Saturday 21 April 2012

North-westerly rubbish and Meadow Pipitless mystery

Heysham Obs
Quite a bit of effort today as per the time of year but little of any real interest

Middleton NR
Grasshopper Warbler - now 3 singing males

Sea on and off 0645 to lunchtime
Gannet - 7
Kittiwake - 13+10+1 in high, the latter a 2CY
Red-throated Diver - 7
Shag - 2CY still around
Whimbrel - 3 NE
Sandwich Tern - 42 out and 25-30 inshore early on, as usual these had disappeared by mid-morning
No Arctic Tern, as is usual in NW winds
Swallow - c11 NE
Linnet - 4 NE
Having just read the Fylde blogsites, it seems we were on a different planet.  Two regular 'vis miggers' put in time on the Heysham north wall between 0645 and about 0835 and recorded no Meadow Pipit c/p 500+ over Rossall and small numbers from Pilling Lane Ends 'heading towards Heysham'..  This assumes they headed over the Bay to the south of us?

Office area
The only evidence of any migrants were single Lesser Redpoll and the first female Willow Warbler of the year caught and ringed.  There was no systematic vis mig coverage at the office this morning.but I doubt if significant numbers of Meadow Pipit would have been missed

Gullwatch
300+ mainly Herring on Fisher's roof near high tide