Baby bird breakout and belated Cuckoo

Heysham Obs

It was a busy bird ringing session at both Heysham and Middleton NRs today. 8 species of warbler were caught at Middleton:
Sedge Warbler (15)
Willow Warbler (11)
Whitethroat (7)
Chiffchaff (3)
Blackcap (2)
Reed Warbler (1)
Grasshopper Warbler (1)
Lesser Whitethroat (1)
Plus the usual Blue Tits (9), Great Tit (2), Robin (4) and Dunnock (1)

Heysham NR office nets
Young Chaffinches were a feature at Heysham, with the numbers keeping pace with the usually much commoner Greenfinch.  Three each of Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff and Whitethroat were duly ringed, a young Willow Warbler ringed at Middleton was caught and more surprisingly two young Reed Warbler, already 'out of habitat', were caught.  44 new-ringed birds with retraps including a couple of local nestbox-pullus-ringed Great Tit 

Migration
CUCKOO - male heard early morning at Middleton, a last minute addition to the year list for this species (definitely not someone taking the xxxx)
Swift - 3
Swallow - 1
Sand Martin - one south over HNR

Moths
New for the year were Small Fan-footed Wave and Dotted Clay

Little Egret
11-14 over recent days in sheltered shallow water by Heysham skeer but none this morning in calm weather with plenty of other feeding opportunities

Middleton pics - thanks Janet

JR