Another old visitor pops by again (perhaps)

Cold WNW winds, overnight frost and a mainly sunny day (albeit a short one!)

First, these shots from Howard, when the Peregrine chased the Knot from the Heliport on Monday. These, and Janet's below are best viewed by opening the images.

Peregrine Falcon......

......and the prey - Knot

Janet took these shots during her walk around Heysham Nature Reserve this morning

Female Kestrel 

Jay

Goldfinch feeding on seeds from Alder cones

Moorhen 

You can expect to see all the above species, and more, during a walk around the well maintained footpaths. A very pleasant walk on a day like today.

Heysham skear - low water 08:45 (MD)

Pale-bellied Brent Goose 4 (2+2) none ringed.

Pink-Footed Goose 58 very high to south at 09:15

Eider c60

Common Scoter 1 juvenile feeding near conger rock

Great Crested Grebe 4

Red-breasted Merganser 1 male

Knot c150

Dunlin c60

South Shore

Not a lot today

Shelduck and Wigeon in similar numbers to recent visits.

Lapwing 33

Reed Bunting 1 on saltmarsh 

This is today's "old visitor". A Black-Headed Gull with a toe growing out of its left knee was on the upstands in the harbour 18/09/20. This is the picture I took then.

I called it Toe Knee (Tony for short)

This is it, or a very close relative, today, again on the upstands in the harbour.

The toe growing from the left knee does look identical to the previous picture,
but I suppose all Black-Headed gulls toes will look pretty much identical.

But there is a difference, seen from behind there is another growth on the right knee, which appears to be a truncated or possibly broken off toe. So this has either happened since last September or it is a different bird.

 Tony Two?