Pleasant seawatching conditions today with a light north-easterly, calmish seas and a background of cloud resulting in the following being seen from the harbour and later from Half Moon Bay:
Black Guillemot - 1 whizzed out past the wooden jetty at about 1010h
Common Scoter - many milling about near the turbines then they all took off and headed NW as the sky cleared. Minimum of 600.
Arctic Skua - 2+ 2 (see phonescoped photos below - Thanks to Chris Vaghela) These appeared nearer to high tide.
Arctic Tern - 64 in, 1 out
Sandwich Tern - 18 in, 1 out
Swallow - 4. Worryingly low numbers this year.
Red-breasted Merganser - 1 in
Grey Seal -4 floated in
Harbour
The Guillemot was still floating about.
Rock Pipit(s) busy feeding young in the nest.
Middleton
Returning Whitethroat and Lesser Whitethroat caught on the CES (Constant Effort Site - a scheme to assess adult survival rates and abundance of adults and juveniles). Will check ages and report later, most only survive for 2 years but the oldest recorded Whitethroat (which winters in west Africa) was 7.7 years and the oldest recorded Lesser Whitethroat (which winters in east Africa) was 9 years.
Now for the stars of today’s show as they progressed along the Bay:
The observatory was set up in 1980. It involves ringing,'vis mig' counts (including seabirds) and general monitoring in the Heysham Nature reserve/power stations/harbour area. The statutory moth trap is in place and also a daily log for butterflies, dragonflies etc. We share an office, kindly provided by EDF Energy, with the County Wildlife Trust. This is located next to the Nature Reserve car park. Do call in. Please leave sightings in the letterbox, ESPECIALLY 'fly-by' seabirds.