 
reason for this now. Perhaps it hit some overhead lines.

North shore

David Kaye checked at high water

Adult gannet and sandwich tern were fishing over the Skear 

Heysham skear - Malcolm 16:15 -18:00

We are back to spring tides now, so much more of the skear becomes exposed, opening up feeding grounds that have been unavailable for 10 days. Almost certainly why there were more Gulls (c400) and Oystercatchers (c2,000) than of late.

Four of the gulls were colour ringed, so 1 per 100, which seemed to be the typical ratio last summer. More interesting was a colour ringed Oystercatcher. 1 in 2000 is good, I usually only see two or three a year.

Frustratingly, it was only showing one leg at first

Then moved into the water

But it eventually behaved itself. Part of an Irish ringing scheme, details awaited

Some of this evening's Gulls and Oystercatcher 

There are seed mussels everywhere now. This is their size high up the shore
(that's a £1 coin). They will be considerably larger further out

Three of the ringed gulls have already been seen here this summer. There was one new Herring Gull, and it was a bit tricky as the ring was "upside down". The N: which is on all of this schemes rings is normally on the bottom. And it is the bottom character that is most likely to be obscured, not an issue when you know it is an N:

Fortunately it eventually revealed itself to be N07P - details awaited 

We have now received the detail for this Herring Gull
Ringed at Walney Island last year, Friday's sighting was its first.

Cormorant and Oystercatcher 

Cormorant enjoying the evening sunshine 

Little Egret 3

Great Crested grebe 3

Eider 1 female

Another bird enjoying the evening sun

The only waders other than the Oystercatcher were

Curlew 4

Knot 1 - clearly a non-breeding bird, and it seems to like it on the skear in summer. I don't know why more summering birds don't take advantage of the easy feeding here. 

Knot

A mishmash......a very wet mishmash!

 It rained. It rained all day! A light SW wind.

Just my stuff so far in a vain attempt to avoid the rain (Malcolm)

Half Moon Bay 12:55 - 10 minutes after high water (miraculously the rain had eased briefly)

This is the corner nearest to the cafe. Today's tide at 8.8m was the first tide to reach the stranded wrack here for 10 days. 10 hot days. The incoming tide forces the Kelp Fly maggots to try and move further up the weed pile. Providing easy pickings for the resident House Sparrows and Rock Pipit.

The only waders on the heliport wall were Oystercatchers

Saltmarsh to Red Nab proved unproductive and it was raining again!

Meadow Pipit 1 on the saltmarsh 

Rock Pipit 1 on Red Nab

Little Egret 2 on Red Nab

The only other birds seen were a handful of Lesser Black-backed gulls on Red Nab

On the way back through the Nature park the rain had eased slightly and many of the resident birds took advantage to sing to reaffirm their territories 

Goldfinch 

Greenfinch 

Dunnock 

Robin

Blackbird 

Song Thrush

Willow Warbler 

Chiffchaff 

Greenfinch 

A wet Dunnock

A wetter wabbit!

Middleton Nature Reserve main pond (as viewed from my car)

There was no sign of the adult female Mute Swan. This immature, presumably 
a female was trying to court the male's favour 

There are at least three broods of Mallard chicks in various stages of growth 

This young Mallard chick was sheltering as best it could.

The rain eased slightly and a Mallard mother brought her quite large chicks to forage around the feeding area.

There are also at least three broods of Coot chicks too. These had been feeding close in then the adult must have noticed something, I don't think it was me, and signalled that it was time to leave.

Little grebe 1 heard only

Swift 1

House Martin 4

Swallow 2

A couple of dragonflies were seen over the water at distance, probably Black-Tailed Skimmers

Very little today

Overnight rain then a mainly overcast day with a west wind.

Heysham skear - Malcolm 15:00 - 16:00

I only had chance of this one short outing today.

Eider 4 (1 male)

Eider pair

This female was feeding in the shallows. She clearly finds something to eat, but you can't quite make out what.

Great Crested grebe 3 (pair plus 1)

This is the solitary grebe with a gull behind. Barely any crest at all.

In contrast the pair were sporting fine crests

In between feeding they were bonding.

Little Egret 3

Gulls, mainly Herring gulls 250. Two green ringed birds were present. One was one of the Power Station ringed birds seen in the Harbour on Thursday. This is the first sighting of one of the Power Station birds on the skear, but I doubt it will be the last. The other one has already been seen on the skear, we now have its history 

Ringed at Bowland 2023. It was seen here last summer then at
Darwen Lancashire in September last year

Oystercatcher 1000+

Curlew 11 flew south

Some of the Curlew heading south

Knot 1 

Dunlin 2

Dunlin heading north

Ringed Plover 1

Ringed Plover

No other reports received as yet. 

Some top insects

A dry day with sunny spells, particularly in the morning. A light NW wind

Canada goose 2 low and loud skeins heading north over medical centre at 09:30 - J Byrne

Clouded Yellow 1 along the promenade past Knowlys Road 11:00 - P Crooks

Middleton Nature Reserve main pond - Janet

Two visitors to the main pond saw a Lesser Emperor. (both had cameras, any pictures and or more detail would be very much appreciated - see sidebar for contact email addresses)

A male Red-Veined Darter was resting on the west bank

Red-Veined Darter

These were on the spit

Black-Tailed Skimmer

Four-spotted Chaser

Broad-bodied Chaser

Loads of Damselflies over the water, likely after the flies there.

This from Kevin Eaves:

I had a Sycamore Moth in the trap this morning, which is the second site record. It's very local, and uncommon in the north of Lancashire.

Sycamore moth

Heysham skear - Malcolm 14:15 - 16:00

Eider 2 female

Red-breasted Merganser 1

Gulls only c200 today. I would have expected more as the tide would be going out further than of late, exposing more seed mussels. The mussels, at this end of the skear at least, are still tiny. You can barely see them as the gulls graze them.

Great Black-backed gulls aren't regulars here, and they don't "lower" themselves 
to scraping up seed mussels!

Lesser Black-backed gull. The lesser in this case means its back is less black.
Of course, it is also a smaller bird than the Great Black-backed gull.

Herring gull

No green ringed birds were seen today, but it wasn't helped when a south bound Osprey at 15:30 lifted them all.

Osprey, probably heading to the outfalls to fish

Oystercatcher c1000

Curlew 1

Knot 11

Sanderling 7

Turnstone 2

Curlew

Knot

Sanderling 

It was hat and gloves weather again!

Significantly cooler today, not helped by a fresh SW wind. It warmed up in the evening as the sun finally broke through.

About 45 Canada geese in total grounded by yesterdays thunder c0730  
Out from Sandylands promenade - Graham Wheeler 

Middleton Nature Reserve - Janet

House Martin

Swallow

Male Pheasant

First Large Skipper this year

Bee Orchid

On a visit this evening, there was a Koi Carp swimming near the spit on the main pond.

Quite a large Koi Carp

Heysham Skear - Malcolm 13:30 - 15:30

It was surprisingly cool on the skear, I ended up with my wooly hat and gloves on!

Eider 1 female

Female Eider

Red -breasted Merganser 1

Great Crested Grebe 1

Shag 1 2nd calendar year

It had been swimming around

But then climbed onto a rock to freshen up.

Little Egret 2

I was there quite early in the ebbing tide so I could see where the waders were arriving from.

Oystercatcher were arriving all the time, almost all from the south.

Curlew 1 arrived from the east

Knot 1 just appeared 

Knot

Sanderling 22 in two flocks 4 and 18 came from the north, shaped to land but didn't and continued south.

Sanderling 

Ringed Plover 2 arrived from the north and settled high up the skear

Ringed Plover

Gulls c450. Three new green ringed birds for this year were read.

This one ringed as a Herring gull at Bowland in 2022, is now showing the
characteristics of it being a hybrid with a Lesser Black-backed gull

Bell Aire Park - Alison Hayward

A nice pair of fruit flies - Chaetostomella cylindrica, a  tephritid fruit fly