Sunday 25 April 2021

Swift arrive

The wind from NNE to east was quite cool early on. The sun warmed the day up.

Pete and Jean conducted a, relatively quiet, seawatch from the north harbour wall - report from Pete:
0650-0850:
40 Arctic tern three flocks, 
1 Common Tern, 
c20 Sandwich Tern, 
1 Mute Swan, 
2 Red Throated diver
3 Whimbrel and a few swallows.  
Three Grey Seal around

Heysham skear - low water 05:20
Eider c80 close in
Red-breasted Merganser 3
Sandwich Tern 2
Whimbrel 20+
Swallow 2
Common Snipe 1
No sign of the Dark-bellied Brent
Bar-Tailed Godwit 8 - these weren't actually on the skear, but feeding on the mud just south of it. They continued feeding until the tide pushed them onto the rocks. These three circled south, picked up five more birds before heading off north.

This is just a still from the video, the summer plumaged male looks quite impressive.

Swift 2 over Knowlys Rd 18:30 (first of the year) - ref Alan Physick