6th February fish fest

Heysham Obs

3CY Little Gull on sea by outfalls

Moth:  Dotted Border in trap

Observations from Malcolm:
The tide was ebbing past the wooden jetty and the dredger was operating in the harbour mouth. This resulted in a surge of small fish in the gap between the wooden jetty and the roundhead. At one point there were 24 cormorant feeding in an area 30m x 10m. They were catching rockling and small whiting. The large gulls got in on the action too, swooping on every cormorant when it surfaced.The main activity only lasted about 5 minutes, then the cormorant started flying off. I don't know if the fish had gone or the birds were full, probably a bit of both.  There would not be a sufficient number of fish in the harbour mouth to just have been displaced by the dredger, a concentration like that would attract cormorants without the dredger. The fish (judging by were the cormorants were feeding) were about 30m down tide of dredger. This is an ideal location for dislodged titbits to be separated from the denser silt, and also provide shelter for the fish (particularly for the rockling) in the jetty rocks and wrack. The ebbing tide would normally provide a small fish procession past the harbour