A few records through the rain! Plus a new Lancashire "latest seen"

A fresh southerly wind. Rain pretty steady till mid afternoon when it eased to showers.

First, I missed Nick Godden's nice account, on LDBWS website, of the swift caught yesterday evening. So here it is:

Dog walk path to Red Nab 17:00-18:15

Chiffchaff 2
Goldcrest 4
Pied wagtail 164 came into a pre-roost gathering on Red Nab before flying towards the ferry terminal to roost

Swift sp – one appeared over the dog path about 18.05 circling quite slowly over us at treetop height a couple of times. But within about 30 seconds a sparrowhawk came through and caught it (very easily) almost overhead. It flew with it east towards Moneyclose Lane but we didn’t see it again. Obviously given the poor light we couldn’t see any useful ID features.

See also Pete's comments on yesterday's post.

The Common Whitethroat seen by Janet yesterday is the latest ever recorded in Lancashire by a couple of days. Any further sightings of this bird, especially with any pictures would be great.

South shore (MD)

I had a lunchtime walk in the rain on the rising tide.

Eider 2 out from Harbour. Didn't try and get a shot today, I already had this shot from Mark Jones from earlier in the week.

One of the 2+ Eider regularly around the harbour mouth

Wigeon 2 on Red Nab plus 32 on the saltmarsh. They were feeding on Samphire seeds.

Kingfisher 1 on Red Nab. Unusually, or perhaps unusual that I spotted it today, it was feeding off the far SW rocks directly into the incoming tide. 

Rock Pipit 5 (2 each saltmarsh and Red Nab plus 1 along the sea wall)

Greenfinch 2 on Red Nab

Linnet 125  - also feeding on the Samphire seeds on the saltmarsh. The rain had eased so I took this short clip of them passing over.

Heysham Head

The rain had stopped, temporarily, so I had a quick look in the late afternoon (MD)

Rock Pipits 3 in association below the high cliffs. These two were constantly close.

Great White Egret 2 together flying south 16:15. Unfortunately, it was raining again at this point, so yet again just a grainy shot

Great White Egret

Nothing else of note.