Birdless outfalls

Heysham Obs
Everything seems to have deserted the outfalls on the evidence of a very brief visit on the albeit less-favourable dropping tide

North wall for 10 minutes circa 0950-1000
Arctic Tern - single 'in' was the sum total of sea passage
Sandwich Tern - 2 blogging
Purple Sandpiper - summer plumaged bird as per recent pic still below the NHW
Black Guillemot - still present
Swallow - 2 NE

Outfalls
Zero

PS non-operational land
A huge male Wheatear

Elsewhere
The most intriguing report was of a radio transmitter on a female Marsh Harrier. Origin? That sets the theme for today: a Red Kite, almost certainly with wing tags, was phoned in to me as it flew SE over Leck JUST AFTER we had also seen a wing-tagged and radio-transmitting Red Kite near Slaggyford just west of Alston en route to work! The singing male Wood Warbler can still be heard if you listen carefully from the region of the top gate on the 5-gate road. It is in the extreme southerly section of Winder Wood over the river. Loads more Lapwing chicks in Roeburn/Hindburn catchments this year with a proliferation of stewardship schemes [34 ringed so far compared to about 4 last year!]