Thursday 30 August 2012

Heysham Obs
Should have looked a little more carefully at the weather but the home internet is not working.  A half-baked 'earlyish' start should have been a full-blown 'nets up at dawn'.  Arriving to a lot of tick-tacking, interspersed by hueets and an overflying Grey Wagtail & Tree Pipit

Office area 0650 onwards
Probably about 6 Blackcap, 4 Lesser Whitethroat, 10+ Willow Warbler and 5+ migrant Robin.  Best was a fem/imm Common Redstart by the entrance gate but, in the context of this year, no surprise that Common Whitethroat did not feature

Belated ringing effort just as the wind started to get up and the sun shone on the nets and 'new' birds included 4 Willow Warbler, 3 Robin, 3 Blackcap and a Lesser Whitethroat.  After two hours, it became too windy.

Southbound vis comprised:  10 Chaffinch, 3 Grey Wagtail, 2 Tree Pipit (all in the first 30 minutes) and 27 Swallow

Ocean Edge/Red Nab over the tide
Med Gull - 11 juvs on Red Nab/outfalls, two of them now sporting 1st winter masks as opposed to the rather uniform gingery brown juvenile head pattern, 1 3CY, 2 2CY and one adult
Sandwich Tern - one
Little Gull - usual adult
Grey Plover - 226
Dunlin - 370
...............then before the Barwit and Knot could be counted, a gentleman who proceeded to walk out and started to 'kick' the water flushed everything.  He was wearing a teashirt with what seemed to be Mickey Mouse on the front.

Moths not worth mentioning