Clearer and fewer

Ringing this morning saw five Lesser Redpoll and five warblers (three CC, WW & BC) as the conditions were clearer than yesterday and the wind fractionally more east with very little south in it.  The current synopsis is on a nightly knife-edge between blocking and producing the goods, with things like cloud cover and offshore visibility as well as how much north in the easterly being key factors as well as what's going on down south, including over France

Low tide channel
Red-throated Diver - 1
Great-crested Grebe - just 8
2CY Med on outfalls with c280 Common Gull

Middleton Nature Reserve
Sand Martin 16 north, mid morning. Biggest group 6
Swallow 4 north
Warblers singing:
Cetti's 2
Blackcap 9
Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff
Little grebe - at least one on "no swimming" pond
Gadwall 4
Teal 2
Buzzard 1 - drifting south

Heliport seawall Knot have been a distraction with the latest spring tide sessions in the failure category due to bits of disturbance at bad times and arriving too late on a key day

Rose sent me the Ed Keeble method as applied to the heliport roost a couple of days ago and her estimate fits very well with the easier counts of birds spread over the feeding areas off Heysham Head.  Thanks for this.

50 knot counted and marked in red box, each with a dot.

10 boxes indicates 500 knot. 
I think there are about 80-100 of these boxes.  I made copies of the 10 boxes till they roughly filled the area. 
So conservatively 4000-5000.

Caveats: 1) knot appear larger on the left and bottom, and smaller on the right and top, so box size might be incorrect, 2) relies that all the knot can be observed in the red box e.g. none hidden.