Vagrant Emperor!

The light east winds continue, mainly overcast, with a few showers and a few short periods of sunshine.

Vagrant Emperor 1 female (MD) - Last year we had two putative sightings, today Kevin Eaves nailed this one.

13:35 It was resting on the Power Station perimeter wall just before No.2 outflow.

These excellent pictures from Kevin.

Fortunately I was already planning on walking down the wall, and was just setting off when Kevin put the news out. It was still there when I arrived, but the sun had come out and it was getting warmer. This picture shows the location.

It is always worth checking along this wall for insects. I always do, but would undoubtedly have missed this one, as I would have been focused on the outflow birds.

I took over vigil from Kevin. Walkers along the wall were very obliging and maintained a good distance,  but it was obvious that the Emperor was getting restless. After returning from a check further up the wall it was gone (14:50). Unfortunately, just five minutes before the next hopeful observer turned up! 

Other stuff - not much

Heysham skeer - low water 11:40

This Shoveller was in the south corner of the skeer

The video I posted the other day seemed to work on some devices every time, but not always on every device. What I like about a video is that you get the background soundtrack, but in future, I'll post a still as well - here we go.

This Little Egret has just caught a small whitbait.
It all looks serene.

This is the next fish it caught, not so serene! Hope you can see the video.