Thursday 15 October 2020

Passage eases off

Very light NNE winds. Mainly overcast.

Middleton Nature Reserve 
Visible migration and ringing report from Jean:

A much quieter day. There was still a trickle of migrants but nothing like the Redwing rush of yesterday.

Vis 0730-1030 NE F1-2 part cloudy with an occasional light shower

Redwing 74 N

Fieldfare 3 N

Song Thrush 1

Mistle Thrush 1 E

Canada goose 2 N with 

Barnacle Goose 1 (might be a “fence hopper”)

Teal 8 E

Snipe 

Grey Wagtail 2

Chaffinch 11 (20 at Heysham NR)

Bullfinch 2 SE

Siskin 1+

Lesser Redpoll 1 

Jackdaw 59 S

Skylark 2 N

Starling 6 S


Ringing was equally slow but there was quality rather than quantity:

Grey Wagtail 1, Redwing 7, Blackbird 1, Reed Bunting 5, Lesser Redpoll 2, Chiffchaff 2, Goldcrest 1, Chaffinch 1, Great Tit 1, Wren 1 retrap



Saltmarsh area high water 10:50
The tides have now quickly swung to spring tides. Some very high tides over the next four days.
Mediterranean gull 1 adult flushed by the tide and flew off east.
This is what you get when you photograph
a white bird against a white sky.

If you manage to find a bit of undisturbed shore, not easy, the birds sit out high water.
Two Grey Plover on east side of saltmarsh 

Juvenile Cormorant on foreshore


Heysham skeer - low water 17:45
Great Crested Grebe 8
Red-Breasted Merganser 7
Turnstone c40
I can't decide what this one is eating.

Knot c 2,500
Some of the Knot murmurating

It was a beautiful sunset
Sunset over the wind farm,
I suppose it is the 21st century's equivalent of
"Sunset over the gasworks".