Lots passing through, then the wind turned

 Light NE wind to begin with, but by lunchtime it had moved to west and freshened and more NW by evening.

Seawatch report from Pete:

Sea Heysham: 

133 Arctic tern in 12 small flocks

1 Common Tern

c50 Sandwich Tern plus 25 south of harbour

4 Teal in

6 Red-breasted Merganser in

15 Gannet

200 plus swallow - sample 75 in 20 mins. Main swallow line was in off near Red nab 

2 sand martin

1 house martin

7 2cy Mute Swan in

In scrub on north wall: 

2 female whinchat

2 willow warbler

one brief glimpse of prob grasshopper warbler.  

Big wheatear ocean edge. 

In addition two Arctic Skua LM singly past Stone jetty

South Shore - high water 11:20 (MD)

Almost breathless when I started but light westerly by the return walk

Whimbrel 8

Redshank 1

Turnstone 1

Dunlin c50 in one flock in

Wheatear 2 - not noticeably large

Common Sandpiper 1 feeding along sea wall

Common Sandpiper

The tide was still rising and the sandpiper was catching the insects displaced by the tide.

Just cutting trough the Nature Park from Red Nab located.

Singing Warblers:

Common Whitethroat 1

Lesser Whitethroat 1

Blackcap 2

Willow Warbler 2

Chiffchaff 1

Butterflies:

Small Tortoiseshell 4

Orange Tip 3 male

Brimstone 1 male - here it is drinking nectar

Some nice shots from Kevin Singleton:

Rock Pipit - Near Naze

Common Whitethroat - Middleton Nature Reserve 

Male OrangeTip - Middleton Nature Reserve 

Heysham skear - low water 18:20 (MD)

Pete advised that the wind swinging round to the west would mean no passage terns tonight, and so it proved. Still it was a pleasant walk.

Eider 38

Red-breasted Merganser 6

Little Egret 7

Apart from the Oystercatchers, the only waders were:

Whimbrel 14

Turnstone 2

Knot 1

A solo Knot always looks strange

The large gulls (predominantly Herring) have started feeding on the seed mussels, there were c150 in this group, not all in the clip, plus a similar sized group further out.

The seed mussels are still tiny and embedded in mud.
There is very little meat in these seed mussels, the gulls will have to eat a lot of them.

One advantage, for the remaining waders at least, of having lots of gulls around, is that they do not tolerate the Peregrines.

Female Holly Blue on Moneyclose Lane - from Janet