The importance of ferries

........especially when there is one ferry entering port and not others leaving Fleetwood or even Heysham turning the trail of gulls around before they are within visual range. This was the case with the IOM passenger ferry today and will also be the same at c1200hrs for any NYD listers targeting at least Kittiwake

Heysham Obs
IOM passenger ferry
Good numbers of gulls trailing this ferry included:
Kittiwake - 7 adult
Little Gull - adult and 2nd W
These all motored out of the Bay as soon as the ferry reached the harbour, therefore timing very important

North wall/harbour/wooden jetty
Purple Sandpiper - Three - One in the Heysham One/wooden jetty area on the incoming tide and two on the Near Naze (rocks by the heliport) from at least 1115hrs which flew towards the harbour at
1220hrs
Twite - mixed flock with Goldfinch - at least 11 Twite including black over white colour-ringed bird = ringed here three winters ago.
Further confirmation that there are no Shag left in the area and no reappearance of the Black Guillemot
Med Gull - Ad & 2nd W and quite probably a different 2nd W (with less black) briefly behind the IOM ferry
Red-throated Diver - one out about 1205hrs

Red Nab/Ocean Edge
Kingfisher - perhaps two again in this area
Just Common Snipe seen during the coverage of Ocean Edge saltmarsh by the tide (30ish?) plus a single Reed Bunting

Elsewhere
Pine Lake
Male Ruddy Duck new in - hope it stays for the New Year as this species is really tricky these days with the decline of the small breeding population at Leighton Moss
Female Ferruginous Duck x Pochard hybrid in exactly the same place as yesterday along the eastern side, just north of the big car parking area
Morecambe seafront
Couldnt find the Pale-bellied Brent as I also couldn't yesterday - the posting was from information earlier in the morning, but the mobile Polish-ringed Med. Gull (P96) was on the Regent Road groyne
Lune valley
Similar number of swans to yesterday but could not see any detail because of trees