Two Shags on show again

A light SE wind. Dry all day with plenty of sunny spells.

Heysham skear - low water 10:10 (MD)

Little Egret 11 - Kevin Singleton took these shots out from Whinnysty Lane

Red-breasred Merganser 5

Eider 1 male

No Great Crested Grebe seen

Whooper Swans 7 - distant and high heading south.

Dunlin 35

Knot c400 - two flocks c150 each plus several small groups (presumably the same birds seen leaving later by Pete)

Jackdaw 2 flying around noisily. There are always Carrion Crows here (4 today), but Jackdaws are a bit unusual.

Pete checked from the Shore:

Shag 1 x 2cy feeding out from Heysham Head 

Knot 450 then headed south

All the seaduck etc further up inc 5 Juv common scoter, well out of our area on north side of the Stone Jetty

Pink-Footed Goose - Janet took this shot of some of the late morning movement north over Middleton.

Once again there were many hundreds returning south just before 17:00

South shore mid afternoon (MD)

Shelduck 144

Wigeon 160

Rock Pipit 4

Meadow Pipit 1

Kingfisher 1 

The tide was rising and there was quite a bit of activity between the two outflows 

Eider 2 feeding

Great Crested Grebe 1 - not often seen here. It was feeding and preening. This clip is just a post feeding preen.

Shag 1 juvenile - it was feeding just out from the wall and was keeping pace with me as I walked along. It almost felt like taking a pet for a walk (swim).

1st calendar year Shag 

It kept diving, but I didn't see it catch anything. There are fish here, but this is not an area that any previous Shag has routinely fed, so presumably it isn't normally ideal for them, and probably wasn't today.