No dramatics today

Fresh west breeze and sunshine all day

Heysham skear - low water 11:40

Large gulls, mainly Herring 500+

Eider 9

Red-breasted Merganser 3

Great Crested Grebe 1

Turnstone c80

Sanderling 1

Dunlin 4

Ringed Plover 7

All the small waders are well camouflaged on the skear.
There are four Ringed Plover and a Dunlin on this shot.

Kevin took this shot of a very rufous female Wheatear on Ocean Edge.
He also advised that access along the wall was restricted due to work on
the outfall - hopefully not for too long

Middleton Nature Reserve - early evening

Janet was correct, the female Mute with her nine chicks has now moved to the main pond. She, at least is tolerating the female Mallard with her 10 chicks. They were using the shallow bay near the peninsula as a nursery.

The aggressive male Mute was patrolling the pond now apparently free of other Mute.......

......but this one was hiding in the reeds in the NE corner

Mallard 3 male, 3 female + 10 chicks

Gadwall 2 male

Little grebe 1 adult on Tim Butler

Insects:

The areas of vegetation around all the ponds have lots of immature Damselflies, but they are not going over the water yet.

Almost mature male Azure Damselfly

This immature male Broad-bodied Chaser was near the
Shallow scrape in SW corner of the western marsh

There were three newly emerged Four-Spotted Chaser around the Reserve