Good morning's seawatch

Fresher and more southerly westerlies and showers this morning. Moving to WSW later with sunny periods.

First another interesting sighting of one of our colour ringed ringed Grey Wagtails (see scheme details on the sidebar)

Record and picture by Keith Grafton - thanks

Grey Wagtail - ringed at Middleton NR on 16/09/2021. Seen as a breeding male on the river Duddon right by Duddon Bridge on 21/05/2022

Seawatch report by Pete:

This am seawatching: 

63 Gannet out

60 Manx Shearwater in

8 plus 9 Guillemot out

1 Arctic Tern out

1 Bonxie (Great Skua) out

1 Fulmar out

8 Common Scoter out

5 Sanderling out

14 Dunlin out.  

Outbound gannet and Manxies on the dropping tide were quite close inshore

The Gannet and Manx counts minimum figures assuming 32 Gannet in and 17 Manx out are some of the same birds as seen going the other way   

Heysham skear - low water 15:30 (MD)

I just managed a very brief check 2 hours before low water

Eider 31

Curlew 4

Sanderling 16 at least, including 8 seen flying in off the sea (groups of 8, 10, 12 and 4 seen feeding but there was some mixing going on, 16 was the most visible at any given time). Unfortunately, when the tide is still ebbing quickly all the birds are eager to get to the next piece of exposed shore first, so constantly and quickly mobile. It's better at slack water or on the incoming tide. This group of 8 was typical 

These flew past and landed further along the skear - all today's birds were seen along the northern side of the skear.

Sanderling