Heysham Obs
Please note the link to the midday IOM ferry details - sometimes the wake of this is quite productive, especially if wind/sea conditions are verging on cancellation, providing it hasn't passed an outbound ferry shortly beforehand! Today produced 5 x adult Kittiwake and an adult Little Gull. The map will also give general info on eg any incoming freight ferries but I think these are currently in darkness
Heysham Heliport wader roost. Feedback from others would be good here. It suddenly struck me this morning that a nice pleasant couple who flushed all the birds from the heliport, "hadn't noticed them" and were "not aware what a high tide roost was" were almost certainly from an inland location down south (certainly not local). So the stuff we take for granted re-high tide roosts and low tide feeding areas will presumably have been very unfamiliar territory. Still does not explain how they didn't notice 4,000 Knot and 4,500 Oystercatcher swirling about! Or they were simply and very convincingly flat-batting what was a very conciliatory approach from me, allowing me to waste my breath carefully explaining the tidal cycle for these birds? Most of the birds departed and the rest were soon given the heave ho by a jogger, but we don't expect joggers to notice anything, do we?
Come on Peel Energy, please get your act together re-fencing proposals - every time the roost starts to build up after a few days of grotty weather, it is seriously disturbed on the next "nice" day and the birds have nowhere else to go on the higher high tides nearer than Middleton saltmarsh or (if not wave-lashed) the Sunny slopes groyne.
Sea 0915-0945
Red-throated Diver - one out distantly
Kittiwake - tightly packed flock of five adults lifted off sea then re-landed
Guillemot - one in harbour
Ferry 1220ish
A lot of birds, some quite a way out
Kittiwake - at least 5 adults carried on into the Bay
Little Gull - adult slowly making its way out, perhaps not even associated with ferry
