Heysham Obs
We have learnt over the years that a calm morning and clear skies at High Tatham with a very slight northwesterly airflow often means conditions at Heysham too windy for mist netting. This was the case this morning with the added bonus, for a bit of sea coverage, of some cloud cover and the wind being fractionally west of north-west. Always a good sign when there is a lot of immature large gull movement and there was some half-decent stuff during the hour:
Sea 0815-0915
Arctic Skua - a light morph 'sea-hugger' headed into the Bay at 0830hrs
Pomarine Skua - one light morph heading into the Bay circling and gradually gaining height at 0908hrs. If this and the above had been reversed as regards distance, there would have been no chance of an identification of a sea-hugger at that range, but the requisite features were easily seen on a circling bird
Razorbill - two together in
Guillemot - one in
Gannet - 1+3+1 in (one of the three was a 2CY). Unusually all flying at some height when passing the observation area between the windfarm and Barrow
Red-throated Diver - probable 2CY out
Mute Swan - flock of 6 imms flew across towards Barrow
Common Scoter - drake u-turned
Middleton Nature Reserve 15:00 - 16:00
Little Ringed Plover - 2 sightings
Cetti's Warbler 2nd bird (unringed) seen whilst male was singing - "no swimming" pond
4 mute pairs still on nest
2 shelduck
2 gadwall (m&f)
1 little grebe
Moths
Decent catch by recent standards, especially Ruddy Highflyer at its known regular site and male Muslin Moth
