Great Northern Diver - plus an opportunity to help with a new Atlas.

Very light variable breeze. Mainly sunny.

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Ringing and vis report from John

Quiet morning at Middleton. Three nets set by 6.30am, but only ten birds caught in a four hour period, and they comprised :

Lesser Redpoll x 7

Meadow Pipit x 1

Chiffchaff x2

No obvious overhead passage, with no more Redpolls seen or heard, and only one Meadow Pipit in addition to the one caught. Apart from that, the only thing of note were two Whooper Swans flying over, mid morning, going in a north easterly direction.

Pete and Jean also managed some vis

Report from Pete:

Great-Northern Diver 1 x 2nd calendar year out from the harbour 

I checked the north harbour wall SD36V by telescoping from the back of the harbour this am.  It produced singing Robin, Wren, Dunnock, a pair of Linnet on the gorse and a rock pipit which was probably only feeding.  Good records for the Lancaster and District BWS breeding bird Atlas starting this year.  Contact me if you want to contribute to this tetrad based survey.  Thanks. pmrsh123@aol.com

(More information about the tetrads tomorrow).

Heysham Head 

Report from Jean:

Here’s what I had today heading north from 07:15 to 09:00:

Meadow Pipit 78 (largest flock = 20)

Lesser Redpoll 15 (largest flock = 10)

Linnet 16 

Goldfinch 11 

Greenfinch 9 

Skylark 2

Jackdaw 3

Woodpigeon 1

Knot 250

On the skear:

Little Egret 6

Knot 1000

Plus the usual Oycs and Redshank

In the low tide channels:

Eider 177 

Great Crested Grebe 15

Red-breasted Merganser 4prs

South shore (MD)

A late evening stroll along the wall managed to locate

Pale-bellied Brent goose 4 flew quite late in the tide from Red Nab and continued west.

Shelduck 26

No Wigeon seen

Shag 1 juvenile on the wooden jetty

Rock Pipit 1 on the sea wall

Pied Wagtail 8-10 also feeding along the sea wall.

Not easy to see in the late evening sun. Rock Pipit plus 3 Pied Wagtail on the sloping sea wall