The fresh wind from the south continues. Overcast all day with a few light showers.
Black Redstart 1 briefly on Red Nab mid afternoon. It flew off north towards the Power Station non operational land - Report from Shaun.
South shore - mid morning (MD)
I cut across the mud, just out from the saltmarsh. I don't normally do this, so as not to spook any resting birds. But the beach looked empty.
This is this area of shore. The saltmarsh is on the left, the patches of sea grass to the right of the creek, have increased quickly over the last few years. As I walked across 13 Common Snipe were flushed from these islands of vegetation, these in turn flushed another 6 from the saltmarsh itself. And with them 1 Jack Snipe. It's very unusual to see them on these neap tides, I'm not sure if the large number of Common Snipe on these islands is because the vegetation is increasing, or the lack of walkers from the locked down caravan park. Probably a bit of both.
Rock Pipit - a group of 4 flew from the saltmarsh towards the rocky outcrop to the east. Another bird was on the foreshore.
Linnet just 2
Heysham Skeer- low water 13:50
There isn't much of the skeer exposed by these neap tides, and there wasn't much on the sea.
Eider 22
Red-breasted Merganser 1 male
Knot c500 - no rings seen
Turnstone and Redshank c20 each
Curlew c50
Ringed Plover 2
Oystercatcher everywhere.
When there is nothing unusual to enjoy, you have to enjoy the usual.
This Oystercatcher has a smallish mussel, it then "hides" it in the water, but as another bird approaches it quickly retrieves it. It places it in another pool of water, and when the second bird moves on resumes foraging (it seems that this blog only allows you to watch embedded videos when no one else is, if it doesn't work first time, try again later - I'll try and sort out some muzak).
They fly off with mussels to eat them in private, it must have either been looking for a larger one or just another to take with it.
